The Relationship between Course Grades and the K-CESA Core Competencies for Engineering Students

With the emphasis on core competencies, the University of Seoul has exerted efforts to reflect the importance of core competencies in university curricula. The main assessment tool used in Korea is the Korea Collegiate Essential Skills Assessment (K-CESA), developed by the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training (KRIVET). This study examined whether core competencies measured using K-CESA are valid as a tool for assessing educational achievements among college students, and analyzed the correlation between K-CESA scores and course grades. The analysis was performed on approximately 204 engineering students at the University of Seoul. According to the correlation analysis between core competencies and courses, MSC courses were shown to be related to the resource and through information use competency and higher order thinking competency. Through the Analysis of Variance, students in the accreditation programs and students living in urban area showed higher competency scores. In the multiple regression, it was shown that Accreditation and MSC courses grades were the important variables to predict the competency of the students. Based on these findings, we confirmed that the K-CESA tool has a certain level of correlation with academic performance and that it functions as one of several ways to evaluate the program outcomes of engineering education accreditation.