Assessment of Students’ Lean Competencies with the Help of Behavior Video Analysis – Are Good Students Better Problem Solvers?

Engineering students are often lectured and afterwards examined in a knowledge-oriented way. The question is if the students we identify with those methods as good students are also better problem solvers in practice. To review if there is any correlation between knowledge and the development of competencies, students need to a) perform a written examination and b) solve real industrial tasks at the Process Learning Factory CiP like rebalancing a production line. Regarding a), students gain the theoretical knowledge in a classroom lecture to the topic „Lean Production” and write an exam. Regarding b), videos recorded showing the actions tasks are evaluated regarding the presence of problem solving competencies. A comparison of the test results and the action tasks evaluation clarifies whether the existence of knowledge leads to a similar strong development of competencies. The evaluation of the learning success shows that the student groups achieve a good and very good competency development in the lecture modules “line balancing”, “kanban” and “systematic problem solving”. The respective lecture module is confirmed by a high degree of students’ success. However, a correlation between the level of knowledge and competency cannot be clearly established because on the one hand students with good exam results achieve a good and very good degree of competency development. On the other hand students with a bad exam result achieve nevertheless a comparatively good competency development degree. Nevertheless, as a trend it can be confirmed that consolidated knowledge is one important prerequisite for the ability to act in practice.