Refined Assessment Technique in Engineering Education Based on Response from Stake-holders

In recent literature on Engineering Education research, a significant amount of knowledge is shared on the effective design of Holistic and Analytic rubrics for Assessment. Although the designed rubrics are shared with the students, fair and consistent assessment of student performance cannot be ensured since the rubrics designed by the course instructor have not been validated by stakeholders like students from the previous batch who have taken the course, Alumni, and Industry. This study explores the refinement techniques for redesigning the assessment rubrics. The paper puts to test an Analytical rubric by taking relevant feedback from the stake-holders. The method of survey-based statistical analysis was adopted in redesigning the rubrics. A total of 188 students were asked to take up this survey. These participants included 70% of students from the Undergraduate Engineering background, 20% Alumni, and 10% industrial stake-holders. The findings of the survey and the ensuing statistical analysis prove that the stake-holders can actively take part in redesigning assessment rubrics by giving valuable feedback on rubrics criteria which are judgmental, qualitative and can lead to an inconsistent assessment of student performance. The survey was aimed at redesigning rubrics for assessment of online written assignments during the COVID crisis period. It was observed that the majority of students agreed with the quantitative criteria of the rubrics. Valid suggestions given by students on improving the qualitative criteria were incorporated in the new design.