A direct method for teaching and measuring engineering professional skills for global workplace competency: Adaptations to computing at a University in the United Arab Emirates

The Engineering Professional Skills Assessment (EPSA) is the first and only direct method and measurement tool in the literature that can be used to teach and simultaneously measure the ABET non-technical skills for use at both course and program levels. The American Society for Engineering Education award-winning EPSA is a discussion-based performance activity designed to elicit students´ knowledge and application of engineering professional skills. A partnership with Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was formed in 2014 to adapt the EPSA to the field of computing, as well as to the UAE context. The final deliverable of the project will be the Computing Professional Skills Assessment, which will be made freely available to the computing and IT communities worldwide. This paper describes the initial stages of the project, the development of one scenario and two dimensions of the CPS Rubric.