Technical Communication Courses Research Articles

Complementing Business Case Studies with Humanitarian Case Studies: A Means of Preparing Global Engineers

Business case studies have been a standard pedagogical tool in technical communication classrooms. However, the expansion of engineering practice-including the design and implementation of appropriate technology in the developing world-suggests the need to complement such studies. This paper analyzes three business and three humanitarian case studies. It highlights the complexities of audience and context that distinguish the humanitarian case studies, and it argues that incorporating humanitarian cases into technical communication courses would promote higher levels of learning, student engagement, and the global citizenship that will be requisite for all engineers in the twenty-first century.

How Technical Communication Textbooks Fail Engineering Students

Twelve currently popular technical communication textbooks are analyzed for their treatment and discussions of the types of writing that engineers produce. The analysis reveals a persistent bias toward humanities-based styles and genres and a failure to address the forms of argument and evidence that our science and engineering students most need to master to succeed as rhetoricians in their fields. The essay ends with recommendations and calls upon instructors to reenvision the service course in technical communication.

Success in Distance Education: Do Learning Styles and Multiple Formats Matter?

abstract Using data collected from 120 students enrolled in nine sections of an undergraduate technical communication course, this study found a number of statistically significant associations between students' learning styles, as defined by the Index of Learning Styles, and nine measures evaluating both academic performance and student preference. The study also measured student performance in collaborative and self-directed versions of the course, as well as full and summer sessions. Reflective learners were found to be the most successful online learners, excelling in collaborative, as well as self-directed versions of the course. Sequential learners also outperformed global learners. Learning styles were not a significant factor in summer-session courses.

Genetics Interfaces: Representing Science and Enacting Public Discourse in Online Spaces

This article analyzes the Web interfaces of two well-known national civic action groups, both related to genetics research: the Genetic Alliance and the Innocence Project. These two sites are excellent examples of interface design and information retrieval, and they also attempt to translate complex science to the general public, even those traditionally most underrepresented and marginalized by the complexities of science and technology. The Genetic Alliance and Innocence Project provide excellent case studies for technical communication courses about the necessity to marry factual scientific knowledge with cultural and emotional rhetorics while providing an interface for multiple stakeholders in public policy change.

Teaching Deadly Force: Collaborative Dynamics and the Rhetoric of Police Policy

After the controversial police shooting of a developmentally-disabled African-American teenager in July 2003, the new mayor of Denver, CO, appointed a politically diverse task force to revise the police department's use-of-force policy and propose a new model for police oversight. This teaching case is based on the task force's deliberations and collaborative efforts to build policy consensus in a sometimes rancorous, high-stakes environment. In it, I reconstruct the story of the shooting that gave rise to the task force, trace the arc of the task force's 104-day existence, and analyze the letter and final report submitted by the task force's co-chairs to (1) demonstrate the highly-pressurized nature of policy language invention and the crucial impact of word choice in such policy, and (2) illustrate the difficulty the task force encountered in attempting to secure consensus and the manner in which the final work product acknowledges, rather than obscures, this struggle. Finally, the case includes recommended readings and a guide for individual and group activities for implementation in either an undergraduate- or graduate-level technical communication course.

Tech Writing, Meet Tomb Raider: Video and Computer Games in the Technical Communication Classroom

This article examines the common genre of the usability study in technical communication courses and proposes the incorporation of computer and video games to ensure a rhetorical focus to this genre. As games are both entertaining and educational, their use in the technical communication classroom provides a new perspective on multimodal literacies that is appropriate to meet the needs of twenty-first-century learners. This article both describes a theoretical rationale for the inclusion of video and computer games in the classroom and also offers suggestions for their practical pedagogical incorporation.

工学院大学における「テクニカルコミュニケーション」科目の教材に関する一考察

In this paper, the contents of the teaching materials of the Technical Communication (TC) course, which has been continued from 1994 at Kogakuin University, and the educational effects obtained by this course are explained. The TC is a method to communicate the technical information in order to understand easily. In this course, we used newspaper articles concerning rule of sports as the teaching materials and explained a cause of the accidents published in the newspaper from viewpoint of the ambiguity of Japanese. As a result, it is recognized that using newspapers as the teaching materials are effective to understand the TC and this course is necessary for students. It is concluded that our trial brought educational effects a great deal.

