2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A critical component of educating civil engineering students and preparing graduates to enter professional practice is the engineering capstone course, which directly supports Criterion 3 (Student Outcomes) and Criterion 5 (Curriculum) of ABET criteria for accrediting engineering programs. Criterion 3 (Student Outcomes) prepares graduates to enter the professional practice of engineering with seven required outcomes that can briefly be articulated as an ability to solve, design, communicate, recognize ethical and professional responsibilities, function effectively on a team, conduct experiments using data, and acquire/apply new knowledge. Criterion 5 (Curriculum) requires a culminating engineering design experience that incorporates engineering standards, multiple constraints, and knowledge gained through previous coursework. Further, Criterion 4 (Continuous Improvement) requires academic programs to assess and evaluate the level to which the student outcomes in Criterion 3 are being obtained. This paper describes a work-in-progress to evaluate the use of employee appraisal forms as a pedagogical approach leveraging self-reflection and counseling as a metacognitive strategy in engineering education. The authors have developed a “capstone support form” that mimics an employee evaluation report support form commonly used by a constituency and major employer of graduates from their academic program. Students are required to indicate their major performance objectives at the beginning of the capstone course and list their significant contributions and accomplishments throughout the duration of the course. Dividing the form into sections based on student objectives causes students to reflect upon their learning, specifically their goals and developmental growth in each student outcome assessed. Individual counseling sessions between the student and instructor at the beginning, midpoint, and/or the end of the course requires students to communicate results of their metacognition and receive direct feedback on their level of achievement in each student outcome. This pedagogical tool will be of use to engineering educators looking to continuously improve their assessment and evaluation (Criterion 4) to which student outcomes (Criterion 3) are being obtained within the capstone course (Criterion 5). This paper is a work-in-progress that presents a literature review, a proposed research methodology, and hypothesized results seeking to address the research question as to if the use of employee appraisal forms is a meaningful pedagogical tool for assessing the level of attainment of ABET student outcomes within engineering capstone courses.