The Role of Mathmatics Courses in the Assessment Process of Engineering ABET-Outcomes

• Main Authors: Salah-Addin B. Al-Omari, Qasem M. Al-Mdallal, Youssef El-Khatib, Basim Abu-Jdayil
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2015-01-01
• Series: Education Research International
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/735325

This paper deals with the mathematics courses offered to the engineering students at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). The paper focuses essentially on the level of achievement by the students of the outcomes of the mathematics and how this reflects on the satisfaction of the engineering ABET-outcomes. Mapping between the course outcomes of the different math courses offered at UAEU to engineering students and the engineering ABET criteria ((a)–(k)) was made. It is found that most of the ABET-outcomes are to a great extent in-line with the outcomes of our mathematics courses. This encourages us to use the achievement of the courses outcomes as an assessment tool for the engineering ABET-outcomes. We considered both direct and indirect assessment tools to assess the level of satisfaction of the math courses outcomes. The performances of the students according to both methods are then used to assess the achievements of the ABET-outcomes. The results generally show very good level of achievement of the outcomes, although few ABET-outcomes were not achieved well according to our performance criteria. Accordingly, we provide some comments and recommendations aiming at the improvement of the program.