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Purpose: This study explores the preferences for learning methods among the students of seven engineering disciplines in a Spanish technical university. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the students' views and from them contribute to the knowledge of the effectiveness of learning methodologies. Design/methodology/approach: An online anonymous questionnaire survey was adopted to collect students' perceptions. Seven learning methods were compared in seven engineering degrees. The authors sampled 1660 students, and 426 completed responses were analysed. In addition to a descriptive analysis of the results, a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was performed using R data processing software. Findings: It was found that project-based learning and problem-based learning were perceived as the more effective ones. MCA identified response patterns between the preference and the efficiency of learning methods showing that students can be classified into two groups according to their preferred level of activeness in learning. Research limitations/implications: The study focusses on a single technical university and not all engineering degrees could be sampled. However, five different engineering fields were studied and no significant differences among them were found. Practical implications: The results add up to the known literature showing that students have different learning needs and consequently they perceive some methods as more effective. Instructors can use this information to strengthen their learning activities. Results also suggest that students can be classified into two groups in relation to their level of activeness in learning. This can also help to enhance general student motivation if two paths with different levels of activeness are planned. Originality/value: No previous studies have compared several learning methods in different engineering fields. Thus, this study contributes to fill this gap and contributes to the body of evidence around learning methodologies from the perspective of students.

Traditional drinking water treatment plants (DWTP) are not specifically designed for removing microplastics (MPs) from drinking water. Therefore, this emergent contaminant has been identified in water sources and final drinking water. Microfibers from plastic-based materials are a relevant category of MPs that has attracted attention in recent studies due to their significant presence in environmental samples. This study investigated the presence of microfibers (> 10 µm) in the raw water and the final drinking water of a DWTP located in Spain. It was observed that the DWTP studied was capable of removing 86% of microfibers from raw water. Even with this high removal rate, an amount of 613 microfibers/L (including natural, artificial, and synthetic materials) was counted in drinking water after disinfection. The reactive Nile Red was tested to investigate its use for staining microfibers from the mentioned DWTP and also from tap and bottled water samples in order to identify them. It was observed that microfibers from environmental samples can have different manifestations of fluorescence compared to pristine polymers, and it could be related to degrees of degradation and/or adsorption of organic and inorganic material on the microfibers' surfaces. For this reason, the use of Nile Red could help understand the levels of degradation of these materials in the environment, and thus its use could go beyond the identification of MPs, which was initially proposed in previous studies. [Display omitted] • Microfibers were the kind of MPs mainly identified in all samples of drinking water. • Microfibers can be identified by changing excitation wavelengths. • Different fluorescence was found between microfibers from water and virgin polymers. • Nile Red could provide information on microfiber degradation in drinking water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]