The Design of a Robust Tool for the Measurement of Understanding the Impact of Engineering Solutions

The modern world is changing at a rapid pace and the nature of engineering problems is evolving alongside it.It is not sufficient to consider engineering solutions only in terms of the formulas to be applied.Rather, factors such as environmental issues, cultural practices, and political situations must be considered in order to develop appropriate engineering responses to global problems.As such, engineering students must be conscious of the global environment and able to develop creative, viable, appropriate engineering solutions for the ever-changing modern world.This objective follows a national trend in engineering education to prepare students to handle new global challenges and to combat declining interest in the field of engineering.This idea is reinforced in an article entitled "The Research Agenda for the New Discipline of Engineering Education" in the October 2006 issue of the Journal of Engineering Education.As a means for achieving this objective, this research focuses on the development of an appropriate teaching technique and assessment method for ABET outcome "h," "that students attain the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context."background Before developing and implementing any kind of teaching technique and assessment method, a foundation in learning, assessment, and quality improvement theory must be established.Bloom's Revised Taxonomy is based in educational psychology and presents a classification of learning skills and objectives for students.The goal is to present a holistic approach to learning by combining the three educational domains-affective, psychomotor, and cognitive.The cognitive domain, where traditional educational methods fall, is best illustrated by a pyramid, as seen in Figure 1.In order to reach the apex, the ability to create, students must first master the lower levels of the pyramid in sequence.Following the steps of the pyramid represents the process of thinking things through.The Four Pillars of Knowledge represent the progression of learning-factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive.The metacognitive pillar is the most advanced of the four and can be defined as "learning to learn."This means that a student is aware of his own personal learning skills, habits, and performance.Assessment can be represented by a feedback loop, as seen in Figure 2. In terms of educational assessment, the instructor provides course content to the student, who then uses the given teaching technique and a learning process to produce an output, such as an exam or homework assignment, demonstrating deeper understanding of the course content.This output is then assessed by the instructor who then communicates this assessment back to the student and modifies the course content as appropriate.Then, the cycle repeats.With each iteration of the loop, the student should add to previous knowledge and continue to grow in understanding.This assessment model relates to the concept of continuous quality improvement, a results-oriented program of process improvement based in the scientific method.The general steps of a continuous quality improvement program are shown in Figure 3. Continuous quality improvement can be used to close the assessment loop discussed previously and can be considered from two vantage points.Faculty can use continuous quality improvement ideas in teaching course content and in assessment methods, while students can use continuous quality improvement ideas in developing and demonstrating deeper understanding.