Program Educational Objectives Research Articles

An Approach to the Evaluation of Program Outcomes and Consideration of Activities beyond Curriculum for Improvement of Program Outcome Attainment

Abstract: Current global scenario demands outcome based education to develop graduates with universal acceptability. Program Outcomes (POs) laid by NBA (Table 1) are the assessable components indicative of graduate potential to demonstrate competencies to practice at appropriate levels. Program Outcomes (PO) can be defined and calculated by assessment of various Course Outcomes (CO) which can further be evaluated from Learning Outcomes (LOs). Blooms Taxonomy classifies LOs into the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains based on their level of complexity. Each LO maps to CO and hence contributes to PO. The direct and indirect assessment tools can be used to obtain course outcome attainment level. Performance at the prerequisite subject and attainment of the outcomes for previous year are the factors determining defined CO attainment. The attainment of Program Outcomes POs is an indicator of the graduate’s potential to demonstrate competencies and practice at appropriate levels. POs are derived from the Graduate Attributes (GA) specified by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA). Curriculum designed by University is not enough for a graduate to achieve the desired level of PO attainment. PO attainment is calculated by considering co-curricular and extracurricular activities in addition to the curriculum specified by the affiliating University for a programmer. GA like Pharmacy Knowledge, Thinking Abilities, Planning Abilities, Professional Identity, Environment and Sustainability, Pharmacist and Society are achieved through regular curricular activities whereas other GA like Leadership Skills, Ethics, Communication and Life Long Learning can be better attained through participation in extracurricular and co-curricular activities. This paper describes a module for defining and calculating attainment of Program Outcomes. It also demonstrates how of Activities beyond Curriculum for improvement of Program Outcome attainment. Key words: Blooms Taxonomy, Program Outcomes, Graduate Attributes, Program Educational Objectives, Co-curricular, Extracurricular.

Analysis of Graduates Performance Based on Programme Educational Objective Assessment for an Electrical Engineering Degree

Programme Educational Objectives (PEOs) are specific goals that are aligned with the vision and mission of an institution of higher learning. The PEOs describe the expected achievements of the graduates in their career and professional accomplishment after graduation. At Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, the PEOs of undergraduate programmes are particularly designed to ensure that the graduates are well-equipped with a broad foundation of theoretical and practical knowledge in various electrical engineering areas of interest and to prepare them for the rapidly changing engineering technology. These PEOs are carefully aligned with the vision and mission of the university and faculty and should be achieved by the graduates 3 to 4 years after graduating. These PEOs must be assessed and evaluated to determine the PEOs’ attainment of the programme. Therefore, assessment and evaluation activities must be available to plan and organize the process of obtaining the PEOs’ attainment. Surveys on graduate attributes need to be conducted to gain feedbacks from stakeholders 3 to 4 years after graduation. In this study, anonymous online questionnaire survey was created to obtain the feedbacks from the alumni. These feedbacks are then analysed to assess the PEOs’ attainment. In order to evaluate the performance of the PEOs, performance indicators are developed and used in the evaluation. Outcomes from this study are used to determine the achievement of PEOs and to propose the improvement as part of continuous quality improvement (CQI).

An Indirect Evaluation of Program Educational Objectives and Student Outcomes for Engineering Programs: A Case Study

Outcome and objective assessment is a method for determining whether students and graduates have learned, have retained, and can apply what they have been taught. Assessment plans have to include a statement of educational objectives, measurements of attainment of the objectives, and use of the assessment results for continuous improvement. In this paper, the experience of the Electrical Engineering program at Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University is used as an example of how an indirect assessment method is established and implemented. Many surveys have been used and contributed to the numerical analysis for the indirect assessment of the program outcomes and achievements. The indirect assessment results indicate that the target levels are achieved for all the seven program outcomes and the three objectives that have been considered.

Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine.

Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine.

The Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University.

The Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University.

Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University.

Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University.

Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.

Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.

