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How Engineering Students Learn to Write: the Second Year of the Engineering Writing Initiative at the University of Texas at Tyler

Abstract

The Departments of Electrical Engineering and English of the University of Texas at Tyler are in the second year of a four-year longitudinal study investigating how engineering students learn to write. The Engineering Writing Initiative (EWI) seeks answers to the following questions:

• What are engineering students’ attitudes, practices and skills with regard to writing, and how do those attitudes, practices and skills develop over time? • Does writing in engineering courses help students become more involved with those courses and understand and apply the ideas of those courses? • How can we incorporate we learn about students’ attitudes, practices and skills in order to improve our instructional practice with regard to writing?

EWI is using multiple data-gathering methods (semi-annual writing prompts, individual interviews with students, written surveys of students, and student writing samples gathered in portfolios). It employs several assessment strategies (quantitative analyses of student writing samples, quantitative analyses of written surveys, and qualitative analyses of interview transcripts).

This paper is the second in a series of four planned EWI reports to ASEE. While last year’s paper articulated a baseline set of data with regard to student attitudes, practices and skills, this year’s report will include data demonstrating what students have learned in addition to preliminary considerations of how this study can begin to affect instructional practice in UT- Tyler Engineering courses.

Background

With some estimates suggesting that “as much as 80% of an engineer’s work time is spent on communicating,”1 significant attention has been given recently to the place of writing instruction in engineering courses. For example, in multiple publications Norback et al 2,3,4,5 have developed powerful links between classroom and industry to identify relevant writing skills and transfer them into classroom practice. Bonk, Imhoff and Cheng 6 describe a collaborative effort between a Civil and Environmental Engineering program and a Business and Technical Writing program that has resulted in the incremental integration of writing skills into engineering curricula. Ostheimer and White have developed a sophisticated assessment mechanism that, among other outcomes, “generates important program information for the faculty about the relative success of their students in reaching goals that the faculty has determined to be important.” 7 And in a pithy assessment of the value of clear written communication for the engineer, Forsyth (2004) notes that “the effort involved” in careful drafting “will pay dividends.” 8 The authors of this study understand the value of writing within engineering practice. The University of Texas at Tyler founded its School of Engineering (now the College of Engineering and Computer Science) in

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Niiler, L., & Beams, D. (2006, June), How Engineering Students Learn To Write: The Second Year Of The Engineering Writing Initiative At The University Of Texas At Tyler Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--882