Developing Critical Writing Skills in Engineering and Technology Students

GREG BOYD
Department of Industrial and Engineering Technology Southeast Missouri State University Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) gained momentum by recognizing the importance of writing in non-English curriculum and encouraged college teachers to include discipline specific writing in their courses.3 However, this emphasis on students learning to communicate well in writing within their disciplines appears to have been unsuccessful, at least in Manufacturing Engineering and Technology. In 1997 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), in their Manufacturing Education Plan: Phase I Report, Industry Identifies Competency Gaps Among Newly Hired Engineering Graduates, expressed concerns that these individual could not communicate well.4 Within the competency gap entitled Communication, SME reports that newly hired engineers lack the necessary skills to clearly communicate their ideas in the areas of Specification Writing and Report Writing. These SME findings suggest that students in Manufacturing Engineering and Technology curricula are graduating without having learned to write well within their disciplines. One of the possible reasons for this competency gap was reported in 1996, in a college teachers of English for Science and Technology (EST) report entitled Designing English Writing Instruction for Students in the Sciences and Technologies: Research, Results, and Applications. In this report Robert Orr states that unless both student and teacher have sufficient knowledge of the unique purposes and characteristics of English as it is used in a students target field of study, writing instruction will be no different from that in general English courses, and thus, less effective in enabling students to successfully carry out profession related tasks.5

MARIE F. HASSETT
Bricolage, Inc.

ABSTRACT
This study culminated in the development, refinement, and evaluation of a system of writing instruction that allows even instructors without great confidence in their own writing abilities to help students develop better, more effective writing skills and strategies. The system consists of two components and works backwards, starting with teaching students the assessment strategy (rubric) to be used in evaluating their work. Therefore, the first system component or rubric becomes a guide to teach students how to connect their ideas (sentence subjects) in sequence without ambiguity or implied connectivity. The second component of the system consists of written assignments initiated with work orders that state specifically what is expected of the student in each paragraph and includes formatting instructions. Finally, the system was designed for use in any technical curriculum by engineering and technology instructors and incorporates research findings and suggestions by four influential professional writing associations: 1) the college teachers of English for Science and Technology (EST), 2) the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Committee on Assessment, 3) the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and 4) Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC).

II. HISTORY
Our efforts to develop, refine, and evaluate a discipline specific system of writing instruction that allows even instructors without great confidence in their own writing abilities to help students develop more effective writing skills and strategies began in 1995. These efforts sought to develop a system that taught students to narrow their thinking focus, connect ideas, and eliminate ambiguity when writing specifications or reports, particularly in situations to inform or to instruct. Henceforth referred to as the System, our efforts to develop a system of writing instruction were guided in part by a 1995 journal article entitled Writing Assessment: A Position Statement, by the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Committee on Writing Assessment.6 This article lists a series of assumptions common to both CCCC and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) that relate directly to the instructional design for this System. Assumptions of particular interest were: Journal of Engineering Education 409

I. INTRODUCTION
The importance of students learning discipline specific writing skills in science, engineering, and technology has long been recognized. John Dewey was among the first to recognize the importance of writing in student analysis, understanding, and subsequent solution of problems (thinking).1 Dewey in reference 1 states, no act of thinking is complete till its products have been set forth in words. Since Dewey, many professional writing/teaching organizations have emerged to explore discipline specific connections between discipline specific writing and thinking. For example, in reference 2 the college teachers of English in Science and Technology (EST) recognized the importance of contextual writing (discipline specific) and set about identifying those contexts by discipline.2 Similarly, October 2000

Language is always learned and used most effectively in environments where it accomplishes something the user wants to accomplish for particular listeners or readers within that environment.7 Writing assessment is useful primarily as a means of improving learning.8 The means used to test students writing ability shapes what they, too, consider writing to be.9

our efforts were guided by our own experiences with problems associated with engineering and technical staffs who were not able to communicate effectively in writing.

