Experiences with Using Assessment Based, Double-Loop Learning to Improve Engineering Student's Design Skills

The problem with traditional engineering education revolves around the use of stove-pipe curricula, using passive lectures and cookbook laboratories with pre-determined results. Real-world engineering is open-ended and team-oriented requiring active participation. This paper describes a proof of concept study focused on the efficacy of assessment based double loop learning aimed at improving engineering student's design skills. Our study began by examining student's present design skills over all 4 years of the electrical engineering (ELE) and computer engineering (CPE) curriculums. During the second year of the study, junior engineering students are provided with a new open-ended design course where students use design process assessments to improve upon their use of sound design practice, thereby improving their outcomes in design.