Abstract:
UTS Faculty of Engineering capstone projects are undertaken in the final semester(s) of study and provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate a capacity to perform at the levels expected of a professional engineer. In
many cases, students undertake projects in their workplace environment affording a rich context to integrate
real world problems and solutions with academic rigour.
The existing subject requirements have remained relatively unchanged for over 10 years; there is negligible
evidence of the impact of its introduction and only anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness as a ‘capstone’ subject.
Further, project supervisors have expressed their concern regarding a drop in quality of project work … and its assessment. Some students opt for ‘softer’ project topics, moderation of assessment criteria across faculty staff is
problematic, and there is a lack of adequate evaluation (feedback) data from students to inform improvement strategy. As changes to subject requirements are being introduced in Spring 2007, a benchmarking exercise is
timely.
This paper will present the pertinent outcomes from a detailed evaluation undertaken by 85 capstone project
students in Autumn semester 2007. Students were asked to self evaluate on a 0–5 scale the ‘applicability’ and
their ‘capacity to demonstrate in their project work’ each of 61 competency indicators chosen from Engineers Australia ‘Stage 1 Competency Standards’. The outcomes will serve as a valuable guide for areas of improvement, as well as a benchmark against which future change can be measured.
