Surveying Fourth Year Engineering Student Perceptions of Graduate Attribute Competencies

Abstract

As the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Manitoba begins to emphasize outcome based teaching and assessment along with the traditional input-based teaching and assessment, data are being collected in a variety of forms. Some of the indirect data being gathered comes from students in the form of the Student Exit Survey. This survey was developed to measure students’ perception of how well their program prepared them with regards to the CEAB twelve graduate attributes. The survey asked students to consider a large number of indicators for each of the graduate attributes.The indicator list was originally constructed with the intention of sufficiently defining each attribute for the five engineering programs in the faculty while providing variety and choice. Therefore, the list was fairly extensive, and at times iterative and unwieldy. When revisiting the original Student Exit Survey, two factors ascended in importance: student feedback on their personal attribute competencies as developed within their program, and how to define attribute competency levels.To establish competency levels and make indicators more manageable for faculty and students, the indicators for each attribute were revised to reflect the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in the Cognitive Domain: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. This new attribute/indicator format was then developed into theStudent Exit Survey and given to fourth year Mechanical engineering students in Fall 2012. This paper describes that effort and analyzes the initial data from this first pass. This data will be used to inform the continued revision of the Student Exit Survey until it is a reliable and valid instrument for providing feedback at instructor, program and faculty levels as the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Engineering forges ahead with its continual cycle of improvement.

Examining Fourth Year Engineering Student Perceptions of Graduate Attribute Competencies: Year Two

“…Each indicator reflected one of Bloom's six cognitive levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Students were asked to rank their proficiency of the cognitive levels for each attribute on a three-point scale to indicate whether they i) did not develop the skill/ability; (ii) were introduced to the skill/ability but did not master it; or (iii) mastered the skill/ability within the Mechanical Engineering curriculum [20]. Additionally, students were asked to choose the three strongest and three weakest attributes in regards to the Mechanical engineering program and with respect to their own knowledge, skills and behaviors [20].…”

“…In particular, for the Mechanical Engineering program, these protocols include a student exit survey that is given to students in their last semester before graduation. The student exit survey was first developed and implemented in the Biosystems program in the 2011 academic year to measure students' perceptions of how well their engineering program at the University of Manitoba prepared them in regard to the 12 CEAB graduate attributes [20]. It has since been revised and adopted by the Mechanical Engineering program as well.…”

“…It has since been revised and adopted by the Mechanical Engineering program as well. Last year, the survey was changed to reflect Bloom's Taxonomy [2] [20]. The survey was administered to fourth year students in the Mechanical Engineering program taking MECH 4860 Engineering Design.…”

“…The survey was administered to fourth year students in the Mechanical Engineering program taking MECH 4860 Engineering Design. Findings were presented at the CEEA 2013 conference [20]. This year, the survey has been revised and administered again with the objective to continue to measure the perceptions of fourth year Mechanical Engineering students in regards to the graduate attributes in their own development and in the program's curriculum.…”

On Becoming an Engineer: The Essential Role of Lifelong Learning Competencies

“…One study was designed to be a formative assessment tool for an introductory Thermodynamics course that was restructured using Student Centered Learning methods to explore the instructor's and students' experiences and perceptions in the anticipation of analyzing the data for findings related to student learning outcomes and engagement 1,2 . The second study was devised to investigate fourth year students' perceptions of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) Graduate Attribute competencies as developed within their Engineering program [3][4][5] .…”