Engineering Design Survey (original) (raw)
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Engineering student design processes: Looking at evaluation practices across problems
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2002
Assessing student learning of the engineering design process is challenging. Students’ ability to answer test questions about the design process or record their design activities may differ significantly from their actual performance in solving “messy” open-ended problems. In the Pacific Northwest, multi-university participants in a National Science Foundation supported project (Transferable Integrated Design Engineering Education, TIDEE) have implemented and disseminated a Mid-Program Assessment instrument for assessing engineering student design competency. One part of the instrument requires student teams to document (e.g., self-report) their design decisions and processes while engaged in a design task. These written self-reports are scored using a rubric that has demonstrated a high inter-rater reliability. We are interested in comparing the scores derived from these selfreports with measures of actual design performance. Our research method for analyzing design performance is ...
TOWARD ASSESSMENT OF DESIGN SKILL IN ENGINEERING
ETS Research Report Series, 1997
Design is an important part of engineering education, but cannot be assessed easily through current multiple-choice tests. In this report, we explore the possibility of including design problems in assessments of engineering students. We report a study comparing constructed-response design problems and constructed-response versions of typical engineering assessments, labeled "analysis" problems. Through analyses of verbal protocols, we argue that design problems can elicit qualitatively different behaviors compared with analysis problems, and therefore may assess different underlying constructs. While design problems may be a worthwhile addition to assessments of engineering students, such problems present several challenges, including issues of automatic scoring, the amount of information about candidate skill contained in responses, and the potential for construct-irrelevant variance. These challenges are surmountable, but require careful construction of design assessments to avoid potential pitfalls. This work represents one part of a research program aimed at informing the redesign of the GRE Engineering Subject Test. Acknowledgments I thank for their assistance with various parts of this project. Thanks also to Drew Gitomer, Ann Kindfield, and Kevin Singley who provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this report and to Finis Collins who provided administrative support.
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An investigation into the impact of a simple team design experience in teaching the engineering design process is described. The design experience occurred early in an Introduction to Engineering course after a single lecture on the engineering design process. The design activity, necessarily simple at this stage, consisted of designing, building, and testing a drag racer, constructed from LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT parts and powered by a single rubber band. Assessment of the value of the experience focused not only on gains in student perceptions of knowledge of and confidence in applying the engineering design process, but also on actual gains in knowledge, as judged by written responses, and on the use of the engineering design process, as judged by student design step logs. Student learning was assessed through questionnaires at the beginning and end of the laboratory period. The questionnaires addressed both student knowledge and student confidence levels. In addition to assigning n...
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A Rubrics-Based Methodological Approach for Evaluating the Design Competency of Engineering Students
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An Evaluation of Group Work in First-Year Engineering Design Education
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It is argued that ‘design' is an essential characteristic of engineering practice, and hence, an essential theme of engineering education. It is suggested that first-year design courses enhance commencing student motivation and retention, and introduce engineering application content and basic design experience early in the curriculum. The research literature indicates that engineering design practice is a deeply social process, with collaboration and group interactions required at almost every stage. This chapter documents the evaluation of the initial and subsequent second offerings of a first-year engineering design unit at Griffith University in Australia. The unit 1006ENG Design and Professional Skills aims to provide an introduction to engineering design and professional practice through a project-based approach to problem solving. The unit learning design incorporates student group work, and uses self-and-peer-assessment to incorporate aspects of the design process into t...