The computing professional skills assessment: An innovative method for assessing ABET's student outcomes

Abstract

ABET (formerly known as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Education) prescribes a number of outcomes that students should attain by graduation. Among these are six non-technical skills such as discerning ethical, legal, security and social issues to the ability to engage in continuing professional development. Here we present the first and only direct method and measurement tool in the literature to measure the six ABET Computing Accreditation Commission non-technical skills for both course and program level assessment. The Computing Professional Skills Assessment is a discussion-based performance task, conducted through asynchronous online discussions, designed to elicit students' knowledge and application of professional skills. Our trial has shown that the method can successfully measure the skills. This paper outlines the method and its implementation and describes data collection and findings.