Incorporating and assessing ABET "soft skills" in the technical curriculum

Abstract

TAC-ABET accreditation requires that each program develop program outcomes that embrace ABET criteria 2a to k. Several of those, such as diversity, internationalization, and ethics, are often referred to as the soft skills. Generally students exposure to these items is through their elective (or required) courses in the humanities and social sciences. However, ABET accreditation also requires that the achievement of the outcomes be assessed and evaluated. Obtaining direct evidence of achievement of the outcomes by the students can be problematical as the other departments may not be doing assessment. Even if they are, the technology students in a humanities course are probably just a small fraction of the course enrollment, so it may be difficult to obtain information about their performance. While we rely on other departments to provide the bulk of the students' exposure to the soft skills, we have tried to incorporate soft skill material into the technical curriculum. This allows us to obtain some direct assessment of their attitudes and performance. This paper describes the incorporation of internationalization material into an electric power course, which is required in our EET curriculum. The students were required to read a case study related to global warming and the Kyoto protocol and to answer questions concerning these topics. The answers were brought to class for discussion along with other international considerations. Student attitudes toward internationalization were surveyed before and after the discussion and results are presented in the paper. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2008.