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1. Effectiveness of Transfer Focused Writing Pedagogy on Undergraduates’ Lab Report Writing in Entry-Level Engineering Laboratory Courses at Three Universities

   Kim, Dave ; Riley, Charles E ; Lulay, Ken ; Lynch, John D. ( June 2023 , ASEE annual conference exposition)

   This study focuses on the effectiveness of learning transfer-focused or transfer-focused lab report writing instructional modules on engineering undergraduates’ lab report writing in entry-level engineering laboratory courses. The modules are novel due to their shared language to describe and reinforce foundational writing terms used by the writing faculty and are ready for immediate use by engineering lab instructors. Three different universities, consisting of a polytechnical university, a liberal arts-anchored private university, and a branch campus of a research-one land grant university, participated. Student lab report samples from six various sophomore-level engineering courses were collected. For the control group, none of the participating lab instructors accessed the transfer-focused modules (academic years of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021); sixty-four control group lab report samples were collected (n = 64). In the academic year 2021-2022, the lab instructors had access to the transfer-focused modules via the web to be encouraged to update their lab instructions; the experimental group lab report samples were collected from forty-two students (n = 42). Using defined writing outcomes, a panel of engineering lab instructors assessed the participating students’ early (one of the first reports in the class) and late lab reports (written near the end of the course). The lab report assessment analysis indicates that only 30% of the control group students could write their early lab reports at a satisfactory level, while 60% of the experimental group students reached a satisfactory level in their early labs. For both early and late lab reports, the experimental group students outperformed most outcomes over the control group. The notably improved outcomes were related to audience awareness, data presentation, data analysis, and data interpretation. The transfer-focused lab report writing pedagogy enhanced engineering undergraduates’ ability to engage in critical thinking practices, including analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of their lab data/products. Additionally, students appeared to improve their awareness of a technical audience, expecting engineering language, styles, and conventions commonly shared by writers in engineering. 

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2. Areas of Improvement and Difficulty with Lab Report Writing in the Lower-Division Engineering Laboratory Courses across Three Universities

   Kim, Dave ; Howes, Franny ( June 2023 , ASEE annual conference exposition)

   Engineering undergraduates often mention hands-on laboratory courses as the most exciting learning experience in college. At the same time, they frequently point out that lab report writing is one of the most difficult tasks. Indeed, writing requires an extensive time investment for students, from developing ideas to proofreading before submission. Although engineering educators and writing educators offer impactful instructions in academic writing, engineering undergraduates seem to struggle when they are assigned to write in their major classes. This paper aims to investigate the areas of writing competencies where students improve or struggle in lower-division engineering laboratory courses. We collected and analyzed lab report samples from sixty-four students (n = 64) in a total of seven sophomore-level civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering courses at three different universities, consisting of a polytechnic university, a liberal art-focused private university, and a branch campus of research-one land grant university in the academic years of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. The analysis results from the lab sample assessment, using nine lab report writing outcomes, indicate that 30% or 19 out of 64 students could write their early lab reports at a satisfactory level; however, 70% or 45 out of 64 of students did not receive satisfactory grades in their early lab reports. These students are classified as the “needs improvement” group. The 45 students in the needs improvement group struggled with all nine outcomes; most notably, they had the lowest average scores in outcomes 5 (lab data interpretation), 6 (productive conclusions), and 7 (development of ideas), which often require evaluation and synthesis in Bloom’s Taxonomy. This group of students’ later lab report samples were assessed to investigate areas of change over the lab course periods. Lab instructions positively impacted students’ writing, showing marginally improved average scores in all nine outcomes. The largest improvement was observed in lab data interpretation, followed by lab data analysis and lab data presentation. Even with the improvement in their late labs, the engineering undergraduates in the needs improvement group still struggle with addressing technical audience expectations, lab data interpretation, effective conclusion writing, and idea development, even with instructions and productive feedback from the lab instructors and/or teaching assistants. 

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3. Investigating the Effect of Engineering Undergraduates’ Writing Transfer Modes on Lab Report Writing in Entry-level Engineering Lab Courses

   Riley, Charles ; Kim, Dave ; Lulay, Ken ; Lynch, John D. ; St. Clair, Sean ( July 2021 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Engineering undergraduates are exposed to a variety of writing curricula, such as first-year-composition courses, in their early program of study; however, they have difficulties meeting the expectations of writing in early engineering courses. On the other hand, instructors in entry-level engineering lab courses struggle to instruct lab report writing due to a wide range of student background in writing. When using the lens of learning transfer theories, which describe the processes and the effective extent to which past experiences affect learning and performance in a new situation, we can classify engineering students in three writing transfer modes: 1) concurrent transfer, which occurs when a rhetorically-focused technical writing class is taken concurrently or prior to engineering labs in the major; 2) vertical transfer, which occurs when a rhetorically-focused general education writing class is taken prior to engineering labs in the major; and 3) absent transfer, which occurs when no rhetorically-focused writing class exists (rather literature-focused) or writing-intensive courses are not required in the general education curriculum. This study aims to investigate how the engineering sophomore’s past writing experience affects their engineering lab report writing. Lab reports from four sophomore engineering courses (1 civil, 2 electrical, 1 general engineering) across three institutions collected for analysis consisted of two sets: the sample sets in early labs (for example, Lab 1) and in later labs (for example, the last lab) of the courses. A total of 46 reports (22 early and 24 later) were collected from 22 engineering sophomores during AY2019-2020. Four engineering faculty (1 civil, 1 electrical, and 2 mechanical engineering) developed a rubric based on lab report writing student outcomes, which are aligned with the existing outcomes such as ABET outcomes and the student outcomes from the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA). Data collected via early-later lab reports show that student outcomes related to writing conventions were scored high regardless of the transfer modes. The largest variations among three transfer modes were found in the student outcomes related to lab data presentation, analysis, and interpretation. In these outcomes, the concurrent transfer students had relatively high scores for both early and later reports, while the vertical transfer students improved their scores from relatively low in early reports to high in later reports. This research results show that the area of writing knowledge that has been most influenced by their writing curricula prior to sophomore engineering lab courses is disciplinary meaning-making through presenting, analyzing, and interpreting lab data for the technical audience. 

