Innovative Assessment
Assessing Capstone Experience
Introduction
Capstone experiences can come in many forms (i.e. internship, capstone projects, senior design projects, practicum, and thesis). Regardless of their form, they all serve the purpose of providing opportunities for students to integrate and to apply knowledge that they have acquired throughout their studies.
Capstone experience can be assessed through various methods such as oral presentation, report, poster presentation or display, portfolio, journal, and peer/self review. These assessment methods serve the purpose of assessing students’ learning in terms of both generic skills and academic knowledge (e.g. to assess students’ development of team-work, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills; and to assess students’ development of a capacity for reflective learning) in the capstone experiences that they choose to engage in. Capstone experiences can be used to provide faculty or department information on the strengths and weaknesses of their curricula by assessing and observing students’ performance.