2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A Structured Approach for Aggregating Assessment Evidence for ABET Student Outcome 1

Presented at Mechanical Engineering (MECH) Session 11: Assessment, Accreditation, and Evaluation

ABET requires engineering programs to provide direct evidence demonstrating that graduates have attained the knowledge and skills defined by the student outcomes. A persistent practical challenge for programs is determining how to sample and aggregate assessment evidence across courses and artifacts to reliably reflect students’ ability to solve complex engineering problems. This paper develops an approach for aggregating assessment evidence aligned with ABET Student Outcome~1, which emphasizes the ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems.

The proposed approach introduces outcome-weighted aggregation, in which individual assessment artifacts—such as exam problems, sub-problems, and homework assignments—are weighted according to both their instructional importance and their relevance to characteristics of complex engineering problems as defined by ABET. By explicitly mapping artifacts to the cognitive actions embedded in Student Outcome~1 and to dimensions of problem complexity, the approach preserves transparency and traceability while enabling principled aggregation across assessments and courses.

The application of the approach is demonstrated using a set of fundamental undergraduate mechanical engineering courses. It is argued that outcome-weighted aggregation across carefully selected assessments provides broader, more stable, and more representative evidence of outcome attainment than narrowly sampled artifacts alone, while remaining fully aligned with ABET’s expectations for direct, documented assessment. The proposed approach offers engineering programs a defensible method for selecting and aggregating assessment evidence that balances specificity with reliability in support of continuous improvement.

Authors

Dr. Jitesh H Panchal Purdue University – West Lafayette (College of Engineering) [biography]

Dr. Jitesh H. Panchal is a Professor and Associate Head of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He received his BTech (2000) from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati, and MS (2003) and PhD (2005) in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Panchal's research interests are in (1) design at the interface of social and physical phenomena, (2) computational methods and tools for digital engineering, and (3) secure design and manufacturing. He is a recipient of CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF); Young Engineer Award, Guest Associate Editor Award, and three best paper awards from ASME; and was recognized by the B.F.S. Schaefer Outstanding Young Faculty Scholar Award, the Ruth and Joel Spira Award, and as one of the Most Impactful Faculty Inventors at Purdue University. He received the Distinguished Alumni award from IIT Guwahati. He is a co-author of two books and has co-edited one book on engineering systems design. He has served on the editorial board of international journals including ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering.
Dr. Carl Wassgren Purdue University – West Lafayette (College of Engineering) [biography]

Dr. Carl Wassgren is the Charles E. and Louise W. Springer Professor for Excellence in Teaching and Associate Head of Mechanical Engineering at Indianapolis. He is a Fellow of Purdue’s Teaching Academy and is in Purdue’s Book of Great Teachers. He has received multiple teaching honors including the Charles B. Murphy Award, which is Purdue’s highest undergraduate teaching honor. Professor Wassgren’s research interests focus on modeling the dynamics of particulate and powder systems, with applications in mixing, segregation, coating, attrition, compaction, granulation, and characterization. This research has been applied to systems used to process pharmaceuticals, food and consumer products, agrochemicals, and biomass materials. He has received an NSF CAREER award and was a co-founder and Director of the Center for Particulate Products and Processes (CP3) at Purdue.
Dr. Eckhard A. Groll Purdue University – West Lafayette (College of Engineering) [biography]

Dr. Eckhard A. Groll is the Reilly Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the William E. and Florence E. Perry Head of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He joined Purdue University as an Assistant Professor in 1994 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2000, to Professor in 2005, to Reilly Professor in 2013, and to Reilly Distinguished Professor in 2024.
Dr. Sameer V. Naik Purdue University – West Lafayette (College of Engineering)

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