Engineering education quality assessment using outcome-based education system in Buein Zahra Technical University

Engineering education (EE) quality and its assessment methods plays a crucial role in decision –support process for many higher education policy makers around the globe. Traditionally, the education quality assessments were managed through the procedural and brute force paradigm which was unable to systematically track the quality and imperfection causes. Therefore, it seems imperative to develop a comprehensive EE quality evaluation system. Among existing approaches, the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) system is renowned for its closed-loop improvement mechanism, which allowed one to accurately address continuous quality management. Hence, education quality can be controlled through by means of Program Outcome [PO] and Learning Outcome [LO] developed for all programs and teaching modules. In this paper, OBE system is investigated for a practical case of Buein-Zahra Technical University (BZTE) in Iran. The primary intent was to find out salient potentials one can garner if adopted with OBE. To end this, the proposed OBE-BZTE is implemented on 17 disciplines of those intentionally taken from second year curriculum onwards. The OBE-BZTE is made up with 12 POs and a technical range of 3 to 6 LOs for each module. The simulation results showed that implementation of the proposed approach opens an avenue to assess EE quality (POs for Admins and LOs for Lecturers) and as an added value, it produces improvement strategy on how to leverage PO and LO attainment levels for prospective semesters. As a result, internal and external shortcomings within the education system can be readily addressed and even tracked down. Application of OBE on EE process of BZTE indicated that the observability of academic system was further increased, the educational quality barriers were favorably spotted, and major pedagogical trends were objectively oriented.