Direct and Indirect Assessment Methods: Key Ingredients for Continuous Quality Improvement and ABET Accreditation

The new accreditation criteria, better known as ABET EC 2000, require that each program' must have an assessment process with documented results. Furthermore, white paper by the Engineering Accreditation Commission's Executive Committee states, 'The assessment process should include direct and indirect measures and does not rely only on self-report surveys and evidence that the material is covered in the curriculum. This paper presents: (a) an overview of an assessment process to make engineering programs ABET accreditation compliant; (b) assessment methods that are used to collect data, interpret them, and utilize the results to improve engineering programs; (c) a process to choose the appropriate mix of direct and indirect assessment methods/instruments, and (d) implementation of assessment methods to an electrical engineering program. As an example, the paper presents a sample of recent changes that have led to improvements based on program assessment of the Univeristy or Portland School of Engineering electrical engineering program.