Engineering graduate attribute attainment measurement models

ABSTRACT

Various outcome-based education (OBE) performance measurement approaches demonstrate students’ attainment of a set of Graduate Attributes (GA) in the engineering programme. This paper presents four measurement models, namely the indicative, explicit, GA assessment, and culminating models, to measure GA attainment. The indicative model uses the total assessment mark as an indicator for GA attainment, whereas the explicit model utilises a specific mark from an assessment. The GA assessment and culminating models utilise the explicit approach from assessments that fulfil the GA requirement. The culminating model only consists of assessments from advanced and capstone courses. This research aims to determine whether the indicative model that uses an indicator approach can significantly represent GA attainment. This research also explores assessment selection differences in GA attainment. Statistical analysis was used to determine if the models were significantly different through the paired two-sample means t-test. The indicative model could not represent the GA attainment as it differed substantially from the explicit model. Both GA assessment and culminating models can be used to represent the attainment of students’ GA. GA assessment model provides monitoring of students’ progress in GA attainment, while the culminating models enable measurement at capstones and in advanced years.

KEYWORDS:

• Engineering graduate attribute
• measurement model

Acknowledgment

Ethics approval for this work was obtained from Swinburne’s Human Research Ethics Committee (SUHREC) with the approval ID 20226882-12115. The data owner, Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science, Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, gave consent for using the data for this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

LockHei Ngu

Lock Hei Ngu, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. Her research interests include carbon capture and utilization, and outcome-based education.

Charlie ChinVoon Sia

Charlie ChinVoon Sia, PhD, Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. His research interests are fracture mechanics of composite materials and flipped open-ended laboratory assessment.

MingHa Lee

MingHa Lee, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics in the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. Her research interest is in the field of statistical process control.

Rajeswari Lakshmanan

Rajeswari Lakshmanan, was a lecturer in Mathematics in the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. Her research focuses on statistics and calculus.

JiaChi Lai

JiaChi Lai, Lecturer in Chemical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. Her research interest is in the area of waste treatment via composting.

TingSoon Ling

TingSoon Ling, Lecturer in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. His research interests are microcontroller based smart system and RF oscillator design.