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Impact of COVID-19 on Capstone Projects Outcomes

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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

ETD - STEM Issues in ET I

Page Count

12

DOI

10.18260/1-2--40546

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/40546

Download Count

273

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Paper Authors

biography

Asif Ahmed State University of New York, Polytechnic Institute

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Currently Assistant Professor in SUNY Poly, Utica, NY

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Abstract

Capstone Projects, CTC 490, is a mandatory course for all Civil Engineering Technology students during their senior year. This specific course is designed to apply cumulative experiences gathered from wide range of courses in the curriculum. The students analyze and design real life civil engineering project, write a written report followed by an oral presentation. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, student learning outcomes were significantly disrupted as the plan of study changed to online mode from March 2020. The purpose of the current study is to document the students learning experiences of the capstone design course during the pandemic year. As the course is so comprehensive in nature, wide range of student learning assessment is possible from this course. Data were collected from Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semester to assess the student outcomes in the category of communication with the teammates, fulfill roles and responsibilities, and listening to the teammates. The scales of one to four (1-not acceptable, 2- below standards, 3- meets standards, 4- exemplary) were chosen so that the instructor had a clear view to make a decision whether the expectations were met or not. The measure of successful performance in each attribute was achieving a score of 3 or 4. A benchmark of 70% was selected to gage the level of success. The results showed that the student outcomes were impacted most in the communications category. The level of success in the capstone rubric were documented and connected with the related program outcomes of the ETAC/ABET criteria. Outcomes of this study will be helpful in planning to teach such kind of course in situation like pandemic or other situations out of our control.

Ahmed, A. (2022, August), Impact of COVID-19 on Capstone Projects Outcomes Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40546

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