Grading the Capstone Written Design Reports: A Comparison of External Judges and Faculty Scores

Capstone projects often require senior engineering students to develop oral and written communications skills. Both reports are sometimes graded by faculty advisors, course coordinators, faculty who are not directly involved with a capstone project (a grading committee) and/or adjunct faculty/advisors. Some programs are known to also use external or industry representatives as external judges. When external judges are used, which may or may not include project sponsors, additional input on oral and written skills, as well as design quality may be evaluated outside of the technical design review process that could be requested. This paper reports on research comparing the capstone project evaluations conducted by external judges and faculty. Faculty and external judges scores were compared using correlation and t-test statistical methods using MiniTab 17. The results indicate external judges gave higher grades. The implications might be that faculty grades are based on academic achievement and external graders are based on project success. These reflect two unique perspectives on the capstone process, which leads to future studies related to what bias affect the scores of faculty and external judges.