Creating an Academic Program Focusing on Energy Management and Sustainability

Abstract The chapter describes the process for developing a new engineering program specializing in sustainable energy and power generation: Alternative Energy and Power Generation Engineering Track. The graduates of described program will have the critical knowledge and skills needed to begin their careers in nowadays industry shaped by the global sustainability Agenda 2030. Engineers should focus on economic, social and environmental aspects of their work. Desk research method is used. Chapter is based ABET requirement (USA). Program educational objectives were developed based on the needs on industry and in close cooperation with industry. Chapter is also focusing on the development of the program outcomes as well as the curricular content. Program requirements, specific track courses and recommended course planner are provided. Some suggestions and recommendation are also included.

Acreditación ABET en Universidades Colombianas: oportunidades y barreras

Accreditation is a contemporary issue in engineering education. There are varying opinions about the opportunities and barriers of this process within the Colombian context. This study compared the advantages and disadvantages of various experiences published in the literature about ABET accreditation. The findings show the ABET accreditation promotes the adoption and implementation of a continuous improvement system and quality culture in engineering education. Additionally, the continuous improvement process aligns the institutional mission, program educational objectives, curricula, and student outcomes. On the contrary, the main concern is the high cost associated with preparing and adapting programs to meet the ABET requirements. Accreditation takes time and effort to be meaningful, which can sometimes lead to increased workloads and time requirements, inadequate training, and lack of faculty commitment. The compilation of experiences with the ABET accreditation process is a significant contribution to engineering programs of public universities in Colombia seeking international accreditation.

Development of the Constructive Alignment Evaluation Instrument for Lecturers of Teachers Education Institutes

This study was conducted to build the constructs and sub-constructs for the Constructive Alignment Evaluation Instrument (CAEI) for lecturers of Teachers Education Institutes (TEIs) based on the experts' views. Interviews involving a total of five experts from TEIs in Malaysia were conducted using purposive sampling. The experts involved were Chairman of the TEI Assessment Committee, Internal Examiner Expert, Chairman of the MQA Committee, Chairman of the ISO Secretariat and Assessment Coordinator of the Department. The interview data was analyzed thematically using Nvivo software. Based on the interview, it was found that there were certain shortcomings to be addressed in the implementation of constructive alignment among TEIs’ lecturers. The constructs driven from the interview were knowledge and practice, comprising a total of six sub-constructs, namely, Learning Outcomes, Teaching and Learning Activities, Assessment of Assignment, Evaluation and Grading, Learning Context and Students Learning Time. The sub-construct of learning outcomes consists of four elements; Programme Educational Objectives, Programme Learning Outcomes, Teaching Taxonomy, and Course Learning Outcomes. The sub-construct of Teaching and Learning Activities is also divided into four elements; Teaching and Learning Planning, Mapping of Knowledge Type, Interactive Teaching and Class Management. Meanwhile, the subconstruct of assessment assignment contains elements such as Formative and Summative, Authenticating, Converging and Diverging Assessments and Bloom's Taxonomy. As for Students Learning Time, its sub-construct includes elements of Implementation of Learning Hours, Credit and Learning Load. The sub-construct of Evaluation and Grading contains elements of Validity and Reliability, Criterion References, Norm References and Evaluation Based on Learning Outcomes. Finally, the sub-construct of Learning Context is divided into five elements, Metacognitive Control, Reflective Learning, Teaching Quality and Student Activity, Formative Feedback and Motivational Approach. Based on the results obtained, the constructive alignment evaluation instrument should include all the constructs and sub-constructs identified.

Topic objective and outcome: performance indicators in knowledge transfer through in-depth curriculum content analysis

