Proposal of statistical analysis to support the assessment method of a Brazilian Industrial Engineering course

Abstract

The requirement to adapt the university education to demands of society and professional market is improving the teaching methodologies that try to develop skills and prepare the students to deal with day-to-day situations of a business environment. Therefore, this research presents the assessment method utilized in an Industrial Engineering course carried out by a Brazilian public university in partnership with a multinational company. The course had 37 participants, consisting of: 28 students divided into four groups; 1 teacher; 4 university tutors; and 4 company tutors. The main objective is to assess the consistency of grades assigned to students and their work groups using agreement, variance and correlation analyses. As conclusion, the analyses indicated a possible deficiency in the assessment method application since the values of agreement and correlation coefficients were lower than expected but also provided a positive contribution to the improvement of assessment and the course as a whole. Recognizing the importance of changing higher education, new teaching methods are developing in which students are no longer passive recipients of information but become the center of attention. The practice of this type of learning is a culture shock for new students and for educators who use this technique in their disciplines. Besides the challenge of changing the way of conducting classes, teachers are faced with the task of determining how to properly assess student learning. Traditional assessment techniques which are only concerned with the assignment of grades don't correctly evaluate the evolution of students (Waters & Mccracken, 1997;Eva, 2001;Kritikos et al., 2011). KeywordsAccording to Norton et al. (2013), due to recent changes at higher education to focus on student learning, much has been written about the students' assessment and its effects on learning. However, the integration of assessment with the learning and the innovations in how to assess remain a challenge (Struyf et al., 2001). Moreover, the pressure on institutions to establish more effective ways to evaluate, led the assessment modes to the center of engineering education discussions (Raud, 2010).Considering this context, it was created a course in a Brazilian public university named "Project Semester in Industrial Engineering" that aimed to use an active approach of education where students were divided into groups to solve real problems of a multinational company. During the course, the use of this methodology provided difficulties in the way of how students would be assessed. Thus, this research aims to assess the consistency of grades assigned to students and their work groups using statistical analysis together with a qualitative approach which assistance in define the better assessment mode considering the context of a course based on active teaching. Thereby, an agreement, variance, and covariance analyses have been proposed in order to assist results' interpreting of implemented evaluations.The work proposal described in t...