173 © 2018 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved. IMPLEMENTATION OF OPEN-ENDED LABORATORY (OEL) IN ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SUBJECT FOR CIVIL ENGINEERING DIPLOMA PROGRAM A. B. Azinoor Azida 1+ M. H. Nora Farina 2 M. Z. Zuhaida 3 B. Fauzi 4 H. B. Muhamad Hasbullah 5 1,2 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Johor Branch, Pasir Gudang Campus, Bandar Seri Alam, Johor, Malaysia 3,5 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pulau Pinang, Kampus Bukit Mertajam, Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia 4 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia (+ Corresponding author) ABSTRACT Article History Received: 1 March 2018 Revised: 23 March 2018 Accepted: 26 March 2018 Published: 28 March 2018 Keywords Civil engineering program Environment Engineering laboratory Open-ended laboratory Practical test Psychomotor. An open-ended laboratory is where students are given the freedom to develop their own experiments, instead of merely following the already set guidelines from a lab manual or elsewhere. It will create the students to think critically and also out of the box. The students here have to devise their own strategies and back them with explanations, theory and logical justification. One of the subjects that implement OEL in Civil Engineering Diploma Program is Environmental Engineering subject. The students have to work in groups to come out with the laboratory reports and they also have to undergo 2 practical tests which have to be done individually. The laboratory reports were used to measure their teamwork and practical skills while the practical tests measure the psychomotor ability. Overall marks for OEL reports for this subject shows that all groups achieved 78% marks and above. As for practical tests marks indicate that practical test 1 is higher than practical test 2. It is proved that by implementing OEL, increased the independent learning amongst students by giving them a platform to be innovative and creative in designing and executing their own experiments. Contribution/ Originality: This study is one of very few studies which have investigated the practicality of implementing the open-ended laboratory activities at different levels of Environmental Laboratory course for a three-year engineering diploma program and how it was implemented at the Faculty of Civil Engineering. 1. INTRODUCTION Various methods of innovative teaching may be implemented in the teaching and learning activities to simulate an environment where students are encouraged to be proactive. These innovative methods may be in the form of Project Based Learning (PBL), Project Oriented Problem Based Learning (POPBL), Active Learning (AL), Cooperative Learning (CL), Independent Learning (IL) and others. Previous methods of teaching laboratory courses are basically in the form of fully guided assignment. The methods are described as prescriptive or traditional methods. However these methods are now no longer adequate within the context of outcome based International Journal of Asian Social Science ISSN(e): 2224-4441 ISSN(p): 2226-5139 DOI: 10.18488/journal.1.2018.84.173.178 Vol. 8, No. 4, 173-178 © 2018 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved. URL: www.aessweb.com