Satisfaction of ABET Student Outcomes

Direct assessment of Student Outcomes (SOs) in various courses is a requirement for ABET accreditation. What students learn as a consequence of these assessments is also called outcome based learning. However, designing questions in various subjects that directly assess the satisfaction of SOs is difficult for most instructors. If the questions are not properly designed such that they address the relevant SOs, student scores will not be a true reflection of their outcome based learning. CLOs (Course Learning Outcomes), on the other hand, are related directly to the course content and it is normal for an instructor to design questions that assess the satisfaction of CLOs. This is a traditional approach of designing questions where outcome based learning is not obvious. This paper compares the normally followed approach of designing SO based assessments with that of CLO based. Further, the paper presents a simple approach that allows an instructor to ask questions directly related to the CLOs and then convert the assessment data to obtain the satisfaction of SOs in each course. This way the results of outcome based learning are more authentic and are achieved with a lot less effort.