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“An ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions” is a fundamental outcome of all engineering programs. Students conduct laboratory experiments in all areas of engineering and report on their findings. New faculty, however, have little experience or training in how to develop effective lab report assignments and instruct students on how to write laboratory reports. In an effort to improve both the teaching and learning of laboratory report writing, engineering educators from three distinct universities (one large public research university, one small public polytechnic university, and one private undergraduate university) developed a series of online laboratory report writing instructional modules. These modules were presented to laboratory instructors, half with less than four years of teaching experience—at a Community of Practice (CoP) retreat in the spring of 2022. Focus groups were conducted with the instructors to determine the potential benefits and shortcomings of the modules, after which the modules underwent significant revisions. Near the conclusion of the CoP retreat, participants reported feeling motivated to implement the newly revised modules to improve their laboratory report writing instruction. Follow-up focus groups were conducted in the following winter to determine if this motivation remained high throughout the summer and resulted in the development of new and improved laboratory assignments in the new academic year. The paper will briefly introduce the modules and present the results of these focus group meetings. 

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. 

Laboratory report writing instructional modules have been developed and refined using a community of practice (CoP) approach. Supported by the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education initiative, researchers at three institutions have refined and reorganized a series of scaffolded laboratory writing modules based on the work of faculty and graduate students at a CoP meeting. This paper documents the process used at the CoP meeting where draft modules were made available and a model laboratory session was considered. Other published laboratory report writing resources were evaluated alongside the draft modules to determine areas of overlap and novelty and to ensure the completeness of the revised modules. The process of revising instructional modules was valuable for both the quality of the modules and the development of the community of practice. The modules are now organized into two guides, published at http://labs.wsu.edu/engineeringlab-report-writing/. An Instructor’s Guide to Engineering Lab Writing, targets instructors and provides model lab writing and data analysis learning outcomes for consideration when planning a laboratory session, as well as approaches for course organization and teaching to support lab writing outcomes. A library of lab report types and a model rubric for lab report scoring complete the instructor-oriented resource. A Student’s Guide to Engineering Lab Writing, supports students who are learning lab report writing for the first time or are advancing as technical writers. It is organized according to traditional lab report format and is aligned with the learning outcomes in the instructor modules. The content in the student-oriented modules is scaffolded to support continuous development. The modules are arranged in order of increasing cognitive difficulty, first addressing formatting conventions and arrangement, then section contents and methods of data analysis, and finally effective methods of interpretation, reasoning, and conclusion writing. This paper demonstrates the mutually reinforcing nature of collaboratively developed instructional material and the growth of a community of practice. The CoP approach to structuring a meeting was effective for gathering targeted and relevant feedback in a short period of time as well as for developing the CoP itself. The instructional modules revised at the CoP meeting were significantly improved creating a sense of ownership and inclusion by those participating in the meeting. They are now publicly available to serve a growing community of practice focused on engineering lab writing. 

Laboratory reports are a genre of writing that students are exposed to early in their engineering curriculum. Varied student writing preparation ensures that students need differentiated support in laboratory writing to achieve learning outcomes. Supported by the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education initiative, researchers at three institutions have developed a series of scaffolded laboratory writing modules related to different components of a laboratory report. The module contents were informed by prior research into student performance in laboratory report writing in multiple engineering disciplines and with varied writing preparation. The modules provide definitions and guidance for novice report writers and instructor support for developing assignments and rubrics for laboratory reports. The scaffolded modules treat elements of a laboratory report at fundamental, intermediate, and advanced levels. Fundamental modules include audience expectations, lab report organization and conventions, simple statistics, and data presentation in tables and graphs. Intermediate modules address primary and secondary sources of data, trendlines, summary and conclusion writing, and referencing secondary sources. Advanced modules address logical appeals and encourage student writers to consider error analysis and error propagation. This paper describes the structure and content of the modules as well as the process used to develop them. Initial assessments by instructors as module users are presented. Other publicly available writing-support resources are catalogued to demonstrate the novelty and value of the lab report writing modules 

Laboratory reports are a genre of writing that students are exposed to early in their engineering curriculum. Varied student writing preparation ensures that students need differentiated support in laboratory writing to achieve learning outcomes. Supported by the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education initiative, researchers at three institutions have developed a series of scaffolded laboratory writing modules related to different components of a laboratory report. The module contents were informed by prior research into student performance in laboratory report writing in multiple engineering disciplines and with varied writing preparation. The modules provide definitions and guidance for novice report writers and instructor support for developing assignments and rubrics for laboratory reports. The scaffolded modules treat elements of a laboratory report at fundamental, intermediate, and advanced levels. Fundamental modules include audience expectations, lab report organization and conventions, simple statistics, and data presentation in tables and graphs. Intermediate modules address primary and secondary sources of data, trendlines, summary and conclusion writing, and referencing secondary sources. Advanced modules address logical appeals and encourage student writers to consider error analysis and error propagation. This paper describes the structure and content of the modules as well as the process used to develop them. Initial assessments by instructors as module users are presented. Other publicly available writing-support resources are catalogued to demonstrate the novelty and value of the lab report writing modules. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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 writing backgrounds and pressure to focus on technical content. 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, specifically in collegiate writing or writing-across-the-curriculum courses, 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). The data suggest that the greatest writing gains in a first lab course are made by vertical transfer students, while concurrent transfer students enter with skills developed in prior writing coursework. The largest improvements among the 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 meet expectations in later reports. Absent transfer students demonstrated inconsistent outcomes and deserve greater study with more data than was available for this study.