Engineering Change: A Study of the Impact of EC2000

Are today's undergraduate engineering graduates better prepared to be engineers than those who graduated before the inauguration of EC2000?

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) commissioned a team of researchers at the Penn State Center for the Study of Higher Education to assess the impact of the EC2000 accreditation criteria on student learning outcomes (Criterion 3 a-k). The study focused on seven engineering disciplines:

• aerospace

• chemical

• civil

• computer

• electrical

• industrial

• mechanical

Completed in 2006, the project brought multiple sources of evidence to bear on this question and provided an evaluation model that can be replicated when ABET again evaluates the impact of its accreditation standards on student learning at some future time. Forty Institutions participated in the project.

Executive Summary

Order the Final Report

This research was guided by a National Advisory Board and was endorsed by the following professional societies and organizations:

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
American Institute of Chemical Engineers
American Society of Civil Engineers
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
Institute of Industrial Engineers
American Society for Engineering Education

The Center for the Study of Higher Education
College of Education
Penn State University
400 Rackley Building
University Park, PA 16802-3203
Phone:  814-865-6346
Fax:  814-865-3638  
email: EC2000@psu.edu