How Do Engineering Education Graduate Students Perceive and Negotiate Disciplinary Expectations in Academic Writing?

Athena Lin

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Graduate Studies Division Technical Session 3
Page Count: 12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41155
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41155
Download Count: 299

Paper Authors

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Athena Lin Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Athena Lin is a PhD student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She received her B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests center around engineering ethics education and preparing students for responsible engineering practice.

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Abstract

Academic writing is an important aspect of graduate education. To succeed in their programs, graduate students must learn to communicate their research in a way that resonates with other scholars in their field. In other words, they must write in a way that aligns with the expectations of their field. In the field of engineering education, graduate students come from varied disciplines, and many are new to the field. They may find that the expectations around academic writing in engineering education differ from their prior experiences in other disciplines. This study aims to study how students navigate this disciplinary transition and develop their writing practices during their graduate education.

This study uses academic literacies theory to understand how graduate students in engineering education experience the social practice of academic writing. Academic literacies theory adopts a social and cultural perspective to writing, as opposed to a cognitive approach, and views writing as a social activity deeply connected to institutional and disciplinary contexts. Thus, writing skills are not necessarily transferable from previous contexts; instead, they adapt based on expectations in new disciplines and departments. Expectations around academic writing are tied to epistemologies of the field and dictate what counts as knowledge. Thus, learning to write in a new discipline involves understanding how meaning is constructed in that discipline and adapting to the literacy practices of that discipline.

This study explores how graduate students experience disciplinary writing practices within engineering education research. Specifically, this qualitative study addresses the following research questions: What do engineering education graduate students perceive as disciplinary expectations around academic writing? How do these expectations inform their own writing practices?

I interviewed six graduate students in engineering education about their writing practices and their perceived expectations of academic writing in the field. Drawing from academic literacies theory, my data sources include interviews rather than writing excerpts. Through interviews, I could center students’ experiences with academic writing rather than their writing abilities. The purpose of the interviews was not to evaluate students’ writing skills but rather to understand their perceptions of academic writing in their field and how these perceptions informed their writing practices. I analyzed the interviews using thematic analysis, generating inductive codes and interpreting them through the lens of academic literacies theory. I constructed themes around how students made sense of disciplinary writing practices, including whether they internalized these expectations into their own writing practices.

In this paper, I argue that learning academic writing involves learning the disciplinary conventions of writing in one’s field and how to negotiate these expectations in one’s own writing. Students’ writing practices are shaped by their epistemological beliefs about research and what counts as legitimate contributions to knowledge within their field. The findings from this study illuminate some of the disciplinary expectations that graduate students in engineering education experience around academic writing and how they have negotiated these expectations within their own writing practices. The paper concludes with recommendations for how these findings can inform ways to support graduate students’ development as writers and scholars in engineering education.

Citation
Format

Lin, A. (2022, August), How Do Engineering Education Graduate Students Perceive and Negotiate Disciplinary Expectations in Academic Writing? Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41155

TY - CPAPER
AB - Academic writing is an important aspect of graduate education. To succeed in their programs, graduate students must learn to communicate their research in a way that resonates with other scholars in their field. In other words, they must write in a way that aligns with the expectations of their field. In the field of engineering education, graduate students come from varied disciplines, and many are new to the field. They may find that the expectations around academic writing in engineering education differ from their prior experiences in other disciplines. This study aims to study how students navigate this disciplinary transition and develop their writing practices during their graduate education.

This study uses academic literacies theory to understand how graduate students in engineering education experience the social practice of academic writing. Academic literacies theory adopts a social and cultural perspective to writing, as opposed to a cognitive approach, and views writing as a social activity deeply connected to institutional and disciplinary contexts. Thus, writing skills are not necessarily transferable from previous contexts; instead, they adapt based on expectations in new disciplines and departments. Expectations around academic writing are tied to epistemologies of the field and dictate what counts as knowledge. Thus, learning to write in a new discipline involves understanding how meaning is constructed in that discipline and adapting to the literacy practices of that discipline.

This study explores how graduate students experience disciplinary writing practices within engineering education research. Specifically, this qualitative study addresses the following research questions: What do engineering education graduate students perceive as disciplinary expectations around academic writing? How do these expectations inform their own writing practices?

I interviewed six graduate students in engineering education about their writing practices and their perceived expectations of academic writing in the field. Drawing from academic literacies theory, my data sources include interviews rather than writing excerpts. Through interviews, I could center students’ experiences with academic writing rather than their writing abilities. The purpose of the interviews was not to evaluate students’ writing skills but rather to understand their perceptions of academic writing in their field and how these perceptions informed their writing practices. I analyzed the interviews using thematic analysis, generating inductive codes and interpreting them through the lens of academic literacies theory. I constructed themes around how students made sense of disciplinary writing practices, including whether they internalized these expectations into their own writing practices.

In this paper, I argue that learning academic writing involves learning the disciplinary conventions of writing in one’s field and how to negotiate these expectations in one’s own writing. Students’ writing practices are shaped by their epistemological beliefs about research and what counts as legitimate contributions to knowledge within their field. The findings from this study illuminate some of the disciplinary expectations that graduate students in engineering education experience around academic writing and how they have negotiated these expectations within their own writing practices. The paper concludes with recommendations for how these findings can inform ways to support graduate students’ development as writers and scholars in engineering education.
AU - Athena Lin
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - How Do Engineering Education Graduate Students Perceive and Negotiate Disciplinary Expectations in Academic Writing?
UR - https://peer.asee.org/41155
DO - 10.18260/1-2--41155
ER -