Assessment and validation of placements of student industrial placements

Assessment opportunities	University	Company
Establishing preliminary contacts with companies	X	X
Understanding of the subject	X	X
Technical work		X
Behaviour & personal skills		X
Technical report . content . written form . oral presentation	X	(X)
Environment report	X	(X)

At ETSIM Madrid, the sharing of responsibilities in the assessment to award a grade for the placement is the following

Actor	Field	Weight
Mentor in the Company	Assessment of the process : performance of the student	50 %
Faculty members	Assessment of the product : report over the cultural aspects of the company	25 %
Academic Project Advisors	Assessment of the product : technical report	25 %

2.2 – The system of reference

We present below different examples of systems of reference related to the academic assessment of student placements

Example of a system of reference based on different academic institutions' evaluation practices and evaluation grids for placements in engineering

General dimension	Corresponding skills
Assimilation of knowledge and know-how related to the academic course	e.g. computing, chemistry, mechanics, etc
Ability to implement the acquired knowledge in solving concrete problems	- problem solving abilities - work methods and organisation - technical skills
Ability to develop and manage a project	- initiative - global vision of a project - work methods and organisation - decision taking - keeping to deadlines - tenacity
Capacity to work in a team or an organisation and relate to others	- adaptation skills - willingness to cooperate - teamwork skills - working under supervision - supervising - effective working relationships
Oral and written communication abilities	- communicating - convincing - being coherent - ability to synthesize - clarity of expression - foreign language skills
Ability to hear, observe and analyse	- seeking out and using information - analysing - having a critical view
Personal skills and qualities	initiative, autonomy Sociability Being reliable Curiosity Creativity, innovation capacity Being enterprising, dynamic

Example of the evaluation grid established by the Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Metz for the assessment of student industrial placements

Below we reproduce most of the ENIM evaluation grid which is related to a 28-week industrial placement taking place in the fourth year of studies (one year before the final engineering degree). It is used by a jury composed of members of ENIM and the Company. More than 50 % of ENIM students do their industrial placement abroad.

ASSESSMENT		E	D	C	B	A	Observations
Written report	Style			clear and correct	pleasing flowing	elegant
	Content			pertinent	sound /well documented	purposeful original
Oral presentation	Command of English			understandable	fairly fluent	fluent
	Elucidation			correct but unattractive	clear with good reasoning	coherent convincing
	Knowledge of the subject			sticks to his report	good command	mastery of the subject
Trainee's profile	Character			open attentive	keen interested	creative enterprising
	Behaviour			affable sociable	cooperative, communicative	a driving force leader
	Industriousness			conscientious painstaking	industrious	dynamic methodical
	Technical ability			keeps to conventional solutions	good at problem solving	efficient rigorous
Members of the Jury Chairman Engineer Other members COMMENTS : ..............................		very poor	poor	average	good	excellent	Strong points : Weak points :
Overall Assessment (tick only one box)

One problem of the evaluation of international placements and studies is that the interpretation of criteria and the scale of marking may differ between the countries. To clarify criteria, the ENIM grid characterizes each marking box with an adjective. We only reproduce the details of the A, B and C scales.

Example of student's participation in his own academic assessment at the Université de Technologie de Troyes

The engineering programme at UTT includes various placements at different stages of the curriculum (see case study in the Appendix), among which a one semester professional placement

Student’s self-assessment is provided through a single evaluation grid to be filled by the company and by the student himself. The grid has a list of 14 criteria and 4 marking levels with the option of no answer. The comparison between the company’s and the student’s own appreciation is, of course, very instructive.

	-	0	+	++	no opinion
Ability to adapt
Initiative
Aptitude to get informed
Efficiency
Aptitude to get informed in a group
Human relations
Assiduity
Level of skills
Capacity for innovation
Organisation skills
Quality of written reports
Quality of oral reports
Quality of achievements
Development of the trainee

Example of a system of reference drawn up by a companies [carreerspace]

This system of reference, drawn up by European large firms, may give a good idea of industry’s expectations regarding personal skills. It is worth noting :

Acquired knowledge	Specific Engineering methods	General approach to work	Relation to others	Involvement
	Ability to analyse	Attention to detail	Oral or written communication	Creativity
	problem solving abilities	Professionalism and attitude	Sense of team-work	Sense of initiative
		Planning and organisation	Relational capacities	Involvement in the search for excellence
	Technical orientation and fields of interest	Risk management	Persuasion	Flexibility Self-learning abilities
	Information processing	Sense of quality analysis	Consideration of customer expectations
		Sense of strategy and task planning	Leadership
Full concern of the academic institution	Attention of the academic institution	Poor attention of academics	Communication is observed	Poor attention of academics

^[1] It has to be pointed out that periods in industry cannot be considered as placements when no common follow-up is organized.

1 Various surveys have confirmed this point (e.g. impact on employability for former trainees in the FACE international placement programme).

1 Educational institutions being concerned with striving for excellence

·However, too utilitarian an attitude may be counter-productive

+This attitude is nowadays becoming so widespread that some companies are now considering the placement period as a first employment period with a real contract

Assessing industrial placements : processes and systems of reference

1) There are three main lines of evaluation

2) The academic assessment of the student