Assessing the Development of Personal and Professional Skills in Group Projects

Personal and professional skills developed during Design-Build-Test (DBT) group projects, such as team working and leadership, are difficult to assess using traditional methods such as technical reports. Academic staff often are not able to dedicate sufficient time to become embedded in the multiple projects they are typically supervising, in addition to other duties. As a result they do not have the required level of observation and discussion with the students to effectively assess these skills. This paper discusses methods and tools used to accurately and efficiently measure learning outcomes relevant to these personal and professional skills and comments on their effectiveness.