Abstract
Engineering design serves as the capstone experience of most undergraduate engineering programs. One of the key elements of the engineering design process is the compilation of results obtained into a technical report that can be shared and distributed to interested stakeholders including industry, faculty members and other relevant parties. In an effort to expand the tools available for assessment of engineering design technical reports, this study performed an initial validation of a previously developed Technical Writing rubric. The rubric was evaluated for its reliability to measure the intended construct, inter-rater reliability and external validity in comparison to an existing generalized written communication rubric. It was found that the rubric was reliable with Cronbach’s alpha for all dimensions between 0.817 and 0.976. The inter-rater reliability for the overall instrument was also found to be excellent at 0.85. Finally, it was observed that there were no statistically significant differences observed between the measurements obtained on the Technical Writing rubric in comparison to the more generalized Written Communication Value rubric. This demonstrates that although specific to engineering design environments the Technical Writing rubric was able to measure key constructs associated with written communication practice. This rubric can now serve as one additional tool for assessment of communication skills within engineering capstone design experiences.
Highlights
Communication is a professional skill that is essential to engineering practice [1]
The following section describes the initial validation measures that were performed on the Technical Writing rubric to determine its suitability for use as an assessment instrument in engineering research and design courses
It can be observed that overall most of the projects were graded between the two raters with project 1 having the largest discrepancy (5.5 points) whereas projects 4, 6 and 8 had the closest similarities in ratings (1 to 1.5 points). It can be noted from the results that the Technical Writing rubric was able to capture a range of outcomes with projects that didn’t have as much technical proficiency in writing scoring lower in the range on the Technical Writing rubric whereas those that demonstrated strong writing capabilities and clear communication scored higher in the range on the Technical Writing rubric
Summary
Communication is a professional skill that is essential to engineering practice [1]. As we approach 2020, the year envisioned in the National Academies Report on Visions of Engineering in the New Century, we can recall their inclusion of strong communication skills as an important skillset to allow for engineers to be able to address the needs of multiple stakeholders, work on interdisciplinary teams and apply various means of communication [2]. Despite the variety of approaches taken, research has shown that three key strategies tend to allow for the best development of communication skills amongst engineering students. These strategies include providing a situated learning experience for students as they develop their communication skills, incorporating communication intensive courses within the curriculum, and using communication assignments to assist with content learning [1]. Engineering design can focus on technical based elements such as work process, more recently work in this area has expanded to include social process and professional development skills that are necessary for student success in practice such as teamwork, communication, and project management [10]
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