Adapting Existing Assessment Tools For Use in Assessing Engineering Graduate Attributes

Abstract

Recently, changes to the Canadian Engineering Accreditation requirements, following the example set by ABET, have called for the measurement of 12 graduate attributes in the engineering curriculum. Some attributes, such as “Knowledge Base,” lend themselves to forms of quantitative measurement; others, such as “Investigation” and “Communication” are inherently difficult to measure quantitatively and comprehensively. To assess these attributes authentically within our current curriculum, methods for adapting existing tools – that both satisfy the objectives of the actual course and the needs of graduate attributes assessment – must be found. This paper describes the process and challenges involved in adapting existing tools for assessment to measure such graduate attributes, specifically in a large senior research thesis course in a multidisciplinary engineering program. These challenges include balancing both the needs of multiple parties involved in the assessment, maintaining rubric usability, reliability and validity, as well as appropriately matching rubric elements to attributes. Despite these tensions, the results provided by this process provide insight about rubric design, assessment strategies and the students’ strengths and weaknesses within the graduate attributes, providing valuable information to feed back into the graduate attribute and continual curriculum improvement processes.