A qualitative and systematic assessment methodology for course outcomes from formal laboratory work products in electrical engineering

Laboratory courses should provide students with practical hands-on skills and knowledge pertinent to their field. Formal lab reports, the work products of lab courses, can be used to quantitatively assess these competencies. However, the requirements of formal lab reports, their structure, and the assessment methodology are often ambiguous. Additionally, the lack of an established assessment method can result in inconsistent and subjective assessments if multiple teaching assistants are involved in teaching the same course. This can lead to confusion and dissatisfaction for both student and teaching assistant. The Electrical Engineering program at Vanderbilt University has developed a quantitative and systematic method for assessing formal technical lab reports. This method utilizes scoring matrices, which are divided into categories based on predetermined criteria. By assessing these categories and combining their results, a quantitative measure of various practical abilities and outcomes can be evaluated from the labs. This paper presents the new quantitative and systematic assessment method.