The assessment of ethical and sustainable engineering studies in undergraduate university education

Abstract

This paper reports on a 4-year cycle of action research to develop and refine a method of assessment for an engineering studies paper that contains both ethics and sustainability education for undergraduate engineering degrees at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand. At the inception of this ethics module in 2006, the assessment procedure consisted of assignments, group project-work report, group oral presentation and examination to assess student learning. This assessment gave the usual multiple indicator perspective comprising a range and balance between written, oral and work-produced-report assessment. However, the assessment focus was shifted from empirical assessment methods as a test of memory using the quantitative aspect of remembering facts, systems and procedures, to a qualitative aspect of conceptual understanding, and explanation. This shift included both formative and summative assessment scheme, in which some of the work could be subject to interpretation of the ethical theory when applied to case studies, rather than assessment of empirical facts and procedures which may be constrained to a teacher's implicit development, interpretation and assessment of the syllabus content. The assessment procedure was redesigned in 2008 for classes of 150 plus, comprising a formative assessment and feedback through essays, a formative feedback by the in-class case-studies and summative assessment by examining the major case studies and their understanding of the course material in a final examination. © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education.