Every engineering program accredited by ABET's Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) commits to the same seven student outcomes, set out in Criterion 3 of the General Criteria. They describe what a graduate should be able to do by the day the degree is conferred, and they are the yardstick a review team uses when it reads a program's evidence. This guide explains each outcome in plain terms and describes how ABET expects programs to gather evidence on them, based on the EAC's Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs for the 2026-27 cycle and ABET's assessment planning guidance, which together frame assessment & student outcomes work for EAC programs. Credentials Wave is an independent publication covering accreditation; it reports on ABET and does not speak for it. Program faculty should work from ABET's own wording, which this guide summarizes rather than reproduces.

What a student outcome is

ABET defines student outcomes as what students are expected to know and be able to do by graduation, covering the knowledge, skills and behaviors they build over the course of the program. That makes them different from program educational objectives under Criterion 2, which describe what graduates go on to accomplish in the years after they leave. Outcomes are measured on current students; objectives are reviewed with the program's constituencies, such as employers and alumni.

The seven EAC outcomes are a floor, not a ceiling. The criteria allow a program to add outcomes of its own, and some disciplines carry additional expectations through their Program Criteria.

The seven outcomes, in brief

  1. Problem solving. Graduates can recognize, frame and work through complex engineering problems using engineering, science and mathematics.
  2. Design. Graduates can carry a design through to a result that meets stated needs while weighing public health, safety and welfare along with global, cultural, social, environmental and economic factors.
  3. Communication. Graduates can communicate effectively with audiences of different kinds, not only with other engineers.
  4. Ethics and professional responsibility. Graduates can identify their ethical and professional obligations in engineering situations and reach informed judgments that account for the wider effects of engineering work.
  5. Teamwork. Graduates can work effectively on a team whose members share leadership, collaborate, set goals, plan tasks and meet objectives.
  6. Experimentation. Graduates can plan and run appropriate experiments, analyze and interpret the resulting data, and use engineering judgment to reach conclusions.
  7. Lifelong learning. Graduates can pick up and apply new knowledge when a task calls for it, using learning strategies suited to the situation.

How ABET expects programs to gather evidence

ABET's definitions separate two activities that programs often blur. Assessment is the work of identifying, collecting and preparing data on whether students are reaching the outcomes. Evaluation is the separate step of interpreting that data to decide how far the outcomes are being attained. A program that collects data without interpreting it has done only half of what the criteria ask.

The criteria leave the choice of measures to the program. ABET states that assessment can draw on direct and indirect measures, and on quantitative and qualitative ones, and that sampling is acceptable. As an illustration, a direct measure looks at student work itself, such as a scored design report or an exam problem tied to one outcome. Indirect measures capture perceptions, such as senior exit surveys or employer feedback. Because sampling is allowed, a program does not need to score every student on every outcome every term.

Performance indicators and curriculum maps

ABET's assessment planning guidance describes performance indicators as the specific knowledge, skills, attitudes or behaviors that show a student is competent in an outcome. Each of the seven outcomes is broad, so a program can break each one into a small number of observable indicators. For the teamwork outcome, for example, indicators might separately cover setting goals, planning tasks and sharing leadership, each of which can be scored on its own.

The same guidance recommends mapping the program's educational strategies, including co-curricular activities, to the outcomes. A curriculum map shows where each outcome is introduced, reinforced and demonstrated, and it tells a program where the strongest evidence for each outcome can be collected. Senior design courses, laboratory sequences and technical writing assignments can carry evidence for several outcomes at once, and a map makes that overlap visible.

What a review team looks for

ABET's assessment planning page lays out a sequence that starts with the institution's mission, moves through defining outcomes, designing and running assessments and evaluating the findings, and ends with using the results to make decisions. During a review, evaluators look for that sequence in the self-study report and in the materials on display: defined indicators, consistent collection, written interpretation of results and a record of who reviewed them.

How a program turns those evaluations into changes is the subject of Criterion 4, covered in a separate Credentials Wave guide. For assessment & student outcomes work under Criterion 3, the practical test is whether the program can point to specific student work, scored against specific indicators, for each of the seven outcomes.

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