Exploring scenario-based assessment of students' global engineering competency: Building evidence of validity of a China-based situational judgment test

Background

Engineers operate in an increasingly global environment, making it important that engineering students develop global engineering competency to prepare them for success in the workplace. To understand this learning, we need assessment approaches that go beyond traditional self-report surveys. A previous study (Jesiek et al., Journal of Engineering Education 2020; 109(3):1–21) began this process by developing a situational judgment test (SJT) to assess global engineering competency based in the Chinese context and administering it to practicing engineers.

Purpose

We built on this previous study by administering the SJT to engineering students to explore what prior experiences related to their SJT performance and how their SJT performance compared with practicing engineers' performance on the SJT.

Method

Engineering students completed a survey including the SJT and related self-report survey instruments. We collected data from three groups of students: those who had studied abroad in China; those who had studied abroad elsewhere; and those who had not studied abroad.

Results

We found that students' SJT performance did not relate to their scores on the self-report instruments, but did relate to their participation in study abroad programs. The students also performed better on the SJT when compared to the practicing engineers.

Conclusions

Our results highlight the need to use multiple forms of assessment for global engineering competence. Although building evidence for the validity of the Global Engineering Competency China SJT is an ongoing process, this data collection technique may provide new insights on global engineering competency compared to traditionally used assessments.