Search for: All records

A challenge instructors face is developing and accurately assessing technical communication skills to ensure students can apply and transfer the skills from the academic context into the context of engineering practice. By intentionally balancing teaching transferrable communication skills relevant to engineering practice and evaluating student understanding, engineering educators can foster competence and prepare students for the expectations of their professional careers. This study addresses two questions: (1) how can chemical engineering instructors reliably and consistently assess student communication skills, and (2) are instructor expectations aligned with those of practicing engineers? The use of well-designed rubrics is important for setting clear expectations for students, providing constructive feedback, and in team taught courses, grading consistently. This study discusses how a rubric for assessing technical communication skills in senior-level chemical engineering laboratory reports was validated and demonstrated reliability across five chemical engineering instructors. Additionally, five industry partners evaluated student reports for comparison to instructor rubric scores. Expectations and perceptions of the quality of student work align between instructors and practicing engineers, but practicing engineers prioritized safety and abstract clarity, while instructors prioritized the students’ abilities to interpret results and draw conclusions.