Abstract:

The aim of this work is to compare two different evaluation methods used in the same subject, Environmental Pollution (from the grade in Industrial Engineering), a subject dealing with the main topics concerning this issue: drinking water and wastewater treatment, atmospheric pollution control, municipal and hazardous waste management, polluted soils and environmental management systems such as ISO 14001.

The subject lectured the past academic year 2009-10 included two different evaluation methods and the students had to choose one of them at the beginning of the course.
One of the evaluation methods can be described as a “traditional” one: it consisted of a written final examination concerning the contents lectured throughout the subject.
The other evaluation method consisted of a continuous assessment of the competences acquired by the students throughout the course:
- evaluation tests at the end of each lesson.
- presentations of a topic (related to the subject) with Power Point (or similar) in groups of two or three students, in which not only were scientific contents evaluated but also graphic features and oral skills.
- seminars including debate activities in groups of 5-7 students.
This later method is supposed to be an approach much more related to the new European Higher Education Area guidelines (the Bologna Declaration) than the previous one, as shown in the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 18 December 2006, on key competences for lifelong learning, which includes some key competences such as digital competence, communication skills in the mother tongue, learning to learn (individually or in groups) and basic competences in science and technology.

The success rate was significantly higher for the students who chose the Bologna-adapted evaluation (about 90 %) than for those who chose the “traditional” evaluation (success rate about 60 %).

Keywords:

Evaluation methods, environmental science, industrial engineering degree.