Session Information
23 SES 01 B, Approaching Education Policy (Part 1)
Paper Session
Contribution
ABET (the Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology) is a U.S. based accrediting body that sets out to provide leadership and quality assurance in the applied sciences, computing, engineering, and technology education. ABET accreditation standards apply to over 3,100 programs at more than 600 colleges and universities worldwide that have volunteered to participate in its review cycle. In the United States, the accreditation process is a non-governmental, peer review process, while the government plays a more dominant role in the European context (http://www.abet.org). There are no common approaches to accreditation across Europe (Schwarz and Westerheijden, 2007).
ABET provides an example of educational reform in a global context. In 1996 it revised the accreditation standards for engineering programs to reflect an emphasis on educational outcomes, assessment, and a set of skills above and beyond the foundational requirements for technical and mathematical competency (The Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC2000)). Of particular concern to employers was a perceived lack design and communication skills among graduates (Chen, Lattuca, and Hamilton, 2008). The accreditation standards implemented in 2000 require that engineering programs demonstrate that their graduates have achieved 11 learning outcomes. These extend from and the ability to apply foundational knowledge to practice to a broader set of skills, such as the ability to work on teams, to communicate effectively, design systems, and to understand the application of engineering solutions in a global context.
The changes to ABET accreditation standards were predicted to reshape students’ educational experiences inside and outside the classroom and to lead to changes in institutional policies, such as those governing faculty hiring and expectations for tenure and promotion (Lattuca, Terenzini, and Volkwein, 2006, p. 2). Through extensive data collection involving surveys and interviews of faculty, chairs, students, and employers, The 2006 Engineering Change Study demonstrated a small, semi-causal relationship between programs’ policies and practices and the in- and out-of-class experiences reported by students, which in turn were directly related to the achievement of defined outcomes. Authors of the Change Study pointed to student engagement as a critical factor as well, and cautioned against over-reliance on crediting environmental policies and practices as if they directly determined the achievement of desired outcomes (Chen, Lattuca, and Hamilton, 2008).
Another way to test the impact of an educational reform is to identify a way to measure how widespread the diffusion of the values and beliefs underlying that reform. This study used both a deductive and inductive approach to analyze the mission statements of a stratified random sample of schools or colleges of engineering in the U.S. This provided a way to identify which of the officially sanctioned educational outcomes has been endorsed most broadly and to determine if other outcomes are being widely endorsed that are not recognized in the accreditation standards. The integration of results from the two different analytical approaches illustrate ways that mixed methods research can contribute to policy analysis.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
ABET: Leadership and Quality Assurance in Applied Science, Computing, Engineering, and Technology Education. Accessed 1/3/2011: http:www.abet.org. Chen, H. L., Lattuca, L. R., & Hamilton, E. R. (2008). Conceptualizing engagement: Contribution of faculty to student engagement in engineering. Journal of Engineering Education, 339-352. Creamer, E. G. (in press). Effects of the numeric representation of women and interest in engineering as a career. American Journal of Engineering Education. Lattuca, L. R., Terenzini, P T., & Volkwein, J. F. (2006). Engineering Change: A study of the impact of EC200 [Final Report]. Baltimore, MD:ABET. Schwarz, S., & Westerheijden, D. F. (2007). Accreditation in the framework of evaluation activities: A comparative study in the European higher education area. In S. Schwarz and D. F. Westerheijden (Eds.), Accreditation and evaluation in the higher education area (pp. 1-41). Springer.
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