Opposition To Mandatory Use Of Pe/Fe Exams As Assessment Tools

The authors oppose the required use of PE/FE Exams as assessment tools. To consider the PE exam has no merit, since it is taken by only a fraction of engineering graduates and exam performance is strongly influenced by many factors independent of the BSCE education. This paper then focuses on the issues involved in the proposition for mandatory use of the FE exam as an assessment tool. Opposition to such required use is fundamental. The makeup and philosophy of the exam is contrary to the philosophy of education of professionals as expressed in numerous recent studies. Further, the FE exam intent and content is inconsistent with the principles of Criteria 2000 of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Educators should have the option of using results from the FE exam as one means for assessing outcomes of certain program objectives. Mandatory imposition of the FE exam would, in general, both violate the independence of program design which ABET intends in Criteria 2000 and warp the curriculum and pedagogy development which the department must have freedom to carry out in the interests of fundamental principles of engineering education. Introduction The authors are opposed to the required use of the Professional Engineering (PE) exam or the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam as assessment tools. In this paper are presented the rationale for this opposition and strong evidence supporting the rationale. There is increased impetus from many sectors for accountability and assessment on the part of civil engineering educators. There also is increased awareness that the education of engineers, to address the problems of the future, must encompass much more than introductory topics in math, science, economics, engineering sciences, and engineering design. Educators are pressed to find and use assessment tools to comply with assessment requirements. The FE /PE Exams, because of their availability and widespread use, appear to be the "quick answers" to our need. We will show that use of the PE Exam is totally inappropriate and that nature of the FE Exam is inconsistent with the principles of engineering education as put forth in the new accreditation policies of ABET, Criteria 2000. Objectives of Engineering Education The objectives of an engineering education today transcend fundamental knowledge of technical material. According to "Engineering Education for a Changing World", a joint project report by the Engineering Deans Council and Corporate Roundtable of the American Society for Engineering Education , Today, engineering colleges must not only provide their graduates with intellectual development and superb technical capabilities, but following industry’s lead, those colleges must educate their P ge 333.1 students to work as part of teams, communicate well, and understand the economic, social, environmental and international context of their professional activities. In today’s world and in the future, engineering education programs must not only teach the fundamentals of engineering theory, experimentation and practice, but [also] be RELEVANT, ATTRACTIVE and CONNECTED: • RELEVANT to the lives and careers of students, preparing them for a broad range of careers, as well as for lifelong learning involving both formal programs and hands-on experience; • ATTRACTIVE so that the excitement and intellectual content of engineering will attract highly talented students with a wider variety of backgrounds and career interests—particularly women, underrepresented minorities and the disabled—and will empower them to succeed; and • CONNECTED to the needs and issues of the broader community through integrated activities with other parts of the educational system, industry and government. "The Changing Face of Engineering Employment in Industry" by the Industry Advisory Group of the National Society of Professional Engineers 2 tells us that The most important technical training which can be imparted by formal education, and the area in most need of improvement, is teaching students how to learn in a self-directed mode. From the most recent ASCE Education Conference 3 comes the statement The intellectual foundation of the civil engineering baccalaureate degree should be broad, wellrounded, multi-disciplinary, and strong in technical and scientific knowledge. Undergraduates should be exposed to: 1) a global vision and approach to problem identification and problem solving in areas such as infrastructure, environment, facilities, and systems; 2) a basic management knowledge base in areas such as business, resources, personnel management, communication skills, costs and value judgements, and time management; 3) a solid foundation in personal and interpersonal attributes and ethics, and 4) an involvement with engineering practice as the formal education evolves. Other significant forces influence educational objectives besides those cited above. Civil engineering departments, as they set their educational program objectives, in general feel directly the influence, advice and opinions of their local industry advisory committees and of employers of the program graduates. These people are, in the view of most educators, our “customers.” Nonetheless, it may be correct to assume, from anecdotal and “grass-roots” communication, that the beliefs of local industry leaders and employers -our customers -are entirely consistent with that published by ASEE, NSPE, and ASCE. That is, industry is telling us locally as well as nationally that it needs well-rounded graduates who have a broad range of “soft skills” in addition to the traditional set of engineering abilities. For some programs at least, the influence of these local customers on educational objectives is significant. Clearly from the above, an engineering education must provide far more than facility with mathematics, science, engineering science, and discipline specific subject matter. P ge 333.2 Accreditation Criteria With the implementation of Engineering Criteria 2000 , two especially important criteria are: Criterion 2. Program Educational Objectives Each engineering program for which an institution seeks accreditation or reaccreditation must have in place (a) detailed published educational objectives that are consistent with the mission of the institution and these criteria (b) a process based on the needs of the program’s various constituencies in which the objectives are determined and periodically evaluated (c) a curriculum and process that ensures the achievement of these objectives (d) a system of ongoing evaluation that demonstrates achievement of these objectives and uses the results to improve the effectiveness of the program. Criterion 3. Program Outcomes and Assessment Engineering programs must demonstrate that their graduates have (a) an ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering (b) an ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data (c) an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs (d) an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams (e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems (f) an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (g) an ability to communicate effectively (h) the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context (i) a recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning (j) a knowledge of contemporary issues (k) an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice. These two criteria appear quite consistent with the objectives discussed in the previous section. They also point out that instruments that measure knowledge of simple subject matter may not be satisfactory measures of any of the outcomes assessment items listed in Criterion 3 above. Outcomes Assessment The advent of new accreditation criteria (ABET , along with pressures from all sectors for increased accountability in engineering education, focuses much attention to the topic of outcomes assessment. An excellent guide is available to assist programs with the assessment process (Rogers and Sando ). The valuable working symposium, "Best Assessment Processes in Engineering Education," held at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology (Rogers and Sando ) and sponsored by ABET, NSF and others, featured a wide range of presentations, papers and discussion on outcomes assessment means. A second such symposium is scheduled for Fall 1998, again at Rose-Hulman, and AAHE has scheduled its second conference on assessment for June, 1998. P ge 333.3 Through these and other contemporary communications, the full intent of ABET Criteria 2000 and the range of effective means for carrying it out become increasingly clear. Profound among these realizations is the imperative that each assessment means and method must be directly linked to, and specifically selected to measure outcomes from, the stated objectives of each CE department's individual program. A widely adopted and respected guide to developing outcomes assessment plans (Rogers and Sando ) makes clear how essential the linkage is between a CE department's stated program objectives and practices and the design or selection of the appropriate assessment vehicle used to measure outcomes. Recognizing the importance of assessing engineering education programs, the major stakeholder organizations in engineering education in the United States formed the Joint Task Force on Engineering Education Assessment . The aim was to examine the value of using the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination in undergraduate engineering education assessment. Represented on the task force were the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), which prompted the report and served as the group's secretariat; the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET); the Am