Assessing Professional Skill Development in Capstone Design Courses

Professional skills and behaviors desired by employers in engineering graduates are often difficult to assess in project products. Professional skills highlighted by ABET are professional and ethical responsibility and ability to engage in lifelong learning, but also include a variety of other characteristics that arise through interactions with project stakeholders. The Transferable Integrated Design Engineering Education (TIDEE) consortium has identified a set desired professional attributes and developed a set of professional development assessments for measuring student growth in these areas, providing student-centered feedback, and supporting accreditation efforts. Testing has begun with these instruments and early results are presented.