Debates continue about assessment methods and tasks in higher engineering education that would enable assessment of cognitive learning attributes and attainment of graduate attributes. This study explored the students' perceptions of the conventional and alternative assessment methods that are relevant and could be used to assess cognitive learning and graduate attributes in undergraduate civil engineering education. The study focused on an undergraduate civil engineering programme at a university of technology in South Africa. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed, in which a survey questionnaire was administered, followed by focus group interviews from a sample of 230 and 46 students, respectively. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted. The findings show that students perceived both conventional and alternative assessment instruments as appropriate to varying degrees; they saw different assessment instruments as effectively assessing the cognitive learnings and attainment of graduate attributes. The central finding is that an apposite mix of different conventional and alternative assessment instruments might assist in attaining effective assessment in undergraduate civil engineering.