Reflections on assessment: comparison of assessment processes for postgraduate engineering management courses

Reflections on assessment: comparison of assessment processes for postgraduate engineering management courses

BACKGROUND
The University of Southern Queensland conducts a number of postgraduate engineering management courses under the Master of Advanced Engineering program. The courses cover topics such as asset management, facilities management, risk management, innovation management, technology development, technological management and its impact, and technology management practice. A course in advanced project management is under development. The current method of assessment for these courses consists either of one or more assignments plus an examination, or wholly by assignment. Ideally, their assessment should ideally reflect professional industry requirements.

PURPOSE
To compare assessment in selected courses for which the author is currently examiner, with a view to determining how well they meet authentic industry requirements, in order to both improve existing postgraduate professional engineering management courses and inform assessment of the advanced engineering project management course currently being developed, along with future postgraduate professional engineering courses.

DESIGN/METHOD
The review approach was to:
• Select three courses for review, each with a different assessment approach to review current course assessment requirements. One of these courses is Asset Management in an Engineering Environment, discussed in a previous paper,
• Review professional engineering requirements for Engineers Australia.
• Using the author as participant investigator, compare assessment for each of the selected courses against good authentic course assessment and each other.
• Reflect on the findings and develop conclusions with respect to course assessment.

RESULTS
The research is expected to result in better understanding of the way in which assessment in postgraduate engineering management courses is conducted, provide guidelines for more industry relevant assessment, and inform assessment for future courses of this nature. To date, evaluation of the assessment of the Asset Management in an Engineering Environment course has resulted in an improved, more authentic assignment and an improved examination that better addresses industry and professional requirements.

CONCLUSIONS
Conclusions are developed with respect to reflection on the different modes of assessment for the three courses selected for this study. These conclusions have resulted in changes in the assessment of one course and have informed assessment procedures for an advanced engineering project management course currently under development. Future evaluation and piloting of authentic assessment are discussed.

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