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Appraisal System for Superior Engineering Education Evaluation - Instrument Sharing and Scholarship (ASSESS)

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Conference

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

San Antonio, Texas

Publication Date

June 10, 2012

Start Date

June 10, 2012

End Date

June 13, 2012

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

NSF Grantees' Poster Session

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

18

Page Numbers

25.203.1 - 25.203.18

DOI

10.18260/1-2--20963

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/20963

Download Count

447

Paper Authors

biography

Denny C. Davis Washington State University

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Denny Davis is professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at Washington State University. He launched and directed the Engineering Education Research Center between 2005 and 2011. His scholarly work addresses engineering design learning and assessment. He is a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.

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Michael S. Trevisan Washington State University

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Mike Trevisan is a professor of educational psychology at Washington State University and the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Education. For more than 17 years, he has worked with engineering educators across the country to develop engineering design curriculum and assessments for a variety of engineering disciplines. His key collaborator is Dr. Denny Davis, Washington State University.

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Howard P. Davis Washington State University

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Howard Davis received degrees from the Evergreen State College (B.A. 1976), WSU (B.S. 1981, M.S. 1988), and the University of Oregon (Ph.D. 1993). He is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering. He has been the President and CEO of IPM, a medical device company and Total Dynamics, LLC, a software company. He is also on the board of directors of Developing World Technologies, a company started by former students of the capstone class that he teaches. His interests include engineering and entrepreneurship pedagogy and assessment, technology development, and clinical applications of biomedical instrumentation.

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Shane A. Brown P.E. Washington State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-3669-8407

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Shane Brown conducts research in conceptual and epistemological change, social capital, and diffusion of innovations. In 2011, he received the NSF CAREER Award to investigate how engineers think about and use concepts that academics consider to be important.

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Brian F. French Washington State University

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Brian F. French is an Associate Professor of educational leadership and counseling psychology and Co-Director of the Learning and Performance Research Center at Washington State University. His area of research focuses on applied and methodological issues in educational and psychological measurement.

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Abstract

Appraisal System for Superior Engineering Education Evaluation-Instrument Sharing and Scholarship (ASSESS)AbstractAlthough engineering educators implement many educational innovations to improve studentachievement, few evaluate the impacts of their innovations to support confident adoption of theirinnovations by others. A national panel of 30 engineering education and evaluation professionalshas called for a national resource to enable effective engineering education project evaluation.This paper reports on the process and framework for creating a library of superior evaluationinstruments that supports scholarly innovation in engineering education, referred to as theASSESS system.The overarching goal of the ASSESS project work is to create, thoroughly test, and strategicallycommunicate the system so it is positioned for successful adoption and implementation by theengineering education community. It seeks to build the evaluation capacity of the engineeringeducation community by achievement of two sub-goals: 1. Instrument utilization. Enable engineering educators to locate and effectively deploy superior evaluation instruments to enhance engineering education project discoveries and successes, and 2. Instrument development. Support the engineering education evaluation community in the identification and refinement of evaluation instruments with potential to become major assets to the profession.A team of engineering education and evaluation professionals and project consultants haveestablished a framework for evaluation instrument characterization, database structure, and webinterface that supports desired user functionality. Each candidate instrument is characterized by adescriptive summary, applications to engineering education, underlying theoretical foundations,technical specifications (e.g., reliability, validity data), and implementation features, anddirections for accessing the instrument. Published information on the instrument and its testingare referenced. Instruments are described in ways sensitive to the needs of novice users as wellas needs of evaluation experts.The evaluation instrument inventory is contained in a web-based database that supportsinformation storage, retrieval, and input. The database contains prose textual fields fordescriptive information, as well as quantitative and selected item fields for searchable data on theinstruments. Users are able to search the database for instruments of interest based on keywordsearches and selected item characteristics (content, instrument type, technical specifications, etc.)that fit their evaluation needs. The interface will also support expert review and user feedback oninstruments to facilitate instrument selection and to guide instrument improvement.Because broad utilization of the ASSESS database in required for evaluation capacity building,adoption research is being conducted to determine factors that influence the use of the database.User needs and adoption preferences will be determined and used to guide the final deploymentof the ASSESS system. Evaluation experts from the engineering education evaluationcommunity will continue to review, guide, and contribute superior instruments that are importantto the engineering education community.As the ASSESS system is deployed, the engineering education community will be able to locateand effectively implement evaluation processes that credibly evaluate impacts of engineeringeducation innovations. This will support community adoption of course materials, instructionalpractices, recruitment and retention programs, and novel ideas for future research investigations– all of which advance engineering education.

Davis, D. C., & Trevisan, M. S., & Davis, H. P., & Brown, S. A., & French, B. F. (2012, June), Appraisal System for Superior Engineering Education Evaluation - Instrument Sharing and Scholarship (ASSESS) Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--20963

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