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Bridging diverse institutions, multiple engineering departments, and industry: A case study in assessment planning
Journal of Engineering Education, Apr 1998 by McMartin, Flora, Van Duzer, Eric, Agogino, Alice
A primary goal of Phase I was to create trust between the assessment team and the participants, in addition to building common agreement around the abilities to be measured. Throughout the process, the assessment team communicated regularly with project leaders and the Synthesis Coalition's assessment coordinator on each campus to ensure that the participants stayed involved in the next stages of the process and that they saw their input included in the changes and revisions to the final product. The team's milestones and completed deliverables were communicated to all participants. This attention to detail built trust in the ability of the assessment team to accomplish what they had promised, and was a critical accomplishment in setting the stage for the team to move into the lead in the planning process for Phase II.
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Phase II began with a search for the exact assessment questions the team would try to answer. The overall assessment question was deceptively simple: What are the effects of Synthesis reforms? Three sub-questions emerged from that central question and framed the approach for assessing the Synthesis Coalition's effects on the abilities defined in Phase I:
What are the institutional effects of Synthesis reforms?
What effect has Synthesis had on pedagogy and student learning in individual courses?
What are the cumulative effects of Synthesis on student outcomes at graduation?
The process outlined in this naser touches on elements of questions one and three but is primarily concerned with question two regarding pedagogy and student learning.
The learning outcomes identified in Phase I were predominantly higher learning, or process-based" outcomes, factors that were extremely important in identifying or developing assessment tools. For example, one set of abilities focused on the process of solving open-ended problems which require significant skills in evaluation, analysis, and the synthesis of information. These were not specific content-based outcomes, (e.g., they met ABET criteria for teamwork and communication skills but did not meet the criteria for knowledge of mathematics and science.) For this reason, the assessment team rejected the use of standardized tests and instead focused on developing authentic or performancebased assessment tools-tools that would allow students to demonstrate higher learning and process-based learning most effectively.18
An analysis of course syllabi of Synthesis Coalition courses produced a set of classroom assignments (e.g., project reports, project presentations, and demonstrations) that along with the ability framework became criteria for identifying possible assessment tools. A range of tools that related to existing classroom activities and covered a broad range of abilities were identified. Next the team negotiated a coverage grid associating tools with the particular abilities they could assess. (See Table 2. Map of Assessment Tools to Student Learning Abilities.)
Four tools: scenario-based assignments, design project reports, self and peer reports, and taped observations were selected to assess learning at both the course and Synthesis Coalition levels.
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