COMPARISON OF ACCREDITATION REQUIREMENTS
FOR CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMS

INTRODUCTION

The authors recently had the opportunity to evaluate the curriculum in construction at Bradley University with respect to accreditation. The curriculum is currently accredited by the American Council for Construction Education (ACCE), but questions were raised within the department about accreditation as an engineering program by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) or the possibility of being accred­ited by both agencies. This led to an investigation of the requirements for accreditation, an evaluation of their philosophies, advantages or disadvantages, as well as conducting some limited surveys to gain a feel for the perception of requirements for construction programs.

The accrediting agencies have different curriculum requirements because of the background and philosophy of each agency. ABET (formerly known as ECPD) proposed accrediting different engineering and engineer­ing technology programs in 1933 and is well established. As would be expected with engineering programs, there is an emphasis on engineering basics and design.

ACCE on the other hand, is a newer (1974) accrediting agency that was formed in response to desires from those in the construction profession for recognition and quality professional education of graduates unique to their industry. Since construction is business based, there is an emphasis on business and management courses that relate to construction.

Accreditation as construction engineering by ABET or construction management by ACCE are not the only options. A program could be accredited as an engineer­ing technology by ABET, though this is often not re­garded by engineers as a high professional level like pure engineering. If a program has its roots in industrial arts, it may be accredited by NAIT. Finally, a program may find that because of the limitations that accredita­tion puts on the curriculum, no accreditation at all may be a desirable choice.

COMPARISON OF REQUIREMENTS

ABET states the background of their curricular require­ments in their General Criteria. "These criteria are intended to assure an adequate foundation in science, the humanities and the social sciences, engineering sciences and engineering design methods, as well as preparation in a higher engineering specialization appropriate to the challenge presented by today's complex and difficult problems." [1]

The Curricular Objective and Content section gives more specific information on the types of courses. "The course-work must include at least:

In addition to the above listed requirements which are common to all engineering programs, the curriculum for construction engineering is further amplified and item number (3) is modified to include: "The one-half year in engineering design should provide a general grounding in the basics of the construction profession as well as permit some progress towards specialization. A mini­mum of one-half year must be allocated to business management courses to ensure a broad general back­ground." [1]

For a program requiring 128 semester hours or more, one-half year of study is considered to be 16 semester hours. For a program requiring fewer total credit hours, one-half year is considered to be one-eighth of the total program.

On the other hand, ACCE states in its Standards and Criteria that: "Construction education should emphasize three areas of student development:

The curriculum is encouraged to "...provide offerings beyond the required minimums of the ACCE Standards and Criteria for Accreditation. Curriculum planning flexibility in the following subject areas recognizes and encourages differing emphases by the various construc­tion education units. The total curriculum should sup­port the objectives of the construction education unit and provide balanced content within the categories." [2]

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

Table 1 on the following pages show both of the accred­iting agency curriculum requirements side by side. The table shows the information both numerically as well as graphically by the size of the boxes.

Major Differences

The major difference in the ABET and ACCE curricu­lum requirements is the heavy ABET foundation of courses in the math and basic sciences area, 78% more hours than the similar courses required by ACCE. The minimum requirement of calculus through differential equations is something that few other types of construc­tion programs include. The science requirement is also quite strong in that it requires both physics and chemis­try with a two semester sequence in at least one of them.

Engineering sciences is another category where the ABET requirements are higher than ACCE. Nominally, ABET has 33% more than the ACCE requirement for construction sciences. However, suggestions for courses that are in the construction sciences include courses that would not normally fit in the ABET requirement of engineering sciences. Thus, the number of hours is actually much higher than the 33% that one might think.

Since engineers are expected to have competence in conducting experimental work, laboratories are empha­sized at the upper level courses with ABET. ABET requests that even some of the basic sciences include laboratory experience as well. ABET also looks for demonstration of knowledge and applications of digital computation techniques to engineering problems.

A recent requirement of ABET accredited programs is the inclusion of a realistic engineering design course. Typically, this is interpreted to be a design project that draws upon previous courses and has factors that act as constraints in the areas of economics, safety, reliability, aesthetics, ethics, and social impact. ABET requires only 16 semester hours of business management, while the ACCE requirement is 50% heavier with 24 semester hours. Another big difference is in the construction courses themselves. ABET includes the courses for construction engineering in with engineering design. Since engineering design is likely to include courses other than construction, the ACCE requirements will undoubtedly be heavier in construction courses by more than the minimum 50% shown in Table 1.

Additional Comparisons

Since the groups shown in Table 1 do not match course types exactly, care must be taken in making other than general statements about each. Note that some courses under one accrediting agency requirements could be modified to fit the other agency (set up as a design oriented course rather than a survey course e.g.). This is especially true for engineering sciences vs. construction science, engineering design vs. construction, and engi­neering design vs. construction science.

