Deliberate practice, including focused practice time by students, feedback from experts, mentors, educators or peers, and student reflection (Nandagopal & Ericsson 2012) is needed in order to develop and excel in any skill. This study looks at whether deliberate and directed practice can be used to develop professional engineering skills in a CDIO teaching setting, using logbook keeping as a key example. A longitudinal analysis of logbook performance over year 1 and 2 for a graduating cohort (n = 76) was carried out. A questionnaire was given to the same cohort at the end of their final year projects to gauge logbook use during final year where no assessment was associated (36 responses). The analysis showed an improvement in logbook performance in year 1 from the first and second project, however a considerable drop in performance was noted at the start of year 2. Performance then significantly improved at the end of year 2 (ANOVA, p = 0.05). Furthermore all respondents maintained a logbook during final year although only 7 submitted their logbooks for this study. The results highlighted students maintained logbook use in final year, reflecting the positive effect of regular practice from year 1 and 2. However the drop in performance in year two may be due to lack of practice over the vacation and a discrepancy between higher performance required in year 2 and student expectations, which will be investigated further.
