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Implementation of outcome based education in Pakistan: A step towards

Washington Accord

Conference Paper · November 2015

DOI: 10.1109/ICEED.2015.7451513

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Khalid Mahmood Khalil Khan

CECOS University Iqra National University
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 Implementing Outcome Based Education in
Pakistan A Step towards Washington Accord
Khalid Mahmood, Khalil Muhammad Khan Komal Saifullah and Saad Hassan Kiani
Abstract—Established in 1989, the Washington accord is an
international accreditation covenant for the undergraduate engi-
neering programs. The initial signatories were Australia, Canada,
the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Sin-
gapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom
and the United States. It recognizes that there is significant
equivalency of the engineering programs accredited by those
signatories and that graduates of accredited programs in any of
the signatory countries are acknowledged by the other signatory
countries as having met the academic requirements for entry in
to the practice of engineering. The admission of new signatories
to this accord require the approval of at least two-thirds of the
existing signatories and then preceded by a prescribed period
of provisional status during which the accreditation criteria and
procedures established by the applicant, and the way in which
these procedures and criteria are implemented, will be subject to
comprehensive examination. Pakistan Engineering council (PEC)
is a provisional signatory to Washington Accord. To be able to
get the member status, PEC must implement outcome based
education (OBE) as compared to the current practice in the
engineering degree awarding institutes (ADI) in Pakistan. In this
paper we describe our experience of using the faculty course
assessment report (FCAR) for the assessment and evaluation
of student performance in the BS electrical engineering degree
program while preparing for initial step towards the Washington
accord accreditation of electrical engineering program at Iqra
National University Peshawar.
We have described, how FCAR was used as an effective tool for
monitoring students performance in signal and systems course.
Index Terms—Washington Accord, FCAR, Outcome based
education, Signal and systems, accreditation, student learning
outcome, course learning outcome
I. I NTRODUCTION
Established in 1989, the Washington accord is an interna-
tional accreditation covenant for the professional engineering
academic undergraduate programs. The initial signatories were
Australia, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong, Japan,
New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan,
Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom and the
United States. It recognizes that there is significant equivalency
of the engineering programs accredited by those signatories
and that graduates of accredited programs in any of the
signatory countries are acknowledged by the other signatory
countries as having met the academic requirements for entry
in to the practice of engineering. The admission of new signa-
tories to this accord require the approval of at least two-thirds
of the existing signatories and then preceded by a prescribed
period of provisional status during which the accreditation
criteria and procedures established by the applicant, and the
way in which these procedures and criteria are implemented,
will be subject to a comprehensive examination. PEC is a
provisional signatory to Washington Accord. To be able to get
the member status, PEC must implement OBE as compared
to the current practice in the engineering degree awarding
institutes.OBE emphasizes on the student learning by
• Utilizing student learning outcomes to make explicit what
a student is expected to be able to know, comprehend or
do.
• Providing learning positive activities that would help
students to attain those course learning outcomes.
• Assessing the extent to which the student meets these
outcomes through the use of explicit assessment criteria.
The key features of OBE are
• It has program objectives and outcomes, CLO’s and
performance indicators (PI’s).
• It is objective and outcome driven, in which every stated
objective and outcome could be assessed and evaluated.
• It is centered around requirement of students and key
stakeholders.
• Since CLO’s are intentional, so they must be assessed
using appropriate PI’s.
• Program educational objectives (PEO) address the grad-
uates attainment within 3-5 years after their graduation.
• PEO’s consist of abilities to be acquired by students be-
fore they graduate, are formulated based on the program
objectives.
• PEO’s address knowledge , Skills and Attitudes to be
acquired by the students.
• Teaching / Learning methods has to be integrated to
include different lecture delivery methods to complement
the traditional lecturing methods
FCAR was introduced by John K. Estell in 2003[3]. It is
an effective and efficient tool used to bring together all
relevant course related information and blend into a single
document [?]. It has been observed that FCAR serves as an
