Extending assessment of engineering professional skills to include the local indonesia higher education competency

Abstract

ABSTRACT While Engineering Professional Skills (EPS) are critical for today’s engineering careers, their assessment is much more subjective and significantly harder to measure than quantitative disciplinary skills. The differing graduate mobilities required for global, regional, and local engineering have led to the development of several accreditation standards (e.g. the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Washington Accord, Bologna agreement, the Indonesia Accreditation Board for Engineering Education). Although these standards share most of their EPS features, a significant difference exists in the extent to which cultural competency development in relation to local populations is required in the education of engineers. This paper addresses EPS assessment in an Indonesian setting where the curriculum must simultaneously cover both the national (core) curriculum and the local (institutional) curriculum, with the latter requiring (by government decree) awareness of and sensitivity to local requirement issues. The modification of an existing Engineering Professional Skills Assessment (EPSA) rubric to include assessment of the local Indonesia higher education competency is described, and the results of two cycles of action research with Indonesian tertiary students are presented. The curricula activities introduced involved complex scenarios to develop competency with diverse ethical, cultural, ethnic, religious, political, and citizenship views.