Penn State Chosen to Conduct $2M Study

Penn State University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education was recently chosen to conduct a new $2 million study to evaluate the achievement of the new initiatives instituted by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

“ABET was looking for an external, independent organization who has both a proven track record in evaluation and a deep understanding of higher education. Penn State met those criteria perfectly,” said George Peterson, ABET Executive Director.

ABET felt that EC2000 must itself be evaluated to determine if these goals have been achieved and to what extent. The Penn State researchers will focus on ABET’s outcomes-based accreditation criteria and the impact it has had on graduates’ preparation to enter today’s engineering professions. They will aim to answer the question: What impact has EC2000’s emphasis on outcomes, innovation and continuous program improvement had?

The findings from the Penn State Longitudinal Study will be used to improve ABET’s quality assurance processes. In addition, they will be setting up the framework and methodological tools needed for ABET to continue to evaluate the impact of its outcomes-based criteria.

The ABET EC2000 Longitudinal Study will be conducted at Penn State by co-principal investigators J. Fredericks Volkwein, professor and senior scientist, Patrick Terenzini, professor and senior scientist, and Lisa Lattuca, assistant professor and research associate, who will lead the team as project director. The competitive selection process included proposals from five recognized organizations, all experts in evaluation. The applicants then attended extensive meetings and several ABET project team meetings to hone the study’s focus. “We were very pleased with Penn State’s proposal,” said Peterson.

ABET is a Baltimore-based federation of 31 professional engineering and technical societies that accredits some 2,500 engineering, technology, computing and applied science programs at over 550 colleges and universities nationally. Since 1997, when EC2000 was developed, practices in postsecondary engineering education have dramatically shifted to support its goals. These include enabling programs to innovate and differentiate, creating an atmosphere for continuous quality improvement, encouraging self-accountability, and providing mechanisms to develop best practices.

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