effective documentation tool for the purpose of course learning
outcomes (CLO) as well as student outcomes (SO) assess-
ment [3]. Course data collection and FCAR documentation
is performed by the respective course lecturers as they are
closest to the data [3], [1]. In this paper, we have used FCAR
for the assessment and evaluation of students performance
in the signals and systems course while preparing for initial
step towards the Washington accord accreditation of electrical
engineering program at Iqra National University Peshawar
Pakistan.
Signal and systems (EE 221) is a three credit hour course
which is offered every semester. Prerequisite for this course
is the completion of prep year and Co-requisite is complex students fall in E, 4 in A, 1 in M and 8 fall in U. Hence the
variables course. EAMU vector for a particular question of the mid term exam
This paper is organized as follows is 1, 7, 4, 8 and the average is found as
CLO’s of EE 221 are presented in Section II, whereas
the evaluation methods are provided in Section III. Course 1×3+7×2+4×1+8×0
grade distribution is shown in Section IV, CLO and SO for Average = = 1.88 (1)
20
EE 221 are given in Section V. Section VI deals with the
whereas 3, 2, 1, and 0 are point values of E, A, M, U
recommendation for the course whereas concluding remarks
respectively.
are given in Section VII.
Here we are elaborating the course grade distribution and
II. C OURSE L EARNING O UTCOMES (CLO’ S ) the grade point average for EE 221. The grading policy of the
EE department is shown in table VIII and IX, whereas table
Course learning outcomes of EE 221 are shown in table I.
XI shows the weighted average marks for all the activities in
In CLO’s 1-3, students learn about signals, perform different
which students were tested. EE 221 student grade distribution
manipulations. In CLO’s 4-7 students get exposure to the
is shown in table (X) . The grade point average (GPA) of the
systems and their properties whereas in CLO’s 8-10, students
course is calculated as
learn about Fourier series, Fourier transform, Z transform and
inverse Z transform. Q 29.5
GP A = = = 1.5 (2)
Mapping of CLO’s to the Washington accord SO’s are N 20
presented in table 2. We have mapped SO’s (I), (II), and (X) Here Q stands for quality points and is formulated as
to EE 221 CLO’s.
III. CLO E VALUATION M ETHOD Q = 4×N (A)+3.5×N (B + )+3×N (B)+2.5×N (C + )+2×N (C)
(3)
In this section, student data analysis is performed for EE 221
whereas N (A) represents number of students who got A
course which was offered in the spring 2015 at Iqra National
grade in EE 221.
University, Peshawar Pakistan. Student data is collected from
quizzes, home assignments, mid term and final exams. This
Table IV
data is then utilized for assessment of CLO’s and Washington HOME ASSIGNMENT MARKS
accord SO’s.
We are using the following abbreviations in table III, IV Student No. HA1 HA2 HA3 HA4 HA5
and V Student 1 7 5 6 0 0
Student 2 7 8 8 0 0
Q 1 for quiz 1, HA 1 for home assignment 1, q1 for question Student 3 7 6 10 10 10
1, MTE for mid term exam and FE for final exam receptively. Student 5 0 4 3 0 0
EAMU in table III-V and VII is a performance vector [2] Student 6 9 9 0 0 0
where E stands for excellent with a point value of 3, A stands Student 7 7 8 5 0 0
Student 8 9 6 10 0 0
for adequate having point value of 2, M for minimal with value Student 9 9 8 8 9 0
of 1 and U stands for unsatisfactory carrying a point value of Student 10 7 9 8 0 0
0. We have assigned a metric goal of 1.5 for CLO’s, meaning Student 11 7 8 8 0 0
Student 12 7 0 6 0 0
that students achieving a metric goal of 1.5 collectively would Student 13 8 7 10 10 0
result in their overall performance to be satisfactory in that Student 14 7 9 8 7 8
particular CLO. We have selected the metric goal of 1.5 Student 15 6 6 5 0 0
based on the quality of the students at the EE department Student 16 10 10 6 0 0
Student 17 7 5 8 8 0
at Iqra National University Peshawar, Pakistan. There were Student 18 5 8 6 0 0
20 students in EE 221 course for Spring 2015 semester and Student 19 8 6 5 0 0
table III-V and VII show their marks in different categories. Student 20 8 6 10 10 10
Total 10 10 10 10 10
Furthermore, these tables have,”Total” row vectors meaning
E 5 4 6 4 2
maximum allowed marks for the corresponding category in A 3 5 5 1 1
respective column, for example, table V shows mid term exam M 10 7 4 1 0
marks distribution while the “Total” row shows that maximum U 2 4 5 14 17
Avg 1.55 1.45 1.60 0.75 0.4
marks in questions 1, 3 and 5 are 5 each whereas question
2 have 6 and question 5 have 8 marks respectively. Table VI
shows the EAMU vector range in percentage for all categories
in which students were tested. Normally, this range is chosen
by the concerned engineering program so that a uniformity is IV. C OURSE G RADE D ISTRIBUTION
observed when performing analysis of CLO’s and SO’s for all Here we are elaborating the course grade distribution and
courses.These EAMU vectors are calculated by averaging E, the grade point average for EE 221. The grading policy of the
A, M and U, for example, in mid term exam’s question 1, 7 EE department is shown in table VIII and IX, whereas table
 Table I
EE 221 COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES.