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4. Undergraduates’ Perspectives on Readiness, Writing Transfer, and Effectiveness of Writing Instructions in Engineering Lab Report Writing

   St. Clair, Sean ; Kim, Dave ; Riley, Charles ( July 2021 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Engineering undergraduates’ academic writing experiences prior to entry-level engineering lab courses can be classified into three different groups: a group with both rhetorically-focused writing (e.g., first-year-composition) and technical writing courses; a group with only rhetorically-focused writing courses; and a group with no rhetorically-focused writing or technical writing courses. Using a lens of transfer theories that explain how much knowledge from one context is used or adapted in new contexts, these three groups can be called concurrent, vertical, and absent transfer groups respectively. This study, which is part of a larger project developing and implementing writing-focused modules in engineering labs, aims to investigate undergraduates’ perspectives on readiness, writing transfer, and effectiveness of writing instructions in engineering lab report writing through a student survey. End-of-term online surveys (n = 40) of undergraduates in entry-level engineering lab courses were collected from three distinctive universities: an urban, commuter, public research university; an urban, private, teaching-focused university; and a rural, public, teaching-focused university. The survey questions have three parts: 1) student perspectives in writing in engineering disciplines; 2) how students use prior writing knowledge when writing lab reports in engineering lab courses; and 3) how engineering lab course writing instructions impact students’ engineering lab report writing. Findings suggest that the three transfer groups present statistical distinctions on the readiness of writing engineering lab reports (concurrent group as the highest and absent group as the lowest). The three groups also show different perspectives on how their freshmen writing courses contributed their engineering lab report writing. The concurrent transfer group believed freshmen writing instruction regarding “focus on purpose” contributed most when they write lab reports, while the greatest number of vertical transfer group students mentioned “knowledge about format and structure” was most helpful. Many absent transfer students valued “identifying problems or questions” instructed from their freshmen writing-intensive philosophy course as the content they used most when writing lab reports. Ultimately, the analysis of the data suggested that despite their perceived preparedness for writing lab reports, most of the students felt their skills improved as a result of engaging in lab report writing activities. 

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5. Undergraduates’ Perspectives on Readiness, Writing Transfer, and Effectiveness of Writing Instructions in Engineering Lab Report Writing

   St.Clair, Sean ; Kim, Dave ; Riley, Charles ( June 2021 , 2021 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings)

   Engineering undergraduates’ academic writing experiences prior to entry-level engineering lab courses can be classified into three different groups: a group with both rhetorically-focused writing (e.g., first-year-composition) and technical writing courses; a group with only rhetorically-focused writing courses; and a group with no rhetorically-focused writing or technical writing courses. Using a lens of transfer theories that explain how much knowledge from one context is used or adapted in new contexts, these three groups can be called concurrent, vertical, and absent transfer groups respectively. This study, which is part of a larger project developing and implementing writing-focused modules in engineering labs, aims to investigate undergraduates’ perspectives on readiness, writing transfer, and effectiveness of writing instructions in engineering lab report writing through a student survey. End-of-term online surveys (n = 40) of undergraduates in entry-level engineering lab courses were collected from three distinctive universities: an urban, commuter, public research university; an urban, private, teaching-focused university; and a rural, public, teaching-focused university. The survey questions have three parts: 1) student perspectives in writing in engineering disciplines; 2) how students use prior writing knowledge when writing lab reports in engineering lab courses; and 3) how engineering lab course writing instructions impact students’ engineering lab report writing. Findings suggest that the three transfer groups present statistical distinctions on the readiness of writing engineering lab reports (concurrent group as the highest and absent group as the lowest). The three groups also show different perspectives on how their freshmen writing courses contributed their engineering lab report writing. The concurrent transfer group believed freshmen writing instruction regarding “focus on purpose” contributed most when they write lab reports, while the greatest number of vertical transfer group students mentioned “knowledge about format and structure” was most helpful. Many absent transfer students valued “identifying problems or questions” instructed from their freshmen writing-intensive philosophy course as the content they used most when writing lab reports. Ultimately, the analysis of the data suggested that despite their perceived preparedness for writing lab reports, most of the students felt their skills improved as a result of engaging in lab report writing activities. 

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