Building an Evaluation Strategy for an Integrated Curriculum in Chemical Engineering - Summer 2011

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky

Increasing knowledge integration is a key objective in engineering education. The Chemical Engineering Pillars curriculum at the University of Pittsburgh, using block scheduling, is an early integrated four-year program designed to strengthen systems thinking and knowledge integration. Because conventional assessment methods may not fit this novel structure, an evaluation strategy is proposed with two measurement goals: effects on students’ systems thinking and impacts on conceptual performance in chemical engineering. The paper details available assessment vehicles and ongoing results for portability across chemical engineering curricula.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Evaluation goals and assessment rationale

Integrated curricula background and block scheduling

Pillars curriculum objectives

| | Ad | vances in Engineering Edu | cation | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | SUMMER 2011 Building an Evaluation Strategy for an Integrated Curriculum in Chemical Engineering JOSEPH J. McCARTHY ROBERT S. PARKER ADETOLA ABATAN Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering And MARY BESTERFIELD-SACRE Department of Industrial Engineering University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261 ABSTRACT Increasing knowledge integration has gained wide-spread support as an important goal in engineering education. The Chemical Engineering Pillars curriculum at the University of Pittsburgh, unique for its use of block scheduling, is one of the first four-year, integrated curricula in engineering, and is specifically designed to facilitate knowledge integration. As this curriculum is one of the first of its kind, conventional assessment strategies are not necessarily well suited for evaluation. In fact, our assessment strategy – by necessity – includes two separate measurement goals. First, we focus on measuring the effectiveness of the new curricular structure for enhancing the ability of students to engage in systems thinking (knowledge integration) . At the same time, we specifically assess the impact of this type of curriculum on students’ performance in conceptualizing (chemical) engineering principles. The goal of this paper is to outline an overall assessment structure suitable for measuring the efficacy of multi-year integrated curricula. Specifically, we describe the currently available assessment vehicles under use as well as discuss the methods – and results – for building the additional assessment materials required for a thorough vetting of this type of (chemical engineering) curriculum. While our specific assessment is still ongoing, we include a portion of the results to date and discuss their implications for the portability of integrated curricula in chemical engineering. Keywords: integrated curricula, assessment, chemical engineering SUMMER 2011 1 ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION Building an Evaluation Strategy for an Integrated Curriculum in Chemical Engineering INTRODUCTION The challenge of developing a better chemical engineering curriculum, or indeed any engineering curriculum, is to build it such that it prepares students for the engineering needs of today, while enabling them – through a strong and well integrated core of engineering knowledge – to maintain versatility through life-long learning and continuing education. Prevailing wisdom from engineering educators both within the US [1–3] and in the European Chemical Engineering Universities, Working Party Education Group [4] is that the ideal engineering curriculum focuses on the following three issues: 1. Giving the students a strong fundamental foundation by concentrating on the essential core of scientific and engineering basics, including biological applications and molecular insight [5, 6] . 2. Enhancing systems thinking [7] by helping students to integrate their knowledge across coursesand disciplines [8] so that they are better prepared to address open-ended problems. 3. Preparing and providing for continuing education and life-long learning [4] . The strong focus throughout engineering on establishing broad-based systems thinking or knowledge integration within a discipline [1, 9, 10] is not new; in fact, in the early to mid 1990’s the National Science Foundation funded a number of Coalitions that primarily championed the “integrated curriculum”. Until recently [11], however, there have been no educational efforts that have extended this (successful) approach beyond the Freshman [1, 10, 12] or Sophomore [13, 14] years of undergraduate engineering programs. At the University of Pittsburgh, we have developed an integrated curriculum (the Pillars curriculum) that spans the upper-class years for an undergraduate chemical engineer. Our fully integrated chemical eng

FAQs

Why does the paper argue that conventional assessment strategies may not suit this curriculum?

The curriculum is one of the first of its kind and is designed around knowledge integration through block scheduling, so standard assessment approaches are not necessarily well suited for evaluating both structure and learning outcomes.

What are the two main measurement goals of the assessment strategy?

First, measure effectiveness of the new curricular structure in enhancing students’ systems thinking (knowledge integration). Second, assess the curriculum’s impact on students’ performance in conceptualizing (chemical) engineering principles.

How does the Pillars curriculum differ from traditional engineering curricula?

It is fully integrated across upper-class undergraduate years and uniquely uses block scheduling to transform multi-semester courses into single-semester courses with extended, concentrated contact time.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky