Designing a Rubric to Assess the Problem Definition Phase of Student Design Projects in Upper Year Engineering Courses

In order to bridge the gap between a student's understanding and instructor's perception of subject mastery, it is important to assess upper year capstone design projects in a way which targets the important aspects within each stage of the design process, while providing feedback that is instructive and helpful.A rubric was created that assesses a student's mastery of the problem definition phase of a design project (as defined by Dominick et al. 2001).The rubric assesses students in two areas: key concepts and key steps.These areas fully encompass the goals of the problem definition phase, not only in terms of the project's completion, but also relate to the learning goals that instructors should have for the student, as well as providing feedback that can help develop a student's mastery of the topic area.