Effective Assessment of Engineering Design in an Exam Environment

One of the most difficult aspects of engineering is the effective teaching of engineering design. While it is paramount that every engineering student be exposed to engineering design, it can be difficult to assess the design skills of individual students. Most design assessment is typically conducted at the project or team level, and many assessments of design effectiveness only use the capstone experience. This is clearly inadequate. Instead, what is needed is an effective method that can be used to partially assess the design capabilities of individual students in an exam setting. This article will discuss an approach to assessing design skills in the exam environment. It allows for the effective assessment of some design skills and practices in an exam environment without placing undue stress upon the student. The approach involves a short case study provided to the students as part of an exam review sheet, the construction of design questions based upon the case study, the definition of detailed rubrics to assess the quality of the design, and the administration of the exam in a controlled setting. Student achievement is discussed, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of this approach to assessing design skills.