Rating Capstone Design Students On An Industrial Scale

Capstone design for senior engineering students is a required class that focuses on design projects for all students. Assessing a team’s project results is usually a relatively easy task. However, fairly assessing the performance of individual students within the team is much more difficult. The complexity of the assessment task is compounded by the wide range of subjects, difficulty, and engineering tasks involved in differing projects. Assessing engineering performance across a variety of projects is also a common problem for most industrial employers. Many companies that employ engineers use a management-by-objective (MBO) assessment system for their professional employees. Grove City College capstone design students are now being assessed with a MBO system similar to industrial employers. A description of the Grove City College rating system including guidelines for writing student objectives and grading rubrics are presented along with an assessment of the success of the system.