Holistic Assessment of Student Performance in Multidisciplinary Engineering Capstone Design Projects

Capstone design courses are commonly employed in engineering schools to culminate students' learning experiences, as called for by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Although widely considered one of the best practices of engineering education, these courses continue to challenge the field. Capstone courses are challenging not only because they involve open-ended design that may require researching untried approaches while at the same time being accountable to sponsors' particular requirements; but also due to their multidisciplinary nature and the dynamics of student teams. These challenges are reflected in the problem of giving each project the relevant advising and each student a fair final grade. In this paper we present a holistic approach to advising and evaluation of individual students in multidisciplinary teams that was developed and has proven to work at Rensselaer. The approach adopted a two-person, often multidisciplinary, instructing team design, coupled with 'mentors' from sponsoring companies, to coach the students; and developed dedicated rubrics to measure student performance concerning adherence to design process, team participation, and communication skills. These new rubrics added to the traditional methods, which include group reports and student peer evaluations. The new team teaching design also separated the duties associated with coaching and judging, to make advising and evaluation more effective and objective. Our internal reviews and students' peer evaluations showed that a high degree of consistency in grading has been achieved with the implementation of the new design. Finally, we submit that the basic structure of the holistic approach-i.e., blending objectives with due process and evaluation from multiple sources, is consistent with practices in industry that students will face after graduation.