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A New Engineering Communications Course Based on a Professional Communications Process Abstract

Given the nationally recognized need to improve engineering students’ communication skills, a new engineering communication course was developed by the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering department at Iowa State University and offered in the Fall of 2007. Initial assessment results provide insight into student learning needs related to specific professional communication skills. The course is characterized by a high degree of interaction and formative assessment of students along with a unique core professional communication process consisting of (1) Analysis, (2) Formulation, (3) Creation, (4) Delivery, and (5) Assessment. Students participate in multimodal communication exercises that require ongoing practice and application of this process. This paper describes why the course was developed, the premise of the course, course content and logistics, examples and assessment of student work and perceptions, and future plans for long term impact and course/curriculum assessment.

Introduction

Since 2000 when ABET identified outcome item (g) [students will have an ability to communicate effectively], academia has increasingly formalized its concurrence with industry that effective professional communication skills are necessary for the successful engineer. 1 As Shuman et al. have described, the set of ABET outcomes can be divided into “engineering” skills and “professional” skills, with professional skills including not only communication, but teamwork, ethics, professionalism, engineering solutions in a global and societal context, lifelong learning, and a knowledge of contemporary issues.2 ABET prioritized these professional skills as relatively equal in importance to those of technical competence in its Criteria for Accrediting Programs, and in doing so, made it possible for engineering programs to not only recognize the importance of professional skills, but to teach them to their students. ABET’s decision to formalize this priority reflects what industry has been emphasizing in its recruiting and advising for many years. Companies such as IBM and Boeing describe communication skills explicitly as a “foundational competency” and a “desired attribute of an engineer” respectively. 3, 4 Toyota and 3M list qualifications for engineering positions including “excellent oral, written, reporting, and problem solving skills” and “excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills,” respectively.5, 6 Recognizing the need to improve communication skills, educators have examined different approaches to increase communication skill emphasis in engineering courses and curriculums. 7, 8

Programs that emphasize communication often identify the need for more “practice” or varied forms of practice for both written and verbal tasks, including portfolios, reports, email, presentations, etc.7, 8, 9, 10 Yalvac et al. describe how an engineering course was redesigned to promote advanced writing skills by adding writing exercises based on the VaNTH taxonomy of core competency skills in writing.11 Many educators and institutions recognize the value of increasing communication emphasis in a longitudinal manner throughout a student’s academic program.12, 13 While this emphasis is significant and necessary for developing efficient and effective engineering graduates, increased “practice” time and/or varied assignment formats are

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Potter, L., & Jackman, J., & Min, K. J., & Search, M. (2008, June), A New Engineering Communications Course Based On A Professional Communications Process Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--3888