Employers, a vital partner for program assessment

Scott Hamilton; Kelly Arcieri

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Cooperative and Experiential Education Division Technical Session 2
Page Count: 25
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--40774
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/40774
Download Count: 278

Paper Authors

biography

Scott Hamilton York College of Pennsylvania

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Scott Hamilton is a Professor of Civil Engineering at York College of Pennsylvania. He is a registered Professional Engineer in California and has both a MS and PhD in civil engineering and a MS in engineering management from Stanford University and a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is a retired US Army Corps of Engineers officer who has had assignments in the US, Germany, Korea, and Afghanistan. During his military career he spent over 10 years on the faculty at the US Military Academy at West Point teaching civil engineering. He also served as the Director, Graduate Professional Development at Northeastern University’s College of Engineering. He is the recipient of the 2021 NSPE Engineering Education Excellence Award and the 2019 ASCE Thomas A Lenox ExCEEd Leadership Award.

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biography

Kelly Arcieri York College of Pennsylvania

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Kelly Arcieri has served as the Co-op/Internship Advisor for the Civil Engineering and Computer Science programs at York College of Pennsylvania since 2017. She teaches a career training class to prepare civil engineering and computer science sophomores for their first co-op or internship. Kelly has helped 167 students to find nearly 200 co-ops or internships.
With over 30 years of experience in education, Kelly previously worked in Advancement at York Country Day School, Franklin & Marshall College, and Allegheny College, where she developed working relationships with many industry partners. She has continued to build connections with hundreds of industry partners to benefit York College students.
Kelly has a BA in English from Allegheny College, and recently earned a Master of Arts in Strategic Leadership & Management from York College of Pennsylvania.

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Abstract

This is an evidence-based paper discussing the use of student employers and supervisors as part of an engineering program’s assessment plan. In 2016, our institution, York College of Pennsylvania, started a new civil engineering program, with the goal of becoming ABET-accredited. This new program joined three other engineering programs already established at the school. As part of the program design, students were required to complete three mandatory full-time co-op experiences, each lasting 12-15 weeks, interspersed with the traditional eight semesters of classroom and lab instruction. In developing this program the authors wanted to include a standardized evaluation tool for the co-op students’ performance that was easy for employers to use and was focused on developing the student by an honest and frank employer assessment. Faculty also realized that by looking at the then-new ABET student outcomes (SOs 1-7) they might be able to develop a simple evaluation tool for employers to share both critical developmental feedback with the students as well as provide another direct measure of student attainment of some of the ABET student outcomes. In this paper, the authors will briefly discuss the co-op program and how it fits into the curriculum and review the literature on the benefits and challenges of work experience as well as developing work assessment measures. The paper will then explain the development of the evaluation survey tool, how the questions were selected, and their connection to ABET SO’s 1-7. The authors will share how results are used in terms of ABET SO attainment from the employers’ perspectives and how they are used to support their system of continuous improvement, ABET Criterion 4. The paper will also talk about other ways that this assessment data can be used to provide a representative overall program assessment, monitor the effects of program changes, highlight trends and provide direct third-party program assessment. At the authors’ institution, the majority of students enter the engineering workforce immediately after graduation, as opposed to starting graduate programs or entering into other fields. Involving employers who have experience with the students in the workplace in the program's assessment can provide an impartial, unbiased assessment that may be more indicative of student preparedness to enter the workforce as a practicing engineer than grades and GPAs. Finally, the paper will offer recommendations that any program could use if they have students who participate in co-op, internships, or other work experiences, whether as a requirement or an elective.

Citation
Format

Hamilton, S., & Arcieri, K. (2022, August), Employers, a vital partner for program assessment Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40774

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This is an evidence-based paper discussing the use of student employers and supervisors as part of an engineering program’s assessment plan. In 2016, our institution, York College of Pennsylvania, started a new civil engineering program, with the goal of becoming ABET-accredited.  This new program joined three other engineering programs already established at the school.  As part of the program design, students were required to complete three mandatory full-time co-op experiences, each lasting 12-15 weeks, interspersed with the traditional eight semesters of classroom and lab instruction.  In developing this program the authors wanted to include a standardized evaluation tool for the co-op students’ performance that was easy for employers to use and was focused on developing the student by an honest and frank employer assessment.  Faculty also realized that by looking at the then-new ABET student outcomes (SOs 1-7) they might be able to develop a simple evaluation tool for employers to share both critical developmental feedback with the students as well as provide another direct measure of student attainment of some of the ABET student outcomes.  In this paper, the authors will briefly discuss the co-op program and how it fits into the curriculum and review the literature on the benefits and challenges of work experience as well as developing work assessment measures.  The paper will then explain the development of the evaluation survey tool, how the questions were selected, and their connection to ABET SO’s 1-7.  The authors will share how results are used in terms of ABET SO attainment from the employers’ perspectives and how they are used to support their system of continuous improvement, ABET Criterion 4. The paper will also talk about other ways that this assessment data can be used to provide a representative overall program assessment, monitor the effects of program changes, highlight trends and provide direct third-party program assessment.  At the authors’ institution, the majority of students enter the engineering workforce immediately after graduation, as opposed to starting graduate programs or entering into other fields.  Involving employers who have experience with the students in the workplace in the program's assessment can provide an impartial, unbiased assessment that may be more indicative of student preparedness to enter the workforce as a practicing engineer than grades and GPAs. Finally, the paper will offer recommendations that any program could use if they have students who participate in co-op, internships, or other work experiences, whether as a requirement or an elective.
AU  - Scott Hamilton
AU  - Kelly Arcieri
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Employers, a vital partner for program assessment
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/40774
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--40774
ER  -