Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 430 de 957
• Surveys of graduates: Performed semi-annually to students who finished the
entire curriculum and are close to graduating.
The assessment of Program Educational Objectives (PEO) is held every 3 years and is the
main objective of measuring the professional performance of the engineering school
graduates. As in previous cases, the process comprehends measurement, evaluation and
improvement. The two tools used to achieve this goal are:
• Surveys of employers: The impact of professional exercise of graduates in the
business sector is analyzed.
• Surveys of graduates: The satisfaction of graduates in the local and global market,
as well as achievements taking into account the program objectives is inquired.
Results
The Global Assessment model has been evolving, so that today, one can consider that there
is a proven model in progress in terms of cycles of improvement and is sustainable. This is
one of the most important results of maintaining a system for quality assurance in the
education of students, which continuously evaluates the objectives and uses the results to
improve the programs (Sarin, 2000).
Based on the recommendations made by program evaluators of ABET, best practices
schemes were designed and are being implemented, which are making it possible to
achieve a significant level of improvement with regard to the functioning of the global
model and obtaining results for decision making. Among the tools being used in the
improved model, the rubrics for assessment of the program outcomes of the programs are
highlighted. The use of rubrics was started first in 2010 in the semester as a pilot with two
programs: Mechanical Engineering and Systems Engineering program.
Since the objective was to measure the achievement of program outcomes to establish the
improvement cycles and provide formative feedback, it was decided to use analytic
scoring rubrics (Mertler, 2001).
Previous to the use of rubrics, the evaluation cycle for the program outcomes was
redefined in order to simplify the process of collecting, organizing and processing the data,
thus focusing on a more accurate assessment of program outcomes.
The redesign of the process allowed for a better assessment of program outcomes, based
on rubrics, provided the faculty the assessment of the courses and promoted innovation in
teaching and especially in the methods of evaluation; today there is a better focused
analysis, which has permitted the implementation of improvement actions that are
positively impacting the processes of education of students.
Future work
From the results obtained from the pilot developed, the global assessment model has been
redefined.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011