FE Exam Results Should Be Public Information
Performance statistics for the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination issued by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) are forwarded each year to universities and to state PE licensing boards that request them. These reports are an outstanding tool for programs to use in determining curriculum strengths and weaknesses, and formulating plans for improvement. More and more, university engineering programs are using FE exam reports as an outcomes assessment tool, which is one of the critical components of ABET accreditation processes.
These exam results would also be of value to students and to the public, but pass-rate data is not availble to the public. Since many universities and all state PE boards are public entities, the information may be available by public information request under the laws of each state, but the information is generally, perhaps uniformly, not publicized.
The engineering profession should consider the benefits of requiring that a two- or three-year running average of FE exam pass rates be made publicly available, perhaps on the institution’s engineering program Web site, by university and by program. A two- or three-year running average might be considered because results can vary significantly from class to class, but a longer-term running average takes out that variable. And it might be made available by program because the data may be far more valid for programs such as civil or environmental engineering, where 90% of graduates will need to be licensed in order to practice engineering, as opposed to electrical engineering, where perhaps only 10% of the graduates take the PE exam and become professional engineers.
The benefits of doing this are several. Students and parents who are selecting engineering programs should have access to information on the performance of the program’s graduates. It is an indicator of the quality of the program and the academic talent of the engineering students. It is of particular importance to parents and students who are entering a field of study that requires licensure to practice professionally to know the past history of the program’s graduates in passing the FE exam. There are some EAC-ABET accredited programs that consistently have very low pass rates on the FE exam (at least that’s what I’ve heard for years; I’ve never seen the data). In that case, parents and students have a right to know that. It may not be an inalienable right, but it is a reasonable right. The publication of the data also would create a significant incentive for programs with poor performance to improve. That could encourage “teaching to the test,” but in this specific case, perhaps that is a necessary and good thing.
What is the downside? There will be initial push-back from institutions that will not want to publicize these results. Representatives of some disciplines will argue that the FE exam isn’t fully relevant to their curricula and publishing skewed results will be an unreliable indicator of their program’s quality. Some programs require all students to at least attempt the FE exam in order to graduate, and in these cases some students who don’t anticipate needing to be licensed don’t make a good faith effort. This can skew results. And some institutions will probably contend that publishing these results doesn’t reflect on the problems they face in educating incoming students with poor academic preparedness; East Podunk State just isn’t Stanford, and can’t be expected to be. Perhaps in the case of a program that has consistently extremely poor performance on the FE exam, the program might consider curriculum and program changes, including changing to a technology program rather than an engineering program. There is, however, some concern that programs with consistently poor performance might not encourage students to take the FE exam in the future if the data is published and ranked. Another downside is that curricula vary from school to school. The goal of the FE exam for outcomes assessment is not to shape the curriculum to teach to the exam. It is to allow schools to assess how they are doing in the areas that they do teach. A school where civil engineers don’t take, say, thermodynamics, may do better in the areas their curriculum covers, but a school that requires thermo may have a better pass rate. Overall, I contend that all of these downsides are outweighed by the benefits.
U.S. architectural programs are required by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (the architects’ equivalent to ABET) to publish the performance of their graduates on the NCARB examinations, given after gaining experience (the equivalent of the Principles and Practice of Engineering Exam). Here is the NAAB requirement:
“Annually, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards publishes pass rates for each section of the Architect Registration Examination by institution. This information is considered to be useful to parents and prospective students as part of their planning for higher/post-secondary education. Therefore, programs are required to make this information available to current and prospective students and their parents either by publishing the annual results or by linking their website to the results.”
NCEES should consider the possibility of similarly publishing the pass rates for the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam by university and by program. This would likely require gathering additional data beyond what is gathered currently. Perhaps starting with making the FE exam pass rates public could be followed in future years with the PE exam results.
The FE exam results currently are nearly secret. If I were an incoming student in an engineering field that requires exam passage in order to practice at a professional level, or a parent paying $100,000 or so for such a college education, I would want to know if the institution’s graduates only pass 30% of the time, or 60% of the time, or whatever. They have a reasonable right to know that. And programs with graduates experiencing a very low pass rate have a need to know that, and to be accountable for improvement.
It’s time to come clean, and let the chips fall where they may.
Comments can be submitted below. A rationale for continuing not to divulge the performance by institution and program might be particularly interesting.
This item has been reviewed and edited by L. Robert Smith, P.E., F.NSPE, and Bernard R. Berson, P.E., P.L.S., F.NSPE.
The author is a Fellow of NSPE and ACEC, a Distinguished Member of ASCE, a Board Certified Environmental Engineer, the Chair of the NSPE Licensure and Qualifications for Practice Committee, and a member of the ABET Board of Directors. The opinions expressed herein are his own and do not reflect the views of any of these organizations.