Abstract:

The use of assessment rubrics is a powerful tool in order to grade the work made by students against criteria and standard. This is particularly useful in subjects taught by different lecturers, since rubrics are the way to perform an objective evaluation or may help to justify the assessment. Additionally, rubrics can serve as a check-list for students, in order to know how they are going to be graded. Moreover, students can participate in the design of the rubric and take more responsibility for their own learning. Apart from the mentioned advantages that a rubric might offer, both for teachers and students, its use is sometimes not extended. The aim of this study is to design assessment rubrics for the subject Process and Product Engineering II, which is taught in the first term of the fourth course of the Chemical Engineering Degree (School of Engineering) in the University of Valencia. In particular, the rubrics are designed to evaluate a work which is proposed to students at the beginning of the course. Specifically, students are divided into working groups made up of 2 or 3 people and they have to write a detailed report based on an industrial process. Finally, the students will have to make an oral presentation with a further discussion with the lecturers and other students. With this work several competences are practiced, such as: ability to write, sign and develop industrial engineering projects in the field of chemical engineering, ability to solve problems with initiative, decision-making skills, creativity and critical reasoning, ability to communicate and transmit knowledge and skills in the field of industrial engineering, knowledge to carry out measurements, calculations, assessments and reports and ability to work in a multilingual and multidisciplinary environment. Especially, two different rubrics will be designed to assess not only the oral presentation, but also the report presented by students. It is important to point out that the rubrics are designed to assess the different competences which may be achieved with the work. According to the results, grades obtained in the works (oral presentation plus the written report) of Process and Product Engineering II using an assessment rubric improve with respect to the ones obtained previous years. Interestingly, the standard deviation of the grades proposed by the different lecturers decreases when rubrics are used. This is mainly because, on the one hand, students know how they are going to be evaluated and, on the other hand, teachers have a standard to evaluate students’ work.

Acknowledgement:
The authors acknowledge the Vice-Principal for Employment and Training Services for the project UV-SFPIE_PID20-1351761.

Keywords:

Assessment rubrics, chemical engineering, competence, innovation.