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“Common elements of programmes implemented at the world’s top-ranked engineering universities were identified and analysed.” (p.216) “These … elements include: a precursory sequence of PBL experiences; a design-build-test programme model; and active industry involvement. Also most of the programmes examined either mandate or optionally allow group projects to simulate authentic engineering projects and working environments. Sequential assignments are normally required for group capstone programmes to assess factors such as: design methodology, communication, and team work.” (p.217)
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“The top 10 discipline skills (by citation frequency) were: design (24), requirements (22), groupwork (21), testing (19), writing (17), speaking (15), … oftware process (14), project management (14), large system experience (14) and knowledge integration (10).” (p.213-215) “The top ten topics (by citation frequency) in Table 2 were in order: design (24), groupwork (22), requirements (20), test (18), documentation (17), lifecycle (15), presentation (15), project management (13), maintenance (10), and tools (10).” (p.217-218) “One survey organized evaluating students within a group based on the evaluator and artifact: instructor evaluation, self-evaluation, peer-evaluation, group leader evaluation, other participant evaluation, and select project artifact evaluation.” (p.219) “There were many techniques for course evaluation including: reflection, surveys, focus groups, project success, and a variant of the capability maturity model.” (p.221)
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“This paper describes the standard practices and current state of capstone design education throughout the country as revealed through a … literature search of over 100 papers relating to engineering design courses. Major topics include the development of capstone design courses, course descriptions, project information, details of industrial involvement, and special aspects of team‐oriented design projects. An extensive list of references is provided.” (p.17)
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“The findings further indicate that factors related to student limits and time limits predominate with respect to those variables that produce less … successful course outcomes.” (p.227) “Our present finding confirms that at least 60 percent, and perhaps as many as 80 percent, of American baccalaureate or higher institutions with sociology or psychology departments offer capstone courses…” (p.228) “Our present study confirms that sociology and psychology capstone students nationwide are most likely to engage in a “major project” that entails research, a literature review, and a major paper (Hauhart and Grahe 2010).” (p.235) “Finally, capstone projects are most often shared orally but are also frequently evaluated in paper form.” (p.238)
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“Results suggest that institutions have multiple approaches to the capstone course, but that these differences are rarely associated with …institutional size, type of funding, or degree offered.” (p.281) “Moreover, our survey results suggest that capstone courses share common pedagogical purposes such as integrating learned material and extending and applying learned material.” (p.283) “These projects are presented in research reports with a minimum page length and adoption of a standard reference style (i.e., APA).” (p.284-285)
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“Capstones should endeavor to provide experiential learning by having students apply acquired knowledge and skills to relevant issues in their field … of study. However, in order for a capstone to provide valuable experiential learning, strong faculty-student relationships need to be established…Capstone experiences should aim to integrate and apply concepts through performance skills such as laboratory techniques, data interpretation, written and oral communication, ability to design and perform an experiment and effective use of the scientific literature. Defined courses or structured independent study or research projects are the most favored forms of capstone, although the implementation of the capstone experience does vary.” (p.230)