Capstone courses are traditionally found in the senior year of undergraduate degree programs, giving students nearing the completion of their studies an opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge they have acquired (Nielsen et al., 2003). The course format is often structured to test written and oral skills, explore advanced topics with guest lecturers, and provide meaningful experiences for future employment. Capstone courses also provide a unique opportunity for program directors to assess learning outcomes and when they include businesses, the strengths and weaknesses in the curriculum with respect to potential employers’ needs. These courses also provide an opportunity to focus on the last three of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia, 1964): analysis, synthesis and evaluation, which can be challenging to some students who prefer an instructor-centered environment, but enables non-traditional adult learners the opportunity to bring skills and experience from outside the course into their work.
In this paper we examine the impact of different variables on four measures of success for the capstone course: student course grades, student team grades, student evaluation of instructors and company evaluation of students. The goals of this on-going study are to improve the learning outcomes for students taking the course and the value of the student projects for the companies involved by understanding how the course and team project can be structured to maximize the potential for success. We have tracked the outcomes of more than 125 students over the past 2.5 years and will present a quantitative analysis of the results and a discussion of the effectiveness of the course design.
