Integrating risk management into the undergraduate construction management curriculum: An investigation into the effect of zero tolerance, 360-degree feedback and competition within a world wide web assisted construction project-based learning environmen

The Health and Safety Executive's contract research report Identification and Management of Risk in Undergraduate Construction Courses (Carpenter et al. 2002) concludes that a substantial number of UK Departments of Civil Engineering have not adequately incorporated risk management into their curricula. Against this background this research project was undertaken with the aim of contributing to the effective learning and teaching of risk management concepts in the construction management curriculum and investigate the impact of this contribution on the assessment outcomes at the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Portsmouth. In order to achieve the aim of the research project, the following research objectives were pursued: to identify the importance of risk management concepts in the construction industry, to identify methods of assessment, to develop and evaluate construction project-based, World Wide Web assisted, learning materials, to develop and evaluate zero tolerance 360-degree feedback competitive construction project-based learning, teaching and assessment techniques and to propose a framework for the integration of risk management concepts into the UK construction management curriculum. Having designed and developed the learning, teaching and assessment techniques, referred to in this thesis as PUMICE, student feedback collected using on-line questionnaires, shows evidence that throughout their studies students agree that the PUMICE assessment methods are acceptable and clearly understood. Student assessment performance, over the three years of the study (2000-2003), has shown that students are achieving better and better grades in the PUMICE units compared to their year average. Correlation analysis results suggest that a student who performed well in the PUMICE units tended to perform well in other units, and a student who did not perform well tended not to perform well in other units. The contribution to knowledge has been that the original empirical work undertaken supports the propositions that: zero tolerance, 360-degree feedback and competition within a World Wide Web assisted construction project-based learning environment are acceptable and appropriate vehicles for the attainment and assessment of risk management concepts and that they reliably grade the learners.