2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

What’s in a Grade? Current Practices and Strategies to Evaluate Learning in Engineering Courses

Presented at Civil Engineering Division (CIVIL) Technical Session - Effective Teaching 2

Students’ knowledge and skills can be developed and assessed using a variety of individual and group-based learning activities including homework assignments, exams, projects, reflection papers, and presentations. Questions prompting the paper included:
What practices do faculty currently use in assigning in-class or out-of-class learning activities,
What is the distribution of individual vs group work, and why, and
What strategies, such as mastery-based learning, are used to encourage success

The objectives of this study are to:
Characterize various deliverables and assessment tools and their weightings that are used to assign a grade in engineering courses
Determine the grading practices used to calculate the final grade
Identify contingency practices that faculty use to incentivize, encourage, and support success

This paper provides a summary of research into grading practices and then shares the results of a survey distributed nationally to engineering educators that investigated the grading policies and practices used in engineering courses to define the “state of practice.” Analysis of survey results provides insights into the grading systems, weighting, type of assignments, and policies in use by engineering faculty to determine final grades in courses. In addition to identifying major course components used, i.e. homework, projects/papers, quizzes, and exams, the survey results will be used to characterize policies and practices such as extra credit, bonus points, and more unique tools, adopted by faculty to encourage students to learn material. This paper will analyze results to look for patterns of use based on course level (first year, middle years, advanced courses), elective vs. required courses, and type of institution (Carnegie classification) in the use of various means used in determining final grades.

Authors

Dr. Scott R Hamilton P.E. York College of Pennsylvania [biography]

Scott Hamilton is a Professor of Civil Engineering at York College of Pennsylvania. He is a registered Professional Engineer and has both a MS and PhD in civil engineering and a Masters in
engineering management from Stanford University and a BS from the United States Military Academy, West Point. He is a retired US Army Corps of Engineers officer who has had assignments in the US, Germany, Korea, and Afghanistan. During his military career he spent over 10 years on the faculty at the US Military Academy at West Point teaching civil engineering. He also served as the Director, Graduate Professional Development at Northeastern University’s College of Engineering. He is the recipient of the 2021 NSPE Engineering Education Excellence Award and the 2019 ASCE Thomas A Lenox ExCEEd Leadership Award.
Dr. Camilla M. Saviz P.E. University of the Pacific [biography]

Camilla Saviz is Professor and Chair of Civil Engineering at the University of the Pacific. She received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University, an M.B.A. from the New York Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Davis. She joined Pacific in 1999 and is a registered Professional Engineer in California.
Dr. David A Saftner University of Minnesota Duluth [biography]

David Saftner is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He received a BS in Civil Engineering from the United States Military Academy and MS and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Tanya Kunberger P.E. http://orcid.org/https://0009-0003-9407-7753 University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown [biography]

Dr. Kunberger is Division Chair for Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh Johnstown.

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