As is true for the Bradley curriculum, other universities will have requirements that add to the hours in some categories so that no one would have only the minimum number of hours in all categories.

EXAMPLE CURRICULUM

Table 2 shows how a sample curriculum that is accred­ited by ACCE fits the categories for both ABET and ACCE. The Bradley University curriculum is used as an example in the table, other construction programs would vary slightly. The minimum ACCE hours are exceeded in some categories because of either the local emphasis and evolution of courses within the department or the university requirements. For example, Bradley has a core group of courses that serve as a general education requirement. This is the reason that the ACCE general education group contains the courses that are listed and why the hours are greater than the minimum required.

Table 2 further shows the same courses as they would be assigned to the ABET curriculum groups, as well as some of the changes that would be necessary to meet the minimum requirements for construction engineering.

Note that further revisions would be necessary if this curriculum were actually accredited as an ABET con­struction engineering program. Further deletions of courses would be necessary to bring the total number of semester hours (140) down to a workable number of courses that would fit eight semesters. This would dictate a change to much of the current philosophy of the curriculum, and individual courses would have to be redesigned to more correctly match the ABET category criteria. In the case of the Bradley University program, many of the courses shown would actually switch to civil engineering existing courses since the CE program provides many of the service courses for other engineer­ing courses in the school.

ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES

ABET

Advantages There are several advantages to having an accredited construction engineering program.

Disadvantages There are also disadvantages to the ABET programs.

ACCE

Advantages There are some obvious advantages to choosing the ACCE accreditation.

Disadvantages In one sense, the advantages of one type of accreditation are the disadvantages of the other.

Other considerations

In deciding whether a program should be accredited by ABET or by ACCE there are a number of other things that should be examined.

TWO ACCREDITATIONS

It should be apparent from Table 2 that having one curriculum that is accredited by both ABET and ACCE is not practical. The curriculum would end up requiring at least 5 years for students to complete.

However, having two curricula with separate accredita­tion for each program would be a possibility. There aremany common courses that would be included in each of the programs. In fact, this has been done at North Dakota State University where within the same depart­ment there is an ABET accredited construction engineer­ing program, an ACCE accredited construction manage­ment program, as well as a four year construction tech­nology program. The obvious dangers are that each program ends up competing for some of the same stu­dents, and resources may be over extended to cover the courses that are not common to each program.

SURVEY OF ATTITUDES

Current seniors majoring in construction at Bradley were surveyed to examine their feelings about accreditation. Questions were also asked of the industry advisory committee for the Department of Civil Engineering and Construction.

Students

It is routine for the department to solicit opinions from the graduating seniors regarding the curriculum. 22 of the students responded with suggestions on which courses in the curriculum to emphasize or deemphasize, as well as replying to questions about the desirability of construction engineering. The results were inconclusive, but some trends are apparent.

There were 11 responses indicating that the emphasis should not be changed, with 10 responses suggesting that it be changed to engineering. However, some students were contradictory by checking both responses, and some did not indicate a preference. The validity of the responses is questioned even further when it is noted that the courses that students thought should be deem­phasized, typically included those that would be in the category of engineering sciences. They also desired even more of an emphasis on the construction manage­ment courses. This obviously contradicts the basics of a construction engineering curriculum. The conclusion may be that students like the engineering title, but not the engineering curriculum.

The majority of the students did like the idea of having the option of becoming registered as an engineer, and 9 of them indicated that they would at least consider an employment opportunity in design.

Industry

The industry advisory committee was also contacted in an effort to get their opinions. A construction advisory committee had been present for some time, but with a reorganization in the department administration, gradu­ate civil engineers were added to the committee.

Again, the results were inconclusive, with the CE alumni generally favoring construction engineering and CON alumni favoring construction management. However, during the advisory committee meeting when discussion was requested on this topic, one CE graduate was par­ticularly vocal about the necessity of management courses for engineers, and one CON graduate was a supporter of strong calculus courses in construction.

CONCLUSION

In comparing the requirements for ABET and ACCE accreditations, it is most important to note the different philosophies behind the two programs. ABET was established to encompass several engineering fields whereas ACCE was specifically created to address the needs of construction education. ABET stresses con­struction engineering, while ACCE focuses on construc­tion management. The two have different basic require­ments and areas of emphasis in their curriculum. There­fore, it is almost impossible to tailor a four year program to fit both criteria. However, some schools have solved this problem by offering both programs but not without creating new concerns. Each program has its advantages and disadvantages. Nevertheless, in selection of one over the other, the actual philosophy of the curriculum and the availability of courses that satisfy the agency's requirements should be examined. This will indicate the ease of implementing the program. Availability of the resources and local competition from other schools in the same region should also be considered.

REFERENCES