Resumen de Direct and indirect assessment methods: key ingredients for continuous quality improvement and ABET accreditation
The new accreditation criteria, better known as ABET EC 2000, require that each program `must have an assessment process withdocumented results.' Furthermore, a white paper by the Engineering Accreditation Commission's Executive Committee states, `Theassessment process should include direct and indirect measures and does not rely only on self-report surveys and evidence that thematerial is `covered' in the curriculum.' This paper presents: (a) an overview of an assessment process to make engineering programsABET accreditation compliant; (b) assessment methods that are used to collect data, interpret them, and utilize the results to improveengineering programs; (c) a process to choose the appropriate mix of direct and indirect assessment methods/instruments, and (d)implementation of assessment methods to an electrical engineering program. As an example, the paper presents a sample of recentchanges that have led to improvements based on program assessment of the University of Portland School of Engineering electricalengineering program.
