Training Writing Tutors to Improve Their Support for Engineering Students’ Technical Reports

Abstract

This Research-to-Practice Full Paper expands upon prior work to improve the engagement of engineering students with peer writing tutors and improve tutor feedback on engineering students' technical reports. Before meeting with the engineering students, tutors received focused training from both the engineering course instructor and the writing tutor supervisor. In the prior research, all students completed the same assignment and met with writing tutors with their individual lab reports. In this iteration, the research was expanded to group lab reports in a multi-semester capstone course sequence, where the uniqueness of each project introduces additional dynamics. Strategies such as student elevator speeches and an additional tutor training session are employed to help improve the engagement during the tutoring session. Selected quantitative and qualitative results indicate an improved level of student-tutor engagement.