The Impacts of Reflective Writing on Peer Evaluations in Engineering Design Courses

Abstract Like many undergraduate engineering programs, students in our institution's Engineering Design Courses participate in multi-disciplinary teams in semester-long design challenges as part of a two-course sequence required in the undergraduate curriculum. In addition to the structured technical design process, design-course students are also required to complete individual development assignments designed to enhance each student's growth as an individual contributor and team member. The program requires students to conduct peer evaluations and self-evaluations at approximately the mid-term point as well as during the final week of the semester. Using Purdue's Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) evaluation system, students are required to rate themselves and teammates on the standard CATME dimensions, as well as provide constructive comments that are tailored for each teammate describing specific behaviors to start, stop, or continue. Unique to our institution's program, students are assessed on their ability to provide actionable, constructive feedback to each teammate beyond superficial peer comments such as "you are doing a good job." Additionally, each student is required to write an individual development plan to both reflect upon the feedback received and set practical improvement goals for the semester and desired professional growth after the course concludes. Students must objectively analyze why they received any critical feedback and not simply justify behavior. This work will describe the approach used in these assignments, the detailed instructions provided to students, and the results of performance metrics. The performance metrics are investigated regarding the hypothesis that peer evaluations will show improvement trends for students that complete individual development plans as compared to students in legacy versions of these design courses who did not have this requirement.