Assessing experiential learning in engineering

Abstract

JNUSTA: “Assessment of experiential learning is the least explored area in higher education and the most challenging” for many of us. Could you share with us your take on what may be a good way of assessing activities like field work, internship, or service learning?

Laksh: Relatively speaking, assessing learning is not just the least explored area but perhaps also the least preferred activity for faculty members compared to activities like developing a course, presenting lectures, or leading discussions/ tutorials. Therefore, I am not surprised by Amy Tsui’s comment that “assessment of experiential learning is the least explored area in higher education and the most challenging”. The challenge is perhaps due to the open-ended, authentic and complex nature of the project the student is assigned during industrial internships (which is a prime experiential learning component for the Engineering majors in my faculty) and laboratory attachments. Each project (and therefore the student experience) is unique in terms of (i) the technical and people-related challenges, and (ii) the amount of personalised learning (compared to learning in traditional, standardised courses) depending on the location, nature of the assigned problem, the support structures available on site, etc. Importantly, the industry and university viewpoints on what constitutes good work can be quite different. For example, I have experienced first-hand the mismatch in expectations of different parties, having served as Coordinator of and Faculty in the Practice School Program at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani, India, and through my involvement with Practice School interns from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while working at the Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (Japan). As a consequence of such differences in expectations, the learning outcomes for the experiential-learning modules end up being quite broad and fuzzy. Given all these considerations, it is not a surprise that the assessment of learning outcomes in experiential learning modules can be challenging. (Abstract taken from first paragraph of document)