ASSESSING THE EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS OF A SYSTEM ENGINEERING SOFTWARE IN CAPSTONE DESIGN PROJECTS

The increasing complexity of engineering and technology requires that students master an increasing amount of abstract knowledge to remain competitive in today's job market. However, today's students find it difficult to create mental images of abstract concepts, due to lack of real world experience. This problem is more evident in advanced design classes teaching product design concepts and methodologies. In this paper, we introduce a system engineering software package that is used in our capstone design class, with which students are able to create their own framework of product development activities, control information flows, and manage tools and engineering models in each activity. This allows them to plan out and manage their projects using the design methodologies that they learned in class. We assessed student learning in the capstone design class for the last 7 semesters. Independent Samples t -Test and factorial ANOVA are used to analyze the student performance before and after using the software package. We have observed that in the design classes, the system engineering software enables students to practice design methodologies by visualizing and managing product development processes. This helps students not only understand the abstract design methodologies, but also apply the methodologies to their projects and accomplish them more efficiently.