CLO No Course Learning Outcome

1 Mathematically describe signals
2 Perform different mathematical manipulations on signals including scaling, shifting, differentiation, integration, and sampling
3 Calculate the fundamental period of continuous and discrete signals.
4 Explain various properties of continuous and discrete time systems
5 Describe linear time invariant(LTI) systems
6 Differentiate discrete and continuous convolution
7 Solve differential equations to understand behavior of systems
8 Apply Fourier transform and inverse Fourier transform to analyze continuous and discrete signals
9 Explain Z transform, Z inverse transform and some applications of Z transform.
10 Analyze LTI systems in Z transform

Table II
MAPPING OF EE 221 COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES TO WASHINGTON ACCORD STUDENT OUTCOMES

CLO No I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

1 ! !
2 ! !
3 ! !
4 !
5
6
7
8 !
9 ! !
10

Table III
QUIZ MARKS

Student No. Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 HA1 HA2 HA3 HA4 HA5

Student 1 5 7 7 8 7 5 6 0 0
Student 2 7 6 5 5 7 8 8 0 0
Student 3 6.8 5 5 7 7 6 10 10 10
Student 5 6 4 7 3 0 4 3 0 0
Student 6 5 1 6 7 9 9 0 0 0
Student 7 7 1 8 1 7 8 5 0 0
Student 8 9 5 0 0 9 6 10 0 0
Student 9 1.2 0 6 2 9 8 8 9 0
Student 10 3 0 1 0 7 9 8 0 0
Student 11 4 1 1 5 7 8 8 0 0
Student 12 5 0 9 0 7 0 6 0 0
Student 13 5 9 10 9 8 7 10 10 0
Student 14 8 7 5 8 7 9 8 7 8
Student 15 5 4 6 5 6 6 5 0 0
Student 16 5.5 5 10 9 10 10 6 0 0
Student 17 6.5 2 3 0 7 5 8 8 0
Student 18 2.5 5 8 4 5 8 6 0 0
Student 19 5 6 4 6 8 6 5 0 0
Student 20 7 6 6 5 8 6 10 10 10
Total 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
E 1 1 3 1 5 4 6 4 2
A 1 0 2 3 3 5 5 1 1
M 7 4 6 3 10 7 4 1 0
U 11 15 9 13 2 4 5 14 17
Avg 0.60 0.65 0.95 0.65 1.55 1.45 1.60 0.75 0.4
 Table V Table VII
MID TERM EXAMS MARKS DISTRIBUTION FINAL EXAM MARKS DISTRIBUTION

Student No. Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Student No. Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7

