Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate human behaviour under a situation of fire in high-rise residential buildings and identify the factors that motivate people to evacuate. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review was conducted to identify different factors of human behaviour during a situation of fire and identify challenges during the evacuation. Through a mixed research method approach, the paper identifies human background, experience and knowledge with fire safety. The paper discusses the challenges occupants face during evacuation based on previous evacuation experience and what occupants were doing during the fire alarm. Findings: The paper has identified the challenges and the factors that affect occupants’ decision during fire emergency in high-rise residential buildings. It is clear from the findings that occupants have limited knowledge and skills on how to deal with fire emergencies. Occupants tend to depend on other evacuation routes. Occupants tend to ignore the fire alarm and usually they investigate if it is true or false. Originality/value: The paper provides the knowledge and findings of occupants during fire emergency to fire engineers, facility managers, owners, and other professionals to assist during the design phase, and modify designs based on this findings of this research.

Structural engineering is a field of engineering that ensures that the structure can be constructed and is durable and stable, which help to meet the need for a more sustainable world. This paper focused on improving student understanding of structural engineering (concrete and steel). A questionnaire was given to the students to see their responses regarding the coursework, the questionnaire contains 10 questions and most of the questions had a scale of 1-5, with being 1-strongly agree 2-agree 3-Neutral, 4-Disagree, and 5-Strongly Disagree. The conclusion drawn from the results are that student understanding can be improved significantly through a coursework. The students have learned a different type of learning environment, time management, communication skills, and meeting deadlines.