Towards a Framework for Assessing Computational Competencies for Engineering Undergraduate Students

Assessment is a central component of educational reform. Valid assessments are key to measuring student learning and further establish a relationship between instruction and learning outcomes. Despite the central role that computation plays in engineering there remains an absence of valid assessments to measure computational competencies for engineers. The focus of this paper is to describe our progress towards characterizing students’ skills and behaviors associated with computational competency as they solve engineering problems. We will describe our efforts to define a triangulation process [across data sources] that will allow us to inform the core research question: What are the features that broadly characterize the knowledge, skills and behaviors associated with computational competencies for undergraduate engineering students?