Abstract The work present an initiative to identify relevance of each topic, taught in a Course under a Curriculum, with respect to Graduate Attribute (GA) under the framework of Outcome Based Education (OBE). The motivation behind this work is the ever increasing need of demand–driven education, learning centric environment and emerging trends of OBE. It has to be observed that plenty of literatures are available in the areas Program Educational Objective (PEO) and Program Outcome (PO) under and beyond accreditation process. Even Course Objective (co) and Course Outcome (CO) have widely been circulated in the literature from which the formulation of syllabus in an autonomous educational framework through stakeholders feedback initiates. However, the concept of Topic Objective (to) and Topic Outcome (TO) is yet to be circulated widely in the literature. The objective of the presented work is thus to identify relevance of each topic included in the curriculum and anticipate its correlation with topics forgoing and afterwards with expected outcome of learning. So, if Program Educational Objective (PEO) and Program Outcome (PO) is an effort with broader perspective, Course Objective (co) and Course Outcome (CO) are at micro-level, then Topic Objective (to) and Topic Outcome (TO) is a nano-level initiative intended to identify the relevance during knowledge transfer process under the framework of OBE. In the model formulation of the process, in a multiple levels, first the position of Curriculum and Syllabus in the entire knowledge –transfer mechanism has been identified. In the next level, the Process Control Flow of designing curriculum with stakeholder’s feedback is presented in which the correlating CO with PO and PO vs GA with a reverse engineering approach has been presented. At final level, a sample course module comprised of various topics has been identified in which each topic under session plan is linked to PO and thereby GA. The underlying idea of this top-down back propagation in a bottom-up Outcome Based Frame work mechanism is driven by the following fact. When curriculum content analysis (CCE) is practiced during construction of Lesson Plan and Session Plan at individual (Course Instructor) level, the bottom up formulation under OBE works fine, but, when it comes to outcome based assessment/evaluation, the formulation of questions often failed to get the desired balance even at Course Objective level, thereby all question in a topic converging to same or few Program Outcome (and thereby GA). Effort has been made in this reverse approach, to incorporate the topic (say knowledge representation) in a Syllabus of a course (viz. Artificial Intelligence) in such a way, that the constraint faced during outcome based evaluation can be addressed. Furthermore, it can also be measured that with how much correlated/interdisciplinary-way the topics are flowered in course which is always a priority under OBE.

A Comparative Study Based on OBE for Different Batches of MCA Students

The research paper discusses novel approach for assessing the grades of students based on outcome-based education. The performance of students of any program like MCA in various examinations, quality of projects and placements are assessed in form of attainments. These attainments are used in the accomplishment of mission, program outcome, program educational objectives and course outcomes of any under graduate or post graduate course. This research discusses about outcome-based learning and its implementation in postgraduate MCA program. A comparative study of last four batches of MCA is also discussed on the basis of attainments of program education objectives. This paper also discusses course and program gap analysis and attainment of mission statements of any department.

A Machine Learning-Based Recommender System for Improving Students Learning Experiences

Outcome-based education (OBE) is a well-proven teaching strategy based upon a predefined set of expected outcomes. The components of OBE are Program Educational Objectives (PEOs), Program Outcomes (POs), and Course Outcomes (COs). These latter are assessed at the end of each course and several recommended actions can be proposed by faculty members' to enhance the quality of courses and therefore the overall educational program. Considering a large number of courses and the faculty members' devotion, bad actions could be recommended and therefore undesirable and inappropriate decisions may occur. In this paper, a recommender system, using different machine learning algorithms, is proposed for predicting suitable actions based on course specifications, academic records, and course learning outcomes' assessments. We formulated the problem as a multi-label multi-class binary classification problem and the dataset was translated into different problem transformation and adaptive methods such as one-vs.-all, binary relevance, label powerset, classifier chain, and ML-KNN adaptive classifier. As a case study, the proposed recommender system is applied to the college of Computer and Information Sciences, Jouf University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for helping academic staff improving the quality of teaching strategies. The obtained results showed that the proposed recommender system presents more recommended actions for improving students' learning experiences.

A Meta-Model for Strategic Educational Goals

Metamodeling technique is adopted widely in different fields related to software and system engineering. A meta-model represents the abstraction of a detailed design at multiple level. It is used in any structured environment ruled by a certain constraints and obligations and instantiate different platform specific domains from a single platform independent domain. This paper proposes a new model-driven approach for generating and analyzing automatically the outcome measures of strategic educational goals model. A new meta-model augmented with arithmetic semantics is created for Strategic Educational Goals where a set of outlines defines the enhancement framework of an academic organization. The vision, mission, program educational objectives and student outcomes are the four common strategic educational goals. These Goals support the performance roadmap to measures the institution situation and progress. The proposed meta-model is used to evaluate the strategic educational goals in a formal way, improve the continuous improvement process in academic organizations and allows the assessment at different level of management.

