Use Of Rubrics For Assessment Of A Senior Project Design Course

Rubrics are becoming an essential link between instruction and assessment. This paper describes the application of rubrics to gauge the performance, skills, and competencies of students as they complete their senior projects in the EET and CET programs at DeVry University, Addison, IL. ABET’s requirement for accredited programs to implement outcomes-based models has stimulated the growth of formalized assessment programs within the engineering and engineering technology communities. The use of rubrics as an assessment tool allows faculty to: (a) Improve student performance by collecting data on student skills and competences, and (b) validate that students are achieving course and program objectives. The senior project is a two-semester course sequence in which the students synthesize their previous coursework. Students are required to plan, design, implement, document, and present the solution to a software/hardware engineering problem. Faculty use rubrics for the assessment of project proposal development in the eight semester and for project implementation in form of prototype development and demonstration in the ninth semester. Feedback from the rubrics is used to take corrective action to improve the course sequences, program objectives, and instructional delivery.