Abstract:

Rubrics are widely used as an assessment tool in Social Science Education, but are less frequent in Engineering and quite scarcely in Technical Drawings Areas. In the Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design and Product Development Engineering at Jaume I University (UJI) in Castelló (Spain), seven teachers of Technical Drawing and Computer Aided Design courses created a group of innovation on education with the aim of implementing actions to coordinate the courses and improve learning process in students. One of these actions was the use of rubrics in all the courses, as they had been providing good results in some previous CAD courses. This work presents the whole experience of using rubrics in CAD courses (second and third year of the Degree) throughout three years and its extension during the last year to a first-year course focused on sketching Technical Drawings.

The application of rubrics in CAD courses was progressive, starting from the assessment of a final graphics project, going through ongoing exams, and finally reaching to its use in self-assessment and peer-assessment exercises. The experience enhanced the coordination among groups and teachers, increasing the work-quality observed in students as well as improving the whole learning process. However, as only the teachers’ perception had been taken into account, when the extension to first course was proposed, the perception of students was considered as a requirement, and thought to be done with a control group. The first-year course based on sketching Technical Drawings consists on weekly theoretical classes (big group around 70 pupils) and weekly practical classes (6 small lab groups <30 pupils). The assessment consists on some homework (15%), a graphical project (10%) and a final exam (75%). Students can pass several ongoing exams, as an alternative to the final exam. Rubrics were applied to a test group (3 out of the 6 lab groups) to all the assessments parts: homework, graphical project and ongoing exams. The control group (the other 3 lab groups) was assessed as in previous years: with some general criteria specific for each exam and homework, and previously given only for the graphical project. Global concepts evaluated in both systems were the same, but with different level of detail and consideration for errors. In the control group, each problem was rated in just two or three general parts and the errors decreased the rating depending on their importance attributed by the experienced teachers. Feedback was based on a general explanation for the whole group after each assessment. In the test group, with rubrics, the criteria were more detailed and explained previously to each exam and homework with examples of previous years. The features of each figure to be drawn were identified (based on 3-D CAD modelling experience), and assigned a percentage of the whole figure for assessment. Types of errors with examples and rating were also explained. Furthermore, after each assessment, appropriate feedback was provided to each student. A voluntary survey was carried out to the students with common and specific questions for each group. Students have a good perception of rubrics, appreciated as more clear, objective and fair for assessment. Coordination between teachers is another advantage of rubrics and, with the appropriate training, students can also self-assess with rubrics.

Keywords:

Rubrics, Graphical Expression in Engineering, Evaluation.