Specific and Generic Performance Indicators for Measuring Learning Outcomes

Generally most engineering programs employ methods for developing learning outcomes, performance indicators and their rubrics that primarily focus on the fulfillment of accreditation requirements. Therefore, a relatively small set of learning outcomes with generic performance indicators and their rubrics that are broad in application are usually developed at the program or course level. Typically engineering specializations teach students several hundred specific activities throughout the course of their curriculum delivery. Generic performance indicators do not adequately support holistic curriculum deliveries targeting coverage of all three Bloom’s learning domains and their learning levels. Consequently, their generic rubrics also present difficulty in characterizing these specific student learning activities and their skills levels. They cannot be accurately applied to assessment, scoring of specific student learning activities and create issues for inter or intra-rater reliability. In this workshop, participants will learn the essential principles of an authentic Outcome Based Educational (OBE) model used for developing learning outcomes, generic and specific performance indicators and their rubrics for measuring specific skills related to Bloom’s 3 learning domains and their learning levels. They will also be exposed to key perspectives that incorporate digitization of the assessment process. Participants will benefit from an interactive workshop where they will learn core outcome–based frameworks and apply them to develop some samples of outcome assessment. Participants will gain hands on experience in using performance indicators and hybrid rubrics for measuring course learning outcomes. This will help them develop valid and reliable assessments that are aligned with teaching and learning activities.