A Way Forward: Assessing the Demonstrated Leadership of Graduate Civil Engineering and Construction Management Students

The year 2007 was a year for visionary change in the field of civil engineering in the United States. This vision did not go unnoticed in the Caribbean. At the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of the West Indies, the M.Sc. programs have been restructured to meet the U.K. Joint Board of Moderators requirements for academic accreditation and to fulfill the mandate of the vice chancellor to develop 12 desired attributes, with leadership being among them. A model was developed in a course, Practical Team Project, to measure the learning outcome of leadership by combining the Project Management Institute body of knowledge areas and the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) development objectives. The course prepares students for professional review at the Incorporated Engineering (I.Eng.) level with the ICE and gives them similar standing in other Washington Accord signatory countries. This new initiative for the university required innovative assessment techniques, such as 360-degree feedback and zero tolerance, to evaluate the demonstrated leadership of the graduate students. Analytical tools such as ANOVA and t-test were used to justify the effectiveness of the chosen model.