ABET Program Educational Objectives Proposed Assessment Method

ABET Program Educational Objectives Proposed Assessment Method

An Approach to Evaluate Program Outcomes and Program Educational Objectives through Direct and Indirect Assessment Tools

The model of outcome-based education is based on achieving attainments at the end of each course by the students in any undergraduate or postgraduate program. It was implemented in all technical institutions of India as per the guidelines of All India Council for Technical Education, India. The attainments are calculated by deploying some direct and indirect tools. This include courses results, placements, projects and various surveys like alumni, employer etc. The paper discusses the attainment of Program Educational Objectives and Program Outcomes for any undergraduate or postgraduate program. In outcome-based education, certain targets are to be set on the basis of previous year performance of students and these targets are achieved in the form of attainments. In this research, a comparative study of last three batches of a postgraduate course is done in the form of attainments.

A Unified Framework for Systematic Evaluation of ABET Student Outcomes and Program Educational Objectives

A Unified Framework for Systematic Evaluation of ABET Student Outcomes and Program Educational Objectives

Experiences of Teaching Computer Network Course through Lesson Outcomes

National Board of Accreditation (Abbreviated as NBA) is an official and independent accreditation body of India. Many engineering colleges must adhere to the quality requirements as per the NBA guidelines. Every engineering institute must prepare a Self-Assessment Report (SAR) and submit it to a peer review team for getting NBA Accreditation. In recent years NBA has changed input-output based traditional education system to Outcome-Based Education (OBE). OutcomeBased Education is an approach where each course can have atleast N number of outcomes that students will learn at the end of the semester for a particular course. Later on, these course outcomes can be mapped with Program Outcomes (PO) and Program Educational Objectives (PEO). According to the NBA, CO's are the most granular level of objects that can be defined over a particular course. The problem with particular CO is that they are much generalized and can be mapped to 2-3 chapters of the same course. It becomes very difficult to assess student based on a particular CO. The solution is provided in this paper by dividing CO's in further lesson Outcomes (LO) for effective teaching-learning. The paper also takes a real case study of course – Computer Networks which is an undergraduate course of Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering (MPSTME, Affiliated to NMIMS University). After defining LO's of the said course, the paper shows different Course Exit Survey Records in a graphical manner for better understanding. The methodology defined by author outperforms the current existing method defining CO's

Assessment and Evaluation of Program Learning Outcomes and Soft Skills in Graduation Projects

Highlights: 1. Comprehension and sub-categorization of ABET outcomes into outcome indicators to facilitate assessment and evaluation 2. Mapping of Program educational objectives with graduation project course objectives and ABET student outcomes 3. Detailed discussion of measurement and assessment technique of student outcomes

A data‐mining‐based approach to informed decision‐making in engineering education

AbstractIn outcome‐based academic programs, Program Educational Objectives (PEOs) and Student Outcomes (SOs) are two cores around which all programs’ components and processes revolve. Needless to say, the PEOs‐SOs mapping is very critical for program success and, therefore, a deep understanding of PEOs, SOs, and their intra/inter‐correlations is very important for effective program's decisions making. In this context, this paper proposes a data mining‐based approach to discover hidden knowledge of PEOs, SOs, and their mapping and correlations in engineering programs. More specifically, the proposed approach employs association rule mining techniques to generate association rules, among and between PEOs and SOs, from PEOs‐SOs mapping data of a set of engineering programs, which can be then filtered and manipulated to discover the desired knowledge. To this end, a set of 152 self‐study reports of engineering programs, accredited by American Board for Engineering and Technology‐Engineering Accreditation Commission (ABET‐EAC), are collected and the mapping data between their PEOs and ABET‐EAC SOs are extracted. The dataset is processed and transformed into a representation suitable for association rules mining. This involves developing a set of PEOs labels, annotating data with PEOs labels, and extracting three target datasets. Apriori algorithm is then applied to each dataset to generate three sets of association rules. The generated association rules are then filtered and manipulated to discover the knowledge of PEOs, ABET‐EAC SOs, and their mapping and correlations. Finally, a discussion on the informativeness of the discovered knowledge for the decisions making in engineering education is given.