civil engineering

This poster will present how the Civil Engineering B.S. program utilized multiple sources of evidence to evaluate the student ability to apply mathematical skills in solving engineering programs and how the program has utilized results to make programmatic improvement. To assess students’ ability to apply math skills to solve engineering programs, our faculty used the results from Fundamental in Engineering license exam and course embedded assessment. In the licensure exam, we found student scores on the Structural analysis section, which involves using math to solve engineering problems, have been lower than average in the past few years. Using embedded course assessment, faculty in the course 361 Transport Engineering and 381 Structure analysis give students engineering tasks that require them to use math skills. These tasks are evaluated using a rubric. The results on the math skills show that the student performance did not meet the target (more than 80% students scoring 3 and 4’s and fewer than 5% students scoring 1) set by the department. As the students assessed were juniors and the target was set for the graduating class, the data indicate either more work needs to be done to bring students up to the desired level of performance, or a scaled scoring system needs to be used to compensate the mismatch between the expectation (target) and the status of the students assessed. The program assessment coordinator and course instructors collect and summarized the assessment results. The program faculty collaboratively interpreted the results and discussed improvement strategies. The program used the assessment results and made multiple curricular improvements, such as changing the Structure analysis course from the electives to required courses, limiting enrollment, increasing frequency of course offerings, modifying expectations on the rubric, and applying appropriate standards to students at different academic levels. We think that our program’s assessment practices can inform skill-based outcome assessment for other programs. We will also share lessons learned.

Assessing Math, Science & Engineering Skills in Civil Engineering

This poster will present how the Civil Engineering B.S. program utilized multiple sources of evidence to evaluate the …

This poster will present the results of efforts to develop a robust program for assessment of the graduate degree programs in Civil Engineering (CE) at UHM. Prior to the start of this project, CE had outdated program outcomes for MS and PhD programs that were difficult to assess and a very simple and inadequate assessment system. This project involved creation of new program-level student learning outcomes (SLOs) for both MS and PhD using better descriptions and Bloom’s taxonomy verbs and then finalization in an interactive faculty department meeting. This was followed by development of rubrics for the SLOs to be used for assessment of graduate student work. The rubrics were worked on in an interactive CE Assessment Committee meeting followed by presentation/modification in a CE Department meeting. This was followed by development and adoption of a plan for analysis of results, determination of necessary program changes and implementation of changes. The products of this project will be presented as well as lessons learned regarding the process.

MS/PhD Outcome Assessment Program Development

This poster will present the results of efforts to develop a robust program for assessment of the graduate …

The poster describes the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s process of assessing program outcomes. The steps in the assessment process are first described followed by a list of program outcomes. Only direct modes of assessment are used. The frequency of assessment is tabulated. The poster then expands on the use of performance appraisal in select courses, which represents a relatively new mode of assessment that the department has recently adopted. Performance appraisal is performed once every three years per outcome and is advantageous in that it can be used as a vehicle to involve more faculty members and facilitate faculty buy-in to the assessment process. Detailed is the schedule involved in the performance appraisal assessment process along with a sample scorecard and a sample evaluation of one outcome. The sample scorecard contains the concepts that were evaluated along with the performance criteria. After one cycle of assessment of using performance appraisal, the Department is interested to know whether the changes implemented will result in any program improvement. It is envisioned this continual process of assessment will lead to continuous quality improvement.

Assessment of Program Outcomes

The poster describes the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s process of assessing program outcomes. The steps in …

The poster describes the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s process of assessing program outcomes. The steps in the assessment process are first described followed by a list of program outcomes. Only direct modes of assessment are used. The frequency of assessment is tabulated. The poster then expands on the use of performance appraisal in select courses, which represents a relatively new mode of assessment that the department has recently adopted. Performance appraisal is performed once every three years per outcome and is advantageous in that it can be used as a vehicle to involve more faculty members and facilitate faculty buy-in to the assessment process. Detailed is the schedule involved in the performance appraisal assessment process along with a sample scorecard and a sample evaluation of one outcome. The sample scorecard contains the concepts that were evaluated along with the performance criteria. After one cycle of assessment of using performance appraisal, the Department is interested to know whether the changes implemented will result in any program improvement. It is envisioned this continual process of assessment will lead to continuous quality improvement.

Assessment of Program Outcomes

The poster describes the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s process of assessing program outcomes. The steps in …