P002

Assessment of Student Performance in Engineering

Assoc. Prof. P John Williams

Abstract

This report is the result of the first year of a three-year study conducted at the Centre for Schooling and Learning Technologies (CSaLT) at Edith Cowan University in collaboration with the Curriculum Council of Western Australia and supported by an Australian Research Council grant. The study commenced in January 2008, will be completed by December 2010, and concerns the potential to use digital technologies to represent the output from assessment tasks in four senior secondary courses: Applied Information Technology, Engineering Studies, Italian and Physical Education Studies. This paper will focus on Engineering Studies.

Biography

Dr P John Williams is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University in Perth, and holds and adjunct position in the Centre for Science and Technology Education Research at the University of Waikato. At ECU he is the Director of Secondary Programs, and coordinates undergraduate, postgraduate and offshore programs in technology education. Apart from Australia, he has worked and studied in a number of African countries and in the United States. He directed the nationally funded Investigation into the Status of Technology Education in Australian Schools. His current research interests include design collaboration at a distance and electronic assessment of performance. He has published over 40 articles and has authored and co-authored 8 books, regularly presents at international and national conferences, consults on Technology Education in a number of countries, is a longstanding member of 8 professional associations and is on the editorial board of 4 professional journals. He is the Chief Examiner for The International Baccalaureate Design Technology and Western Australian Materials Design and Technology subjects, and external examiner for Mauritius and Hong Kong Institutes of Education.