Student self-assessment in upper level engineering courses

Faculty cannot ensure that educational program objectives and course learning objectives are being met unless both students and faculty become involved in the process of assessment and evaluation. In two senior-level courses, the authors are addressing these issues through course learning models that directly involve students via reflection, discussion, empowerment and ownership in the course. The relevance of the learning model to real-life, industrial experiences is underscored as well. Their approach includes a student journal, an engineering workbook, a self-assessment report and a student management team, as well as periodic surveys throughout the semester. These various instruments form a set of self-assessment tools that provide documentation related to the following issues: do students have the correct background and preparation for the course?; do students understand the course learning objectives?; are students fulfilling these learning objectives?; are there ways to improve the course during the current semester?; and are there ways to improve the course in future semesters? This paper describes the processes used to develop and administer these student self-assessment instruments. It presents some results of this assessment process and it demonstrates how this assessment process is being used to improve these courses, as well as the electrical and computer engineering academic programs.