ABSTRACT
This paper examines the fresh building engineering students’ outcome of a practical introduction task. The task is to build real bridges, starting with a model and then a full scale version. The article assesses the students’ practical background prior to the building engineering study, the design and building process, and the outcome in terms of learning and motivation. The method used is a questionnaire and observations. The conclusion is that there is a significant difference in building experience related to gender for the fresh students. The results of this research shows that about half of the female students have no building experience what so ever, not even simple building as children. The students answer they learned a lot from the task, both from the work within their own group and also through the work of other groups. The students answers in the questionnaire that they feel highly motivated for their study after the accomplishment of the task. The building of a bridge model and a one to one bridge allows to the student to study how structures may fail. More than 90% of the students answer they feel more motivated for the further study after the practical task. Students and teachers experience construction deficiencies together both demonstrated in models and in full-scale bridges – which creates common references useful in later theory teaching.