Student 1 1 0 0 0 0 Student 1 1 0 1 2 2 0 0
Student 2 0 0 6 0 0 Student 2 0 1 3 1 1 2 0
Student 3 5 4 3 2 5 Student 3 7 5 4 8 5 5 5
Student 4 2 3 3 0 0 Student 4 1 1 0 2 2 1 0
Student 5 2 1 4 6 2 Student 5 5 0 4 4 5 6 8
Student 6 5 5 5 5 3 Student 6 7 4 4 5 8 5 6
Student 7 1 1 1 3 4 Student 7 3 0 3 0 0 0 7
Student 8 5 5 5 6 5 Student 8 5 4 3 4 8 5 7
Student 9 4 3 6 4 3 Student 9 2 0 0 0 5 8 6
Student 10 4 3 2 2 2 Student 10 5 4 3 5 6 8 6
Student 11 2 3 5 1 5 Student 11 2 2 2 7 5 4 8
Student 12 2 5 4 5 1 Student 12 4 4 4 8 6 8 7
Student 13 3 3 1 2 1 Student 13 6 3 2 8 5 6 5
Student 14 5 5 5 5 4 Student 14 5 6 3 8 5 8 8
Student 15 2 0 5 5 5 Student 15 0 0 1 3 0 1 2
Student 16 5 5 6 6 1 Student 16 8 6 4 5 8 8 8
Student 17 4 5 5 3 3 Student 17 1 0 3 0 8 2 3
Student 18 5 4 4 2 5 Student 18 5 6 4 8 7 8 8
Student 19 4 5 4 5 6 Student 19 1 2 1 1 0 0 3
Student 20 5 4 3 5 5 Student 20 4 6 3 8 7 8
Total 5 6 5 5 8 Total 8 6 4 8 8 8 8
E 7 0 3 9 0 E 1 4 6 6 4 7 5
A 4 7 4 1 2 A 3 1 8 1 4 2 7
M 1 3 5 2 6 M 5 4 0 3 6 3 2
U 8 10 8 8 12 U 11 11 6 10 6 8 6
Avg 1.88 1.06 1.13 1.50 0.38 Avg 0.7 0.9 0.9 1.15 1.30 1.56 0.97

Table VI Table VIII

EAMU VECTOR RANGES FOR QUIZZES, HOME ASSIGNMENTS, GRADING POLICY AT EE DEPARTMENT
MID TERM AND FINAL EXAMS
Assessment Tool Weightage
EAMU VECTOR RANGE STARTS(%) RANGE ENDS(%) Mid Term Exam 30%
EXCELLENT 90 100 Final Exam 50%
ADEQUATE 75 89 Quiz 10%
MINIMAL 60 74 Homework 10%
UNSATISFACTORY 0 59

mid term exam, which assesses CLO 1. Average EAMU point

XI shows the weighted average marks for all the activities in score for question number 4 is entered in table XI. Similarly,
which students were tested. EE 221 student grade distribution the average EAMU point scores of all assessments pertaining
is shown in table (X) . The grade point average (GPA) of the to a particular CLO has been inserted in table XII.
course is calculated as EPAN in table X11 is a performance vector[2], where E
Q 29.5 stands for excellent, P stands for proficient, A for apprentice,
GP A = = = 1.5 (4)
N 20 N for novice with point values of 3, 2, 1 and 0 respectively.
Here Q stands for quality points and is formulated as Average EPAN values are obtained by averaging all EAMU
values in respective column.

Q = 4×N (A)+3.5×N (B + )+3×N (B)+2.5×N (C + )+2×N (C) VI. P ROPOSED ACTIONS FOR C OURSE I MPROVEMENT
(5) Signal and systems is a conceptual course with lot of em-
whereas N (A) represents number of students who got A phasis on mathematical concepts. It was observed that students
grade in EE 221.
V. A SSESSMENT O F CLO’ S AND SO’ S Table IX
LETTER GRADING RANGE AT EE DEPARTMENT
This section deals with the assessment of CLO’s and SO’s
for EE 221 by using the EAMU vector points. Table XI shows Letter Grade Range in %
the mapping of the CLO’s to the Washington accord SO’s by A 88 − 100
B+ 81 − 87
using the average EAMU vectors from tables III-V and VII. B 74 − 80
We are using one assessment for each CLO, to reduce the C+ 67 − 73
complexity level. In future, multiple assessments could be used C 60 − 66
for each CLO. As an example, we are using question 4 of the F 0 − 59
 Table XII
MAPPING OF CLO S TO WASHINGTON ACCORD SO S USING AVERAGE EAMU SCORES

