Assessing Problem-Based Learning in a Construction Engineering Capstone Course

North Dakota State University (NDSU) was the recent recipient of a Bush Grant for providing support and training for NDSU faculty. As part of that grant, the Faculty Institute for Excellence in Learning (FIEL) was created. The author was selected as a FIEL Fellow and subsequently submitted a proposal and received funding to apply a problem-based learning approach to the departmental capstone course. During the summer of 2001, the capstone course was revised and restructured to meet the primary objective of the course. The basic philosophy, format, evaluation and assessment of the course came into question. The contents of this paper, 1.) describe the basic philosophy of the course, 2) describes the application of problem-based learning within the course, and 3) provides an explanation of the methods and techniques used to evaluate student work and provide for course assessment following the ABET criteria.