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Competency-Based Evaluation

You’re probably used to taking courses that use some combination of examinations and assignments to assess your learning. I grew up in this system myself, taking notes on lectures so that I could memorize facts and regurgitate them later (and then forget them after the course ended). When courses did have hands-on components, they were usually assignments that accounted for only some small portion of the overall grade.

Today, we have a few problems with this traditional approach. First, you’re presumably in this course as part of your preparation for a long-term career with good pay. If all you have learned to do over the entirety of your educational experience is to memorize and recall facts, you’re going to have a lot of competition in the workplace thanks to recent advances in technology. A $20 Amazon Echo Dot can regurgitate facts more reliably than you can. It doesn’t sleep, requires no salary or benefits, and doesn’t need vacation time or personal days. Preparing yourself for a high-paying career today means that you have to do more than just memorize a bunch of facts (but you still need to know some facts!). You have to do something that computers do not (yet, at least) do well: you must learn to assimilate and apply information, be creative in finding new solutions, solve problems by reasoning, and communicate more effectively than a computerized voice.

While it would be easy to switch a course from memorizing facts to grading hands-on assignments, our technology creates a second problem: assignments quite quickly find their way onto various websites that provide solutions (many of them poor) in exchange for a fee. Certainly, you wouldn’t buy a solution from someone else, but what about the person sitting next to you? What if they cheat their way through college, get hired by your dream company, and then do such a poor job that the company won’t hire another CCU graduate ever again (i.e. you)?

Larger companies know about these problems and therefore subject potential hires to a process of technical interviews. Students who haven’t been entirely honest in their courses, or who have forgotten everything they’ve learned, tend to fail these interviews. Unfortunately, students who did their own work and do understand the material can also fail these interviews, often due to a combination of anxiety, lack of preparation, and not knowing what to expect in the interview.

The competency-based evaluation process in this course is designed to address these problems.

Course Competencies

Each course syllabus has a list of competencies to be evaluated. Evaluation is not done with traditional grades. Instead, each competency is in one of four states:

Deferred Competencies

During an interview, you might meet some of the competencies but not others. Some competencies, particularly those that are more difficult to master, might be evaluated using more than one interview, providing another chance to meet those competencies later. Other competencies, which are only evaluated once, might be demonstrated at a re-interview or at the next interview. These competencies are “deferred” until the next interview.

Missed Competencies

The difference between deferring a competency during an interview and missing it outright is the amount of effort spent preparing for the interview. If you have made a solid effort at preparation, then I would expect you to meet at least some of the competencies measured in the interview. On the other hand, if you didn’t do the preparation work and instead tried to cram for the interview in the hours or days before, you would probably not meet many, if any, of the competencies measured. In such cases, those competencies measured only by that interview would be missed, while competencies that would be measured again in the future would be deferred.

If a deferred competency is not met at the next interview, it is then missed, unless it is one of the competencies that will be measured again in a future interview by design (i.e. the more difficult concepts). Any competencies that are not met by the end of the semester are missed.

The Interview Process

In order to measure competencies, you and I will have a one-on-one interview several times during the semester. Each interview will last approximately 15 to 30 minutes and will have the general form of a technical interview. For the purpose of practicing technical interviews, I will take the role of the hiring manager or evaluator, and you will have the role of a prospective employee.

During the interview, I will not ask (or evaluate you in any way on) any question or attribute that would be illegal in an employment interview setting. Within the context of the interview, you should also practice non-disclosure of these topics, since a real hiring manager should not know them. Topics that should not be discussed, and on which you are not evaluated, include:

The above list was taken from the Coastal Carolina University Office of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity guidelines for members of faculty and staff search committees. These guidelines are based primarily on federal employment law.

If you have a reasonable accommodation that is documented through Accessibility and Disability Services, that accommodation will be provided during the interview process. Please note that I am prohibited by University policy from providing an accommodation without an official letter from Accessibility and Disability Services.

Note that there are situations in which I might become aware of issues that should not be discussed in interviews, particularly in the context of advising and evaluating requests for excused absences. These issues should be discussed outside the interview time when we are not role-playing the employer-prospective employee interaction.

Interview Format

Normally, the interview will be conducted electronically using one of the University-licensed communications applications (e.g. Microsoft Teams). You may choose to turn on your camera to simulate a video interview or leave it off to simulate a phone interview. No special attire is required for this course, but you should dress professionally for any future video or in-person interview you have with an employer.

During the interview, you will answer questions, and you may also be asked to present a solution to a small problem on a digital whiteboard or similar system. Both approaches are used in industry technical interviews. It is important in an interview that you use the correct terminology when giving the answer to a question or describing the solution to a problem.

Adaptive Questions

An interview is by nature an adaptive process. If you’re able to answer a more difficult question correctly, it might not be necessary to ask several related easier questions. Conversely, if you have trouble with a difficult question, it might still be possible to satisfy the required competencies using different questions. Therefore, you should not expect to be asked exactly the same questions as your classmates. Even if you know the questions in advance, memorizing the answers is not an effective way to prepare for an interview (whether in this class or in real life).

