Theme-based assessment of education in design and product development

There are many different examination forms to assess students’ achievements. One challenge is to develop an examination form which encourages the students to elaborate the course content continuously throughout the course and which constitutes a learning process in itself. The objective of this paper is to share and reflect on the development and implementation of a new theme-based examination throughout a course in the Engineering Programme Design and Product Development at Linköping University, Sweden. The new theme-based examination form is offered as an alternative to a traditional written examination. The reported experiences are from a six credit course in Product Ergonomics. The course runs during four months and has two main parts: one theoretical and one applied. During the first part, the students are mainly focusing on getting to grips with theoretical ergonomic topics, models and methods. The second part is a project phase aiming at consolidating the students’ understanding by implementing the theoretical knowledge in a product development case. The project is softly launched during the first part of the course with a project planning phase so that the students can reflect on how to use the theoretical knowledge in their projects. Prior experiences from a traditional written mid-term exam, covering the theoretical part in the course, are that many students studied intensively a few days before the examination rather than continuously throughout the course. As a result, the ergonomics theories and models were not used to their full potential in the project planning phase. To encourage the students to adapt a continuous and deep learning approach throughout the course, another examination concept was developed and offered as an alternative to the students. In the theoretical part, one out of six weekly themes was introduced at the beginning of each week by highlighting main theories and models in the specific theme and handing out group-work assignments to be elaborated in study groups. The specific theme of the week was then examined (in a short written exam) at the end of the week. For most themes, the group assignments were related to the written exam. However, two themes were of a more reflective character why the examination questions were introduced already at the introduction. The written examination at the end of the week was always followed by a short seminar to discuss and reflect upon the theme. In case of excusable absence, students were allowed a supplementary exam. Out of 69 students, 67 students chose the theme-based examination form. From a student perspective the positive outcome of the theme-based examination was peer learning and a more active learning style, through searching for useful theories and models for the specific themes. The students appreciated the theme-based structure of the course. Occasionally, some students commented that weekly examinations could be perceived as stressful. The teachers, on the other hand, perceived the students to be more acquainted with ergonomics theory and methods in the planning of their course projects. The reported theme-based assessment is one example of implementing the CDIO-standards 2.2 and 3.1.

Proceedings of the 10th International CDIO Conference, Barcelona, Spain, June 15-19 2014