Ethics and Soft Skill Assessment Tool for Program Outcome Attainment: A Case Study

Abstract

Comprehensive curriculum is essential for overalldevelopment of professionals. Like other countries, in Indiatoo the engineering educators have a task of insistingattainment of graduate attributes to suit the global needs. Teaching engineering courses help us to attain the programoutcomes [1]. However, real challenge lies in efficientattainment of ethical principles and effective functioning ofprofessionals as a member in diverse team by effectivecommunication. Thus proper guiding and assessing practical engineering skills is the need of the hour. We focus on educative growth of ethical and communicative skills attained in the present study wherecapstone project is taken as an example. The project issubdivided into two level first the pre-project and the finalproject. Capstone project is an amalgamation of all the basiclearning and the application component of the curriculum. In order to evaluate the attainment of ethical skill andcommunicative skill, the assessment rubrics need to bedesigned well. This work discusses the manner which canmeasure the attribute attainment quite precisely. After acquiring fundamental knowledge on engineering subjects, the students are made to work on acapstone project. Attainment of the program outcome (PO)is quantified with a class with seventy students. The finalyear under-graduate students are divided into group of fourto the maximum. A topic and a faculty adviser ofcorresponding specialization is assigned to each of thegroups. Rubrics of formative assessment are attentivelychosen to incorporate the attributes of ethics and soft skills. Bimonthly evaluations were graded by the guide anddepartmental faculty other than the guide. The summativeassessment is done along with an external examiner from the neighboring institution. Mode of attainment of courseoutcome (CO) to PO has been discussed in the full paperalong with the state diagram of the evaluation process. Asthe students go ahead with execution of the project throughregular meetings with guide, the communication is assessedby rubrics which emphasize the report writing skilldevelopment. The written communication skill is thensubsequently corroborated by oral presentation. Thepresentation is evaluated again to judge the oralcommunication skill as a part of a team of maximum fourmembers with varied aptitudes. Another important point isin the rubrics we have introduced plagiarism check to ensure the ethical attribute of the graduate. By keeping a threshold value for acceptance limit of plagiarism one can evaluate the skill of written communication and originality of thoughts. The attainment of CO to PO is graded from theformative assessment score in pre-project work and finalproject work. In order to take in-depth evaluation, we havetaken 75% of the total marks as the criteria for assessing aparticular skill of a student. Capstone project is consideredas culmination of all the teaching-learning in the curriculumfor the discipline. After framing the rubics and mapping ofthe particular Course Outcome to Program Outcome, logichas been exercised selectively to map with either strong ormoderate attainment of the latter. The process and it's prosand cons will be discussed in detials in full paper.