A Rubric for Assessing an Electric Circuits Laboratory Final Exam

Laboratory experiments offer practical applications of the theory learned in courses, and are an integral part of engineering programs. Oftentimes, students work in pairs or small groups during laboratory experiments. Sometimes the collaborative experience can support peer learning, whereas other times a divide-and-conquer approach is adopted, in which each student completes a portion of the laboratory activities. This approach often leads to students specializing in a proper subset of the skills we would like for them to develop. One approach to deter the aforementioned specialization is to include a laboratory final exam as part of the course, which comprehensively assesses the different skills and knowledge competencies intended for the laboratory course. In laboratory courses with several sections and different instructors, it can be challenging to ensure consistency in the assessment of the laboratory final exam. A solution to ensuring consistency of assessing laboratory final exams across sections is to develop a comprehensive rubric for assessing the various elements of the examination. This paper provides an example rubric for an electric circuits laboratory final exam and discusses how the rubric is used to help prepare the students for the laboratory final, as well as how it is used to assess the laboratory final exam during the period in which the exam is administered.