III. THE SYSTEM

The System as developed, refined, and evaluated in this report specifically allows engineering and technology instructors to assign discipline specific writing assignments. The teaching intent of each assignment is to assist students in the organization and development of their thoughts on paper, are quickly and easily evaluated, and provide useful feedback to students. The System evolved over six semesters in a night section of an interdisciplinary class, entitled Science, Technology, and Society. It was assumed that students in this section represented a reasonable cross section of students from the junior and senior levels of the university with at least some interest in science and technology. Work orders or questions (topics)

These assumptions both establish need and suggest a strategy from which to fulfil this need. Our efforts to develop this System were also guided by WAC proponent Joanne Kurfisss paper, Do Students Really Learn From Writing, where she readily admits that writing about a specific content area presents unique problems which writing teachers acknowledge they are not qualified to addressonly the content specialist is intimately familiar with the genres, conventions, and audiences peculiar to her field.10 Finally,

Figure 1. Excerpt from supplemental syllabus on evaluation rationale (rubric). 410 Journal of Engineering Education October 2000

Figure 1. (Continued)

Figure 2. Work order. used were by necessity interdisciplinary in nature, but were required to be answered in a style that would inform or instruct. The System consists of two components. The first component involves teaching students the assessment strategy (rubric) to be consisOctober 2000 tently used in evaluating their work. As indicated (figure 1), this excerpt from the supplemental course syllabus teaches students to connect their ideas (sentence subjects) without ambiguity or implied connectivity in situations where students have to inform or instruct. Journal of Engineering Education 411

The second component is a work order that states specifically what is expected of the student, including format. The work order indicates due date, reminds students of the format, and establishes assignment limits, which are simply the various components of the question to be addressed by paragraph. As indicated below (figure 2), this particular work order asks the question, How would our (U.S.) culture change if most Americans did not own cars?

detractors. As evidenced (figure 3), grading times were also significantly improved (reduced) in terms of average time spent evaluating each paper. This reduction in grading times reflects both System refinement and a significant instructor learning curve.

V. CONCLUSIONS
The simplest conclusion is that the System as developed, refined, and evaluated worked as intended. Using this System, students learned or enhanced existing abilities to organize their thoughts and write those thoughts down in a sequential manner without ambiguity or implied connectivity of their sentence subjects. Additionally, the System simplified the creation of written assignments for inclusion in technical curriculum. Finally, the System evaluation rationale (rubric) provided sufficient feedback to be of value to students in learning how to write to inform or instruct without detractors. Once familiar with the System, engineering and technology instructors can realistically expect to spend about five minutes evaluating and providing coded feedback per paper.

IV. OUTCOMES
The primary student outcome for this System was to teach them how to connect their ideas on paper in a sequential manner without ambiguity. The primary instructor outcome for this System was to develop an assignment sheet (work order) and evaluation rubric that would significantly reduce grading times and provide useful student feedback. Comparative analysis of data on the grades achieved by 174 students on the first writing assignment compared to the grades achieved on the third assignment is shown below (table 1). This comparison indicates that, with the exception of the poorest performers (F grades), students improved uniformly throughout the grade range from D to A. No attempt was made to differentiate between improvements in organization/development or reduction of

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS
We recommend that instructors interested in a method to include discipline specific writing assignments easily and effectively in the curriculum would do well to consider using this System. Based on feedback from three workshops we have conducted, the System is readily learned even by those engineering and technology instructors that originally did not have great confidence in their own writing abilities.

REFERENCES
1. McLellan, J.A., and John Dewey, Applied Psychology, An Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Education, Educational Publishing Company, N.Y., 1889, p. 217. 2. Orr, Thomas, Designing English Writing Instruction for Students in the Sciences and Technologies: Research, Results, and Application, Aizu-Wakamatsu Fukushima, 965-80 Japan, Center for Language Research University of Aizu, 1996. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED401751) 3. Kurfiss, Joanne, Do Students Really Learn From Writing? Journal of Writing Across the Curriculum, vol. 3, no. 1, 1985, pp. 35. 4. Society of Manufacturing Engineers Education Foundation, Manufacturing Education Plan: Phase I ReportIndustry Identifies Competency Gaps Among Newly Hired Engineering Graduates, Dearborn, MI, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 1997. 5. Orr, p. 2. 6. CCCC Committee on Assessment, Writing Assessment: A Position Statement, Journal of College Composition and Communication, vol. 46, no. 3, 1995, pp. 430437. 7. CCCC, p. 431. 8. CCCC, p. 432. 9. CCCC, p. 433. 10. Kurfiss, p. 4.

Table 1. Comparative grades by percentage.

Figure 3. Average grading time per paper. 412 Journal of Engineering Education October 2000