Assessment of learning and its retention in the engineering design classroom

This paper describes the development of an engineering design knowledge assessment instrument. While, our ultimate goal is to prepare the environment and conditions that are most conducive for our students in teaching engineering design concepts, we often are unable to determine whether or not changes to the classroom environment have any impact on student learning due to a lack of validated instruments. Therefore, the overall purpose of this project is the development of a stable instrument designed to measure the impact of pedagogic changes and supporting classroom materials on student learning. This paper documents the rationale for developing a new instrument and describes its development process.