ABET Won't Let Us Do That!

Autor/inn/en	Heileman, Gregory L.; Abdallah, Chaouki T.
Titel	ABET Won't Let Us Do That!
Quelle	In: Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 51 (2019) 3, S.62-66 (5 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0009-1383
DOI	10.1080/00091383.2019.1606613
Schlagwörter	Accreditation (Institutions); Engineering Education; Outcomes of Education; Academic Achievement; Curriculum Design; Educational Objectives; Undergraduate Study; Credits; Undergraduate Students; Program Improvement; Curriculum Development + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Accreditation; Institution; Institutions; Akkreditierung; Staatliche Anerkennung; Institut; Ingenieurausbildung; Lernleistung; Schulerfolg; Schulleistung; Lehrplangestaltung; Educational objective; Bildungsziel; Erziehungsziel; Grundstudium; Curriculum; Development; Curriculumentwicklung; Lehrplan; Entwicklung
Abstract	While occupying various academic leadership positions, the authors repeatedly encounter the use of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accreditation to influence decision making around engineering curricula. For instance, ABET criteria are commonly cited as the reason why particular changes to engineering programs, such as the required number of credit hours, cannot be considered. Sometimes the ABET criteria are so broadly cited that it is not possible to determine the particular criterion that might be violated by a proposed change. The final sentence in these conversations is typically, "ABET won't let us do that!" In other cases, we have found incorrect interpretations of ABET program criteria that simply block further conversation. During a recent accreditation visit, an administrator asked the visiting team to issue a statement informing their state legislature that, because of ABET criteria, engineering programs cannot have less than 124 credit hours. Even though this request was denied, the general tactic of using ABET as a foil has proved so effective that a number of states with laws limiting the number of credit hours in baccalaureate programs now provide specific exceptions for engineering programs (CCHE, 2018; SUSF, 2018). Using ABET accreditation as an excuse to keep the number of credit hours above an artificial limit hinders innovation. While educating engineers may indeed require increasingly complex and updated tools and concepts, there is no specific accreditation requirement to increase the number of contact-hours, which themselves may be a poor substitute for measuring competency or mastery of engineering concepts. In this article, they suggest that rather than using ABET as a means of thwarting conversations around change, programs should use ABET criteria more appropriately as a driver for change and improvement. (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01