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Though many writing researchers link the role of writing with disciplinary socialization, there is little research outside of anecdotal evidence on how engineering graduate students in particular conceptualize and relate to the writing process. These affective components of writing are as necessary as the cognitive activities in terms of developing successful graduate engineering writers. To meet this gap, the present study shows survey data from N=210 graduate engineering students at research intensive universities across the United States. The survey comprised three validated writing scales investigating students' conceptions of writing, processes of writing, writing self-efficacy in a single survey deployment. Descriptive statistics show the common processes and conceptions with writing, but Pearson correlations calculated across scales reveal statistically significant relationships among the scale factors, for example that many graduate engineering writers often struggle with a “trifecta” of low writing self-efficacy, perfectionism, and procrastination. This study extends prior mixed methods and smaller scale quantitative work that has been done in the past with engineering graduate students, and also points to the importance of addressing the layered nature of student issues with writing. Findings are situated in terms of practical recommendations for technical writing researchers and faculty as they help graduate students navigate academic engineering writing.
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Quantitative Comparison between Writing Attitudes of U.S. Domestic and International Engineering Graduate Students
Engineering students entering graduate school are typically underprepared for the writing tasks involved completing a Ph.D. Previous work has shown that writing attitudes and confidence in writing skills correlate with likelihood of pursuing certain careers and persistence and attrition in the program. However, all work to date has considered graduate students all together: In this study we seek to understand potential differences in the ways that U.S. domestic students and international student (both those studying in the U.S. and those studying in other countries) so that researchers and faculty who teach engineering communication can better tailor their activities and approaches to teaching writing. A survey accessing the students writing approaches, concepts, and self-regulatory efficacy was distributed to engineering graduate students at universities in Japan and Norway. The results of this survey were then compared to the results of a similar survey taken by domestic engineering graduate students and international engineering graduate students studying in the U.S. Findings indicate that there are statistically significant differences between U.S. domestic engineering graduate students with international engineering graduate students for most of the engineering writing attitudinal factors studied, indicating that instructors should begin to tailor approaches differently for individual students. From a research perspective, we will continue to use these findings to investigate and illuminate cultural variations that can influence the writing process.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1733594
- PAR ID:
- 10094080
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 126th ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-8
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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