Triangulating Assessments: Multi Source Feedback Systems And Closed Form

Triangulation is becoming an important factor as more engineering programs begin to prepare for accreditation under ABET’s EC 2000 criteria.. In general, the purpose of triangulation in assessment and evaluation is to provide multiple measures for a particular outcome. For example, the ‘ability to work on multi-disciplinary teams’ may be assessed through: (1) the student’s self assessment of their enjoyment for working on teams via closed-form questionnaires, (2) ratings by a student’s peers on the team, or (3) the direct observation of a team by a trained evaluator. Triangulation may also involve using similar metrics across two or more institutions so that results may be compared. Because many of the methods and instruments currently begin used in engineering education have not been fully validated in terms of content or construct, triangulation provides one means for increasing the validity of the outcome’s measurements, or, conversely, increasing the validity of the methodology used to obtain the measurement. Further, it is also possible that a metric/method that adequately measures a particular outcome in question does not exist. In this case, by triangulating different methods and metrics, one obtains multiple surrogates for the real measure of the outcome, thus providing a much needed anchor measure where none exists.