Outcomes assessment of engineering writing at the University of Washington

Journal of Engineering Education, Jul 2002 by Plumb, Carolyn, Scott, Cathie

ABSTRACT

Effective writing skills are crucial for engineers, and engineering programs have always struggled with how to prepare their students for the writing theywill do as professionals. Now, programs must also showthe Accreditation Board for Engineering andTechnology (ABET) that they have dear educational outcomes for engineering communication and have a process for assessing student performance on those outcomes. At the University of Washington, we have spent the last five years developing an outcomes-based assessment program for engineering writing. In spring 2001, the first round of writing assessment was completed. The assessment indicated that most of our students are competent in the outcomes we have developed. It also uncovered several weak areas, particularly in regard to working with sources and to adequately stating and supporting the purpose ofthe writing. We will be addressing these areas with additional instruction in the stand-alone technical writing courses taken by engineering students. The process described in this paper could be helpful for other engineering programs preparing for ABET accreditation visits.

I. INTRODUCTION

Engineering educators, members of the professional engineering community, and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) agree on the importance of writing and other communication skills in engineering practice. Effective technical writing has become increasingly necessary over the years because of the "growing complexity of systems and the cross-disciplinary approach to product design and manufacture" [2].

As engineering schools throughout the country work to comply with ABET's new engineering accreditation criteria, they are struggling with how to show that their graduates are ready to write in the workplace. The College of Engineering at the University of Washington (UW) is no exception. We spent five years developing and implementing our Engineering Writing Assessment Program, which passed our first ABET visit with positive comments. We attribute much of this success to collaboration among faculty, students, and industry representatives throughout the process.

Although the program was developed specifically for the UW, its components can be readily adapted and applied, in all or in part, to other engineering schools. To that end, this paper describes the design and results of the first round of the program.

II. BACKGROUND

ABET recognizes writing as a necessary skill for engineers, as evidenced by its inclusion of "the ability to communicate" in its new engineering accreditation criteria. This educational goal and other such goals were included in the criteria because "engineering success today requires more than up-to-the-minute technical capability, it requires the ability to communicate, work in teams, think creatively, learn quickly, and value diversity" [4]. In order to be accredited, engineering programs must now develop educational outcomes for the host of critical skills that these criteria address, design a curriculum that addresses the educational outcomes, devise a process for assessing the performance of graduating students with regard to the outcomes, and implement a program of continual improvement by feeding results of the assessment process back into curriculum and instruction.

Students at the UW usually are admitted to their engineering departments at the end of their sophomore year after they have completed their prerequisite courses. The UW has provided these engineering students with technical communication courses for over 50 years, largely because of a long-standing technical communication department that resides in the College of Engineering. The department offers two service courses for undergraduates: a required three-credit course, Introduction to Technical Writing, and a recommended four-credit course, Advanced Technical Writing and Oral Presentation. In addition, students are required to take an English composition course in their freshman year.

The introductory technical writing course was designed for sophomores, but students may take it any time before they graduate. Its purpose is to introduce basic concepts of technical writing, such as writing for targeted audiences, and to provide practice in genres that students will encounter in school and work, such as research reports, instructions, and newsletter articles on technical subjects. The advanced course provides the opportunity for more writing practice, primarily in workplace genres such as resumes, progress reports, and recommendation reports. The advanced course provides additional instruction and practice in oral presentations. Some departments require completion of this advanced course; others allow for substitution of other writing or communication courses.

Even with this seasoned technical writing program, we needed more information to evaluate whether our graduates were ready to write in the workplace. We knew what was happening in the technical writing courses, but we did not have a clear picture of what students were writing in their departmental courses and how well the technical writing courses and writing in departmental courses were working together to prepare students for their professional lives. Nor did we have an explicit consensus across the college about what we wanted our students to learn about writing.