Employing Co-op Employer Evaluations to Assess Outcomes

The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo is preparing to employ outcomes-based assessments to inform program improvement as required by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) and the Ontario Council of Academic Vice Presidents (OCAV). Engineering at Waterloo requires all students to complete five 4-month work terms to graduate; a model of Co-operative education that involves a sequence of alternating work and academic terms. Upon completion of each work term employers complete a Student Performance Evaluation (SPE) that provides students with feedback on their work term and is employed to assign a grade to the student for the term. This presentation will describe an innovative use of historical SPE information to initiate a process that will lead to their use for outcomesassessment for program enhancement.