Pass-Fail Grading of Technical Writing in a Material Science Laboratory

John R. Rogers; Taylor Goring; Joel Michael Iwanski

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: June 26, 2024
Conference Session: Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 8
Tagged Division: Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)
Page Count: 10
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--47830
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47830
Download Count: 63

Paper Authors

biography

John R. Rogers Benedictine College

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Dr. John Rogers is a member of the Benedictine College School of Engineering faculty where he teaches courses in mechanical engineering including materials engineering laboratory, mechatronics, vibrations, and design.

He earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2003. He has a range of engineering and teaching experience. As an ocean engineer, he developed towed systems for underwater listening, and structures that reduce ship noise. As a structural engineer, he verified the strength of foundations for shipboard equipment. As a design engineer he developed fluid power systems and designed industrial controls for aircraft and automobile plants. As a college instructor, he taught a variety of courses in design, mechanics, and mechatronics, and he advised numerous student projects and independent studies.

Dr. Rogers’ PhD research work at Rensselaer was the optimization of stepper controls to reduce unwanted dynamics in machinery. He was awarded a patent for this work. His scholarly interests include microcontroller-based system design, biomechanics, instrumentation, and teaching and learning. He holds a Professional Engineer license.

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Taylor Goring

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Joel Michael Iwanski

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Abstract

Grading requires considerable effort, and often is slow due to the time it takes to judge the quality of student work. The question studied was: does low-resolution grading reduce the time it takes to grade written work while maintaining fairness? A new grading scheme was developed to address these challenges and it was implemented in an undergraduate laboratory course in material science. The goal was to reduce the time spent grading while maintaining consistent grading. The course is taught to juniors in a mechanical engineering program; enrollment is 30 students. One of the course objectives is to help students become proficient in technical writing, and so most graded events are technical memos and reports. Student graders were employed to grade student submissions using the new scheme. Eight aspects of technical writing were emphasized in the course: grammatically correct, proper format, clear, precise word choice, concise, technically sound, thorough, and insightful. Each of these aspects was graded on a pass-fail basis in the memos and reports that the students submitted. The use of pass-fail grading was introduced to help make it easier and quicker to judge the quality of student work. Students received feedback in the form of pass or fail in each aspect with written explanation from the grader. To be consistent in assigning grades, student graders and the instructor developed a rubric, agreed on definitions in each aspect, and established an understanding of what constitutes passing, and what constitutes failing. The student graders and the instructor calibrated passing thresholds by iteratively grading, discussing, and regrading a subset of student submissions until grades were consistent. It was found that, once the decision criteria were commonly understood, grading was faster because it is easier to consider one aspect at a time, judge the work, and make a binary decision: pass or fail. The turnaround time was noted for six written assignments in two successive semester offerings, one with the traditional grading, and one with the new scheme. The result is faster turnaround with the new pass-fail scheme. Additionally, the instructor and student graders subjectively note improvements in writing quality over the course of the semester.

Citation
Format

Rogers, J. R., & Goring, T., & Iwanski, J. M. (2024, June), Pass-Fail Grading of Technical Writing in a Material Science Laboratory Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47830

TY - CPAPER
AB - Grading requires considerable effort, and often is slow due to the time it takes to judge the quality of student work. The question studied was: does low-resolution grading reduce the time it takes to grade written work while maintaining fairness? A new grading scheme was developed to address these challenges and it was implemented in an undergraduate laboratory course in material science. The goal was to reduce the time spent grading while maintaining consistent grading. The course is taught to juniors in a mechanical engineering program; enrollment is 30 students. One of the course objectives is to help students become proficient in technical writing, and so most graded events are technical memos and reports. Student graders were employed to grade student submissions using the new scheme. Eight aspects of technical writing were emphasized in the course: grammatically correct, proper format, clear, precise word choice, concise, technically sound, thorough, and insightful. Each of these aspects was graded on a pass-fail basis in the memos and reports that the students submitted. The use of pass-fail grading was introduced to help make it easier and quicker to judge the quality of student work. Students received feedback in the form of pass or fail in each aspect with written explanation from the grader. To be consistent in assigning grades, student graders and the instructor developed a rubric, agreed on definitions in each aspect, and established an understanding of what constitutes passing, and what constitutes failing. The student graders and the instructor calibrated passing thresholds by iteratively grading, discussing, and regrading a subset of student submissions until grades were consistent. It was found that, once the decision criteria were commonly understood, grading was faster because it is easier to consider one aspect at a time, judge the work, and make a binary decision: pass or fail. The turnaround time was noted for six written assignments in two successive semester offerings, one with the traditional grading, and one with the new scheme. The result is faster turnaround with the new pass-fail scheme. Additionally, the instructor and student graders subjectively note improvements in writing quality over the course of the semester.
AU - John R. Rogers
AU - Taylor Goring
AU - Joel Michael Iwanski
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Pass-Fail Grading of Technical Writing in a Material Science Laboratory
UR - https://peer.asee.org/47830
DO - 10.18260/1-2--47830
ER -