CLO No. I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

CLO 1 MTE (Q4): 1.94 HA 1: 1.55
CLO 2 HA 3: 1.60 HA 2: 1.45
CLO 3 Q 1: 0.60 MTE (Q5): 0.63
CLO 4 HA 2: 1.45 MTE (Q5): 0.63
CLO 5
CLO 6
CLO 7
CLO 8 HA 4: 0.75
CLO 9 FE (Q4): 1.15
CLO 10
Average EPAN 1.39 1.09 0.89

Table X VII. C ONCLUSIONS

WEIGHTED AVERAGE MARKS FOR ALL ASSESSMENT TOOLS
In this paper, we have elaborated the methods of assessing
Student No. Q HA MTE FE the CLO’s and Washington accord SO’s in an undergraduate
Student 1 5 3.6 1 6 engineering degree course using the FCAR. We observed that
Student 2 4.6 4.6 0 8
students performance was not at the satisfactory level in the
Student 3 4.7 8.6 20 39
Student 4 4 1.4 6 7 Washington accord SO’s (I), (II), and (X), applied to signal and
Student 5 3.8 3.6 17 32 systems course mainly because outcome based learning (OBL)
Student 6 3.4 5.2 23 39 was never implemented and as such there was no feed back
Student 7 2.8 4 9 13
Student 8 1.8 5 27 36
system for evaluation. Introduction of OBL for this course
Student 9 0.8 6.8 17 21 has highlighted the shortcomings. To enhance the effectiveness
Student 10 01.2 4.8 13 37 of this course, an action has been proposed, which will be
Student 11 1.6 4.6 15 33 implemented in the fall 2015 semester and hence will “close
Student 12 2.8 2.6 18 41
Student 13 6.6 7 13 35 the loop process”. We have shown that the FCAR methodology
Student 14 5.6 7.8 25 43 can be used as an efficient and effective tool for the assessment
Student 15 4 3.4 12 7 of course learning outcomes and the Washington Accord stu-
Student 16 5.9 5.2 29 47
Student 17 2.3 5.6 20 17
dent outcomes. Furthermore, the FCAR methodology would
Student 18 3.9 3.8 20 46 be used to assess the respective Washington Accord SO’s of
Student 19 4.2 3.8 24 8 all the courses in the EE department and would be presented
Student 20 4.8 8.8 22 42 in the future work.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Table XI The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided
STUDENTS FINAL GRADES DISTRIBUTION by Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) and Iqra
Grades Number of Students National University Peshawar, Pakistan.
A 0 R EFERENCES
B+ 2
B 3 [1] @articleestell2009streamlining, title=Streamlining the assessment pro-
C+ 3 cess with the faculty course assessment report, author=Estell, John K,
C 3 journal=International Journal of Engineering Education, volume=25,
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[2] @inproceedingsjohn2012heuristic, title=A Heuristic Approach to Assess-
ing Student Outcomes Using Performance Vectors, author=John, Estel,
year=2012, organization=ABET Symposium, St. Louis, MO, April .
[3] John K Estell. The faculty course assessment report. In Frontiers in
lack mathematical skills. Therefore it is recommended to have Education, 2003. FIE 2003 33rd Annual, volume 1, pages T4B–T48.
IEEE, 2003.
at least 4 zero lectures (before the commencement of the
actual lecture) in which basic mathematics should be taught.
Furthermore, signal and systems taught at the Iqra National
University is a lengthy course. For example, continuous and
discrete convolution, continuous and discrete Fourier series,
Continuous and discrete Fourier transform and Z transform are
included in this course. It is suggested that continuous Fourier
series and transform and Z transform be removed from this
course.

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