Digital Tool‐Supported Problem‐Based Assessment for Teaching Process Integration

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, problem‐based learning (PBL) has been applied within chemical engineering courses to develop higher‐order thinking and industry‐level problem‐solving skills; nevertheless, the quantitative evidence from PBL‐based assessments incorporating digital reflective tools remains limited. The current study examines an outcomes‐based PBL assessment strategy applied to a Final Year chemical process integration and intensification (CPII) module delivered to 44 third‐level chemical engineering students. The assessment comprised three components of increasing cognitive complexity that evaluated Bloom's Levels 3 and 4 for assessing course outcomes (hereafter, CO) of CO1‐Open‐ended industrial case study, CO2‐Numerical pinch analysis, and CO3‐Flowsheet design and synthesis. It was found that students showed better performance on structured tasks (CO2: 56.1%) compared to design synthesis tasks (CO3: 39.1%) through quantitative analysis, which was supported by repeated measures ANOVA. Students had an overall pass rate of 84.09%. The evaluation conducted through a validated questionnaire ( α  = 0.849; KMO = 0.730) showed that the design of the assessment was consistent. One of the main contributions of this study is that it has included a phase of post‐assessment self‐ and peer‐reflection by using the open‐source software called HINT (Heat Integration). The diagnostic capability of visual pinch analysis allowed 68% of the students to identify errors in their analysis or diagrams, while 56% reported improved confidence in interpreting HEN results.