Final Year Engineering Project and Its Contribution to Holistic Education

The final year project is a crucial component of engineering undergraduate education that is made a compulsory requirement by engineering accreditation bodies worldwide. This paper documents an approach toward the final year engineering project that is consistent with an outcome-based education methodology as required by accreditation bodies but also incorporates the development of a desirable range of graduate capabilities through its unique approach. The method, implementation, measurement of outcomes, and survey findings on the students taking this module are presented in this paper. For the measurement of outcomes, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were utilized. The quantitative approach consisted of using a Likert scale online survey as well as a software tool to capture the marks from various assessment components of the module to use as a comparison. The software tool links these assessment components to the module learning outcomes and the learning domains of Bloom’s taxonomy. The marks attained were considered to be reflective of the attainment of the outcomes. The qualitative approach utilized a written survey that is part of the online survey. This online survey focused on student perceptions assessed through the Likert scale and written feedback instead of marks. The data obtained from both approaches were analyzed and compared, and the final year project module is evaluated for its effectiveness in delivering holistic education. These different approaches substantiated the findings of one another and helped determine to what extent the holistic education outcomes were achieved.