International Society of communication and Development among universities
www.europeansp.org
Spectrum (Educational Research Service),ISSN:0740-7874
© 2016 The Authors. Published by European Science publishing Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of European Science publishing Ltd.
Assesment and academic trajectories in engineers training
Ana María Graffigna
a
, Lucia Mabel Ghilardi
b
, Guillermina Inés Cortés
c
*
a
National University of San Juan, Libertador San Martín 1109 (oeste), San Juan 5400, Argentina
b
National University of San Juan, Libertador San Martín 1109 (oeste), San Juan 5400, Argentina
b
National University of San Juan, Libertador San Martín 1109 (oeste), San Juan 5400, Argentina
Abstract
Assesment is an important part of the curriculum processes that strains the educational system. Assesment practices at university
are a problem that is crossed by different factors among it highlights the institutional context and the pedagogical-didactic
teachers’ decisions. This work constitutes the progress of an ongoing descriptive and exploratory investigation, which focuses its
attention on understanding the impact of the assesment system of learning in the academic careers of engineering students from
the National University of San Juan. The conclusions, provisional yet since this is an ongoing investigation, are a valuable input
for curriculum design and development at the School of Engineering, as a starting point for strengthening assesment processes,
enabling joint practices, economy of efforts and quality assurance assesment at the institutional level. It tries also to be a
contribution to making decisions, widely discussed in academic and institutional context, by providing a survey of the
experiences around assesment processes, that teachers of the School of Engineering are making through their pedagogical
practices in different degree courses. This research will also contribute to improve the quality of training of engineers that
develops in the institutional context, as it could affect in increasing student retention rate and shortening the actual duration of the
careers, in which assesment regimes have an important role.
© 2016 The Authors. Published by European Science publishing Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of European Science publishing Ltd.
Keywords: Assesment; curriculum; engineers training
1. Engineering training and assesment
Programs of study belonging to technical-professional careers have been the object of various reforms over the
last two decades, part of broader reforms carried out by Argentina’s Office of University Policies and implemented
through periodic university and career assesment and accreditation processes.
This study is part of the Strategic Plan for Engineering Education (PEFI) carried out by the Office of University
Policies within Argentina’s Ministry of Education. Its objective is to improve the quantity and quality of engineering
human resources and increase the number of engineering graduates over a period of ten years. Its focus, therefore, is
to develop a project to improve academic markers, deepen the analysis of university contributions to territorial
sustainable development and make the nature of Argentine engineering more international.
Assesment initiatives and modifications to programs of study, in terms of conditions for promotion and
regularity, fall into the first PEFI project of improving academic markers. This project raises the issue that despite an
* Corresponding author.