Paper Authors

Abstract

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

Using Self-Assessment to Evaluate the Effectiveness of an Engineering Management Course with Cross-Functional Teams

Brian J. Sauser

Stevens Institute of Technology Systems Engineering and Engineering Management

Abstract

A self-assessment tool was used to measure the effectiveness of an undergraduate capstone course in systems design/engineering management taught at Rutgers University. To quantify the impact of the course, a self-assessment behavior-oriented survey was used called the Team DeveloperTM, which measured the student team members on several cognitive and behavioral skills. The foundation of the course was built around an industry simulation. Students were organized into teams or “companies” that had to develop a proposal to win a contract from “NASA” for development of a colony on Mars. Lectures were given by interdisciplinary faculty from throughout the university, industry, and the NASA community on the engineering disciplines needed to develop their subsystems and the engineering management and proposal skills needed to design, integrate, and draft a proposal to win an engineering contract. This course allowed students to use innovative design principles to solve complex problems and strengthen this with engineering management and business skills. The Team DeveloperTM showed a positive impact of the course on the student’s behavior and activities in the four areas of collaboration, communication, decision-making, and self-management. Rutgers University recognized this course in 2000 with its award for Excellence in Academic Creativity and Innovation.

Introduction

In business, one of the keys to success is customer satisfaction. In academia, students are customers of the institution for which they are attending. Common in academia is the use of course evaluations to assess the value of a course and its impact on the student, the customer. Unfortunately, these do not equate the value of personal growth to the student and do not truly associate the full impact of a course. This paper will discuss an innovative industry simulation course taught at Rutgers University using cross-functional teams and how a self-assessment tool, the Team DeveloperTM, was used to determine the added value to the student and the effectiveness of the course in four behavioral skills: collaboration, communication, decision- making, and self-management.

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education

• Citation

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

Sauser, B. (2005, June), Using Self Assessment To Evaluate The Effectiveness Of An Engineering Management Course With Cross Functional Teams Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14741