Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Session

Impact of ABET EC 2002 on a Chemical Engineering Curriculum

Sean Clancey, Nam Kim, and Gerry Caneba Department of Chemical Engineering Michigan Technological University

2003 ASEE Annual Conference Nashville, Tennessee

Introduction Assessment of the curriculum in the Chemical Engineering Department at MTU has been ongoing since 1995. Over the following seven years, eight assessment tools have been developed and partially implemented in an effort to determine whether the curriculum meets educational objectives set forth by ABET EC2000 as well as program criteria set forth by the AIChE. These are the eight tools: (1) a department “skills test” administered to graduating seniors who volunteer to take the test; (2) internal and external reviews of plant design reports and AIChE senior design projects; (3) an exit interview of graduating seniors, conducted by the department head, regarding their views of the curriculum; (4) a survey, conducted by the College of Engineering, of alumni two and five years after graduation; (5) portfolio of written material in capstone and communications classes; (6) internal and external review of oral presentations in capstone courses; (7) student participation in the “PAWS” Safety program in the Unit Operations Laboratory; and (8) performance on the Fundamentals of Engineering exam.

Three of the tools--the departmental skills test, the interviews, and the surveys–have only been implemented since 1999. Tool five--the portfolio--has never been fully implemented, as it overlap the reviews of the plant design reports. Discussion has been conducted on folding that tool into the second tool and replacing it with a summary of the comments made by work supervisors of students completing co-op assignments. Those comments concern the supervisors’ evaluation of the students’ preparation for professional engineering work.

A detailed explanation of these tools can be found in the 2001 conference proceedings1. This paper will discuss the most recent data from these tools, then will discuss the results of curricular changes made on the basis of feedback from these tools.

Tool #1 Skills Test The skills test is “department designed…to be given to the students in the Spring Quarter in the Unit Operations Laboratory. The test will measure fundamental knowledge, design skills, and problem solving skills.1”

Prior skills test results showed a lack of readiness for the senior-level Plant Design course, with evidence showing a somewhat weak understanding of thermodynamics. Two other educational

Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition © 2003 American Society for Engineering Education

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Kim, N., & Clancey, S. (2003, June), Impact Of Abet Ec 2002 On A Chemical Engineering Curriculum Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--11715