The use of employer surveys to evaluate professional-practice related skills in an industrial experience program

Abstract

Students' non-course activities such as co-ops and internships offer a very good opportunity for students to develop engineering-related professional practice skills (sometimes known as 'soft skills') that are included in the EC 2000 criteria. Employee evaluations have long been an integral part of the Mercer University School of Engineering (MUSE) Industrial Experience Program. Here at Mercer, we have decided to use employer evaluations to investigate all eleven EC2000 a-k outcomes, as they relate to the MUSE 8 Outcomes, to gain an outsider's perspective on our curriculum. The director of the Industrial Experience Program and a member of the Assessment Committee obtained Institutional Review Board approval to conduct a survey to document the effect of co-op experiences on EC2000 outcomes. To facilitate this research, the industrial experience director revised the Employer's Evaluation form to include direct references to the MUSE 8. This revised form was first distributed to employers at the beginning of the Summer 2001 term. Forty-eight students participated in the program during the Summer 2001 term of which thirty-nine employee evaluations were returned to the Industrial Experience Program Office. Data has since been collected for Fall 2001, Spring 2002 and Summer 2002. Seventeen students participated during Fall 2001, twelve during Spring 2002 and thirty-three during Summer 2002. Of these, sixteen, eleven and thirty-one surveys, respectively, were returned. This paper describes preliminary data from the employer survey as it relates to MUSE 8 outcomes.