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Khodavirdi, Ara Masis; Buck, Lyndon

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The rate of neurodiverse student growth in STEM subjects, especially engineering, is significant. Evidence from literature consistently shows a higher rate of disadvantage in grades of neurodiverse students. Conversely, research shows that neurodiverse students demonstrate higher rates of creative problem-solving ability. The reasons behind the lower performance can often be attributed to time-management issues, task avoidance, implicit requirement ambiguity, executive functioning overload, and cognitive fatigue. The above-mentioned challenges are a non-comprehensive list of day-to-day student challenges, but it covers some of the issues this study tackles. Within engineering design education, the strengths of neurodiverse students play a significant role in the positive educational outcomes of cohorts. This study presents the use of functional formative assessments and gradual structured learning of skills to tackle some of the main stressors in neurodiverse students. The structure follows a progressive and practical learning structure to allow flexible and paced learning, and a set of formative assessments to provide practical feedback for equivalent summative assessment tasks. The addition of formative assessments marked a positive shift in the mean grade and a normal distribution with a reduced presence of low range outliers in the first year. In-person weekly tutorials in addition to the reinforced formative assessment resulted in a further positive shift in grades and learning outcome fulfilment. A neurotypical and neurodiverse student survey showed positive engagement with the learning structure and the assessment, showing that a practical approach to learning and a realistic trialling of student assessments improved learning outcomes, and relieved neurodiverse students staff.

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