Preparing for the Interviews

At first, you will probably be nervous. That is both normal and expected. As the semester goes on, you are likely to be more comfortable with the interviews for this course, since you will have both a better understanding of expectations and familiarity with me as the interviewer. Please be prepared for the nervousness to return whenever you go on interviews for internships or career positions: this is also both normal and expected. By practicing interviewing in this course, you should find yourself better prepared for employment interviews in the future.

I highly encourage you to find a partner or form a small group and work together on the course activities. Partners and group members should practice asking and answering questions together, which should help everyone in the partnership or group prepare for the interview.

The First Interview

The first interview for this course is for me to understand your background, major, and career objectives, while you practice the first part of a standard job interview (the introduction and “tell me about yourself” parts). For this interview, think about how you would answer the following questions:

  1. What is your name and your major? (Yes, that sounds easy, but remember you will probably be nervous.)
  2. Why have you chosen your current major?
  3. What would you like to do in your career?
  4. Where do you see yourself in five years?
  5. What skills and abilities do you want to bring to a future company?

Remember that we are role-playing during the interview process, so you should not disclose anything that a hiring manager should not know (see above). Also, you should practice explaining what you’d like to do in your career in terms of how it will benefit the company at which you are interviewing, not how getting the job would benefit you.

Subsequent Interviews

After the first interview, the remaining interviews (except for the final one) will be technical interviews that are designed to measure the competencies listed for each interview. In order to prepare for these interviews, you should complete the learning activities that I assign for each set of competencies. Please do not wait until the last minute to do these activities, even though they are not directly graded. Trying to “cram” in the hours or days before the interviews is likely to result in missed competencies.

Slow and steady preparation is the best approach to take with this course. Set aside some time every day, on most days of the week, to do a little bit of the preparatory work. Remember that my purpose in conducting class this way is to prepare you, not to punish you. You do not need to memorize every small detail, but you do need to be able to explain clearly and competently how you would apply the knowledge, skills, and abilities learned from the course materials to solve a problem. The important things to memorize are the technical terms used when describing technologies, as correct use of the terminology is critical in an interview setting.

The Final Interview

During the last week of classes, the final interview will assess competencies at a high level and tie them back to your own career objectives. The purpose of this approach is twofold: first, it helps you to see the forest as a forest instead of as a bunch of trees – in other words, the outcomes of the course as a whole versus the individual competencies. Second, it helps solidify what you might say in a future job interview to explain how your knowledge, skills, and abilities align with your own career objectives and the needs of the position.

For the technical preparation for this interview, follow the activities I assign for this purpose. For the non-technical part, reflect on what you have learned in this course, and be able to explain how you could apply that knowledge to solve a problem in your future career.

These interviews will be scheduled during the last week of classes, so that exam week may be used for any necessary re-interviews in the event competencies are deferred.

Interview Policies

Scheduling Interviews

For each interview, I will announce a method of scheduling the date and time, and you must request an interview at least one day before it occurs. The interview must be completed by the end of the corresponding interview period.

Missed Interviews

If you must miss a previously scheduled interview, let me know as soon as possible in advance, and we will reschedule it. If you fail to show up for a scheduled interview, have not let me know in advance, and do not have a good reason for missing the interview (if in doubt as to good reasons, the excused absences in University Policy STUD-332: Class Attendance will be used as a guide), you will receive an outcome of “missed” for all the competencies associated with that interview that are not already measured by a future interview.

A student who habitually reschedules or misses interviews may be required to conduct the interviews during normal University business hours. Evening and weekend interview times are significantly more difficult for me to schedule, so those time slots should not be abused.

Using Notes

In any real interview in which the interviewer can see you (particularly in person), using notes is unwise. However, since most interview processes normally begin with online or phone interviews these days, you may use notes to jog your memory in the course interviews. That said, your use of notes must not significantly disrupt the flow of the interview. In other words, it is unacceptable for you to spend more than a few seconds looking for an answer to a question. Excessive search times may result in missed or deferred competencies.

Recording the Interview

You may, at your discretion, choose to record the interview. It might be necessary for me to record the interview for accreditation/assessment (ABET), professional development, or other University-related purposes. Although South Carolina is a one-party state, the person recording the interview should notify the other person as a matter of professional courtesy.

Observing the Interview

You may, at your discretion, allow another person to observe your interview. By choosing to permit someone who is not a faculty or staff employee of Coastal Carolina University to observe your interview, you agree that you are waiving your privacy rights under the Family Education Right to Privacy Act (FERPA) to the content of the interview and subsequent feedback. I may permit another faculty or staff member to observe your interview with your consent. In certain unusual situations, it might be necessary for the interview to be observed by another faculty member, University administrator, or University Counsel.

Any observer that you permit must remain as a passive observer and may not participate in the interview or assessment process in any way. As a professional courtesy, the presence of an observer is to be disclosed at the start of the interview.

Academic Integrity

For academic integrity policies related to interviews, please see Common Course Policies.