Preparing for ABET accreditation, the first important thing to understand is the meaning of the term "Assessment". Assessments together constitute the major source of all data being collected through the course folders for ABET accreditation. An assessment is usually defined as follows:
“Assessment is one or more processes that identify, collect, and prepare data to evaluate the attainment of student outcomes.”
From the above definition of assessment, we may see that for ABET accreditation, assessment means assessment of abilities related to “student outcomes" (SOs). However, this raises the question: How the students attain these abilities? The answer is obvious. These abilities are attained only through the courses of the curriculum (including capstone project). These abilities can be assessed directly only through the assessments in these courses (quizzes, homework, mid-term, term-project, presentations, final exam, etc.).
To understand, how SOs can be assessed through the assessments in various courses let us see what is required at the course level. A course deals with a set of topics in a subject area. It is required that students attain a set of abilities related to the subject area of the course. These course-related abilities are called “Course Learning Outcomes” (CLOs). It is the basic and most important responsibility of an instructor to make sure that students are attaining the abilities spelled out by the CLOs of the course. The CLOs must be attained at a specified Bloom's level. Remember, ABET requires the syllabus of each course to include “Specific goals for the course” i.e. the CLOs as well as the SOs addressed in the course (Appendix A of the SSR). If the instructor fails to teach and assess the abilities related to the CLOs, the curriculum criterion will not be satisfied. Obviously, CLOs must be assessed and the assessment data must be evaluated to prove the curriculum criterion is satisfied.
Trying to assess one or more SOs in a course without considering the CLOs, is not at all desirable. It will remove the focus of the students and the instructor from the subject matter of the course. We can give several examples but let us look at the example of ABET SO 7 (An ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies). If an instructor designs assessments to test this SO on issues that are not relevant to the course subject matter, this can be easily done but is this desirable? The assessments in a course must always relate to the subject matter of the course.
Trying to assess one or more SOs in a course without considering the CLOs, is not at all desirable. It will remove the focus of the students and the instructor from the subject matter of the course. We can give several examples but let us look at the example of ABET SO 7 (An ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies). If an instructor designs assessments to test this SO on issues that are not relevant to the course subject matter, this can be easily done but is this desirable? The assessments in a course must always relate to the subject matter of the course.
Since, students attain the abilities related to the SOs only through the courses, CLOs of a course must be related to one or more SOs. These relationships can be shown in a matrix form referred to as “CLO-SO map”. The course instructor must make sure that each SO related to the CLOs as given in the CLO-SO map of the course is assessed as described above through questions pertaining to the subject matter of the course.
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