Evaluation - the driver of the engineering education machine

Abstract

The term evaluation applied to engineering education has several connotations. Evaluation occurs at multiple levels. At the course level academics routinely evaluate 'technical' learning outcomes. These courses in turn routinely need to meet evaluation criteria set by individual institutions, such as graduate attributes, grade distributions, minimum load, student satisfaction, cohort progression and attrition. Further, at the program level, coordinators may be concerned with evaluation of total student load, overall progression and attrition, retention startegies, employer surveys, and various quality indices. The capstone is the evaluation carried out by Engineers Australia, which is (partially) based on satisfying the graduate competency requirements of the Washington Accord (as interpreted and applied by Engineers Australia). This paper considers evaluation from the course to the institutional level and reviews how the latter links with the international market.