Assessment of Student Program Outcomes through a Comprehensive Exit Strategy

Choosing methods to assess student program outcomes is a matter of balancing best practices against the constraints imposed by the respective education authorities mainly the Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) for engineering degrees offered by institutions of higher education in Malaysia. Methods that directly measure student learning and yield the most rigorous results are usually the most time consuming and may require the expertise of educational researchers or outside consultants. Currently, the Department of Electrical, Electronics and Systems Engineering at UKM use their classroom and existing grading practices to collect data that will contribute to assess student learning directly, but this requires extra time and effort. In addition, mechanisms to adequately report the findings need to be properly implemented. Another mechanism that could be used to assess student program outcomes is through a thoroughly designed student exit strategy. The exit strategy implemented this academic year involves two parts; exit survey and exit test. This is a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) effort done since the past two academic years that enables the department to assess student program outcomes directly and indirectly in one approach. The exit strategy has proven successful as a valid measurement of student program outcomes. The exit strategy which combines both direct and indirect assessment forms a comprehensive and robust tool to effectively measure student program outcomes.