Cooperative Education as the Catalyst for Effective and Efficient Assessment of ABET Student Learning Outcomes for an Engineering Program

Abstract

Chair of Engineering Cooperative Education and Educational Development at Grand Valley State University. He is also the chair of the Product Design & Manufacturing Engineering program. He coordinates assessment efforts for the School of Engineering, including for the mandatory cooperative education program. His research interests include first-year engineering program development, effective assessment of engineering education, cooperative education, and transition to and from the engineering educational environment. Prof. Plouff has a Doctorate in Education from Eastern Michigan University and is a registered Professional Engineer in Michigan.

Can ABET Assessment Really Be This Simple?

“…Assessment Under Special Circumstances is a smaller category, but addresses the particular problems encountered, and lessons learned, by special types of universities such as HBCUs [12] and liberal arts universities [11], and in programs doing assessment in multiple locations [13] or across multiple programs [10]. Also in this category are programs involving cooperative education [14] and industrial internships [15] in their assessment processes. General assessment information or tools is a "catch-all" category.…”