DEFT Project

The Design Evaluation and Feedback Tool (DEFT) is a custom-built web-based system that collects and reports data to support teaching, learning and research in project-based engineering design education. The system is intended to support educators in coaching and monitoring student designers, encourage students in reflective reporting on their experiential learning, and to serve as a data collection tool for education researchers.

DEFT (https://www.deft-project.com) collects design process data through short, weekly questionnaires for students and instructors in engineering design classes, and generates weekly update reports for both groups of users. DEFT was developed through an iterative design and evaluation process in five different mechanical engineering design classes over five semesters at two universities in Ireland and the United States. Students fill out questions about their various design activities, including duration and general classification, as well as questions about their peers’ performance. Instructors fill out questions regarding student teams’ performance and can use historical data from themselves or students to make judgements and inferences into team dynamics and project management.

Example design process data (see: DEFT Demo)