THE TYRANNY OF OUTCOMES: THE SOCIAL ORIGINS AND IMPACTS OF EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS IN AMERICAN ENGINEERING

摘要

As we leave behind "No Child Left Behind" for new educational policies in the United States, questions about the value of punitive applications of educational standards have gained attention. As a nation, we are actively questioning how best to use systematic assessments of individual students, programs, schools, and school systems; "carrots" today seem more inspiring than "sticks" to many concerned about our schools. But few if any observers have considered that by definition, all attempts to prescribe outcomes or establish performance standards may discourage criticality to some degree, constraining inquiry into radically innovative practices or goals. This paper considers the nature of outcomes-based credentialing practices in U.S. engineering education to identify ways in which alternative pedagogies and applications of engineering might be foreclosed by these "best practices," however well-intentioned. It focuses on ABET formulations regarding undergraduate engineering since 1980 as a set of epistemic and socially regulatory instruments. Analyzing both the purported function and the content of outcomes included in ABET documents over the last three decades, the paper shows how ABET has projected a formative role for outcomes in curricular development and institutional credibility. In particular, impacts of ABET outcomes-focused practices upon diversity, public participation, and the pursuit of social justice in engineering education (and thus in the profession of engineering) will be examined. ABET has often stated its commitment to such socially desirable aims. Drawing on the sociology of knowledge and related methods of studying the institutional conservatism of performance standards, we may recognize the challenges to change inherent in outcomes-focused education and increase the likelihood of achieving those aims.