Development and Evaluation of Cooperative Education Programs

We developed "co-op practice(work integrated learning)”in 2005. In this practicum, teams made up of a mix of graduates and undergraduates are given projects developed by various companies. The teams have to solve the problem in six month and its long-term programs. The practicum enables the graduates to take a leadership role in project management and contributes to their area of specialization. At this year's conference, we will present our new evaluation approach about the development of participating students in "co-op practice" which we have administered for 4 years. In January 2008, we conducted a three-way evaluation of fifty-eight students who had completed the entire co-op practice course: (1) self-review evaluation by students, (2) mutual evaluation in student teams, and (3) objective evaluation by an academic advisor. Interesting observations were made on the difference of the evaluation patterns between the students and their leader. The “virtuous cycle team” shows the highest scores in the three evaluation indicators in the leadership category while understanding of challenges and discovery of issues are also highly evaluated. The “virtuous cycle team” member’s evaluation showed that their leader exhibited excellent leadership qualities in "Management", "Unification" and "Consideration” for their team. On the contrary the “vicious cycle team” members said that they did not observe similar kinds of leadership behavior stating that the leader only developed his own capability (i.e. application of academic knowledge).