Keywords

engineering capstone design, student assessment, multidisciplinary teamwork

Abstract

The two-semester Mechanical Engineering Capstone course at Brigham Young University (BYU) was created in 1990 to help students learn a structured design process and assist them in developing design skills for the practice of engineering. Course outcomes were established based on stakeholder input and students receive classroom instruction as well as do project design work on projects provided by industry sponsors. To date more than 575 design and build projects have been completed for more than 300 industry project sponsors with more than 3500 mechanical, electrical, manufacturing and other students working in multidisciplinary teams.

One of the more significant challenges in offering a course of this type is developing a method to accurately evaluate student work. Students are typically very interested in their grades and faculty are interested in accurately and fairly assessing student work as it relates to the achievement of course outcomes by students. Fair and accurate assessment can be particularly challenging when much of the student work is performed working in teams.

This paper presents a brief literature review on the topic of assessment and evaluation of engineering design work by students, a set of three historical evaluation schemes used in BYU’s Capstone, including the one now in use, and relevant observations and conclusions we have drawn through the years.

Original Publication Citation

“Evaluation of Design Work and the Achievement of Learning Outcomes in Senior Capstone Courses.” Proceedings of 2012 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition. Robert Todd, Carl Sorenson, and Taylor Halverson, 2012.

Document Type

Conference Paper

Publication Date

2012

Publisher

Proceedings of 2012 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition

Language

English

College

Marriott School of Business

Department

Marketing

University Standing at Time of Publication

Associate Professor

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