Assessment in Problem-based Learning Incorporated into Traditional Engineering Education: Difficulties and Evaluation

Assessment in problem-based learning (PBL) incorporated into traditional engineering education should lead students to fulfil the PBL aims. Using process and outcome-oriented assessment methods, we introduced an assessment scheme that addresses all eleven outcomes of EAC 3 in engineering and contains individual and group assessment. The present article aims to expose and present difficulties of group assessment with 'problem projects' integrated in the assessment scheme. 'Problem projects' could provide an objective picture of individual student's knowledge, skills and progress if they are used in combination with other assessment elements from the scheme. The assessment scheme was used in an experiment, where PBL and traditional instruction were compared in an introductory statistics course. In the experiment, significant difference in students' achievements across 'problem projects' was observed. Despite difficulties in assessment the results encouraged us to use PBL also in other subjects.