Experiences Obtaining Program Assessment Data From Capstone Design Projects

Capstone design courses and related project work should present excellent opportunities for program assessment.  This is well recognized by many programs as evidenced by the use of capstone design projects in program assessment plans.  The question then becomes how to acquire the data desired without the process becoming too burdensome.  During this presentation, a description of the current capstone design course sequence at Kansas State University will be described along with an explanation of how these courses are employed in program assessment.  The current process evaluates the design projects while simultaneously providing data for assessing student outcomes.  The rubric utilized in grading capstone design reports will be presented as well as how aspects of these data are subsequently incorporated into the assessment of specific student outcomes.

Obviously programs vary in their approach to assessment and in how their design courses are integrated into their respective assessment activities.  During the presentation, alternative approaches to obtaining assessment data from design courses will be outlined.  Example rubrics that have been employed at other institutions will be presented supporting their approach to assessing student outcomes.  The examples considered will be from diverse institutions and programs to provide a broader perspective and hopefully to stimulate creative approaches meeting the needs of different situations.

The intended outcomes for this presentation are that participants will gain (1) an introduction to several alternate rubrics for design project evaluation and/or student outcome assessment through design projects, (2) a exposure to one example in which a rubric for evaluating engineering design projects has been employed simultaneously for both project evaluation and program assessment, and (3) insight into integration of design project evaluation and program assessment.