Construction education in South Africa is in the main undertaken using positivist methodologies which are at the core of university education. Current construction curriculums present subjects and content in silos that have no connection to each other. Students therefore experience individual classes, sessions and content perceived to have no connection or relationship with each other. Also, in this positivist approach assessment tools generally take the form of tests, examinations, assignment and projects. Success in tests and examinations indicates to the lecturer that a student has learnt something. Conversely, failure in tests and examinations suggests that no learning has taken place at all. The student experience is therefore typically one of being a receptacle in which information is deposited. Construction programmes have responded to these criticisms by experimenting with various pedagogy approaches like inquiry based learning (IBL), to improve the quality and employability of their graduates while trying to narrow the gap between what academia produces and what industry needs. Consequently, engineering and science disciplines began shifting from the lecturebased classroom and assessment format to emphasise active, research-based, and problem-based student learning. It is within this context that several researchers have called for changes in the curriculum and assessment design. This study researched the problem that the current mode of assessments in construction education at undergraduate level does not adequately measure learning so does not prepare students for construction professional practice and therefore requires an alternative assessment design model which incorporates different contemporary theories of learning synergistically in an IBL pedagogical framework. The research followed a subjective ontological philosophy, a deductive research approach, a survey research strategy, a cross sectional time horizon and a data collection technique and procedure of a questionnaire using the non-probability sampling technique of convenient sampling. The research procedure included an extensive literature review of articles that fully discussed the use of inquiry for learning in an educational context. The search resulted in 49 articles. These articles were further reviewed to identify the common facets of Inquiry based learning pedagogy. Thirty-two facets were identified as the common and importance facets. The facets were reduced to 28 base on the frequency of appearance in the IBL articles. Delphi survey with 14 construction education experts was used to identify 18 facets as the most important and having the greatest impact on assessment design in Inquiry based learning pedagogy. These facets were used to develop a conceptual model. The developed conceptual model was refined and tested using student survey assessment questionnaire administered online to 563 undergraduate students studying construction programmes at six universities in South Africa. The data from the student survey were screened using the anomaly detection node in IBM SPSS Modeller v 27, excel and statistics before subjecting them to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using IBM SPSS v27. Subsequently, structural equation modelling (SEM) using IBM SPSS AMOS v27 was used to assess and validate the structural relationship among the research constructs. The results show that the 18 facets of IBL pedagogy directly and positively influence the development of effective assessment tools to measure learning and achieve effective learning in construction programmes in South Africa and the eight hypotheses between assessment design, facets of IBL and learning were also supported. Subsequently, an IBL assessment design framework for construction programmes was developed which integrate and relate theories of learning and IBL pedagogy to construction practice and learning. The assessment model provides a foundation for policy makers, lecturers, curriculum developers and other stake holders in the improvement of the quality of education in construction education by developing effective assessment tools.

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