The Analytic Assessment of Online Portfolios in Undergraduate Technical Communication: A Model

AbstractThis paper describes an innovative model for assessing the technical communication course by analytically scoring online portfolios, open to the internet, for ten separate (analytic) variables and one overall (holistic) score. The model is a statistically verifiable and sustainable method that strengthens the curriculum and fosters consensus within the teaching community. We achieved construct validity by redefining the elements of the course to incorporate communication in the digital age and then by creating new criteria for evaluation related to that construct. We achieved inter‐reader reliability by beginning each assessment with a calibrated reading and by adjudicating non‐adjacent scores. After using the model successfully for three semesters, we can see increased consistency in teaching among sections and semesters, more communication among instructors, and we are beginning a database with which we can test further change. The theory and method behind this model can be applied to other disciplines as well.

Teaching the Role of Language in Managing Organizational Change: The Sunwest Anti-Union Campaign Case

This case study focuses on the role of language in managing organizational change. We examined the campaign and rhetorical strategies used by a major US airline to persuade customer service employees not to vote for Teamsters Union representation. The company's anti-union campaign documents included internal memos, letters, and emails. If included in a professional or technical communication course, these documents provide a powerful case for students to explore the role of written communication within a changing organization. We situate the case in the context of relevant literature and provide background information. We also include learning outcomes, methods, and implications.

Preparing Technical Communication Students to Play a Role on the Translation Team

Technical communicators need to be prepared for the challenges of international communication. This tutorial focuses on the need for technical communication faculty to prepare students to be skilled intercultural communicators and to play a role on the translation team. The tutorial begins with a discussion of the importance of writing for translation in the international workplace and then presents specific assignments designed to instruct students in intercultural communication and give them experience writing for translation. In addition to introducing students to the cultural issues that impact the creation of documentation for international audiences, these assignments also serve to reinforce core skills recognized as vital to professional success in the field of technical communication. Taken together, these assignments can be used as the basis for a course in international technical communication. An appendix to the tutorial includes numerous resources available to faculty who want either to develop a course in international technical communication or to include some of the assignments in existing technical communication courses.

A Multilanguage Online Writing Center for Professional Communication: Development and Testing

An online writing center developed at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, called Calliope, provides a modular platform aimed at enhancing learners’ professional writing skills in five different languages: Dutch, English, French, German, and Spanish. It supports courses in business and technical communication. The current version includes modules on press releases in English, business letters in French, and minute taking in Dutch. Unlike many online writing centers, it is genre-specific and context-specific, it is highly interactive rather than linear, it uses a process approach to cater to different learning styles, it accommodates different writer profiles, and it is an instructional tool not connected to a physical writing center.

Knowledge Transfer Across Disciplines: Tracking RhetoricalStrategies From a Technical Communication Classroomto an Engineering Classroom

This article presents findings from an empirical study investigating the transfer of rhetorical knowledge, defined as audience awareness, sense of purpose, organization, use of visuals, professional appearance, and style, between the technical communication and the engineering disciplines. Various data collection methods were used to examine the skills and rhetorical knowledge students learned in a technical communication course and determine whether or not students relied on that knowledge as they completed writing assignments in an engineering course. Also examined was the effect of workplace experiences on shaping students' rhetorical knowledge. This study indicated that students did appear to transfer rhetorical strategies between different contexts, and those strategies were learned in the workplace as well as the classroom.

Technical Communication Instruction in Engineering Schools

This survey of 73 top-ranked U.S. and Canadian engineering schools examines initiatives that engineering schools are taking to improve communication instruction for their students. The survey reveals that 50% of the U.S. schools and 80% of the Canadian schools require a course in technical communication. About 33% of the schools utilize some form of integrated communication instruction, and another 33% offer elective courses in communication. Just 10 schools have created engineering communication centers to provide additional individualized coaching and feedback for their students. The most comprehensive preparation that engineering schools provide is a communication-across-the-curriculum approach that combines these instructional methods to offer concentrated instruction, continual practice, situated learning, and individualized feedback.

Reducing the Distance: A Study of Course Websites as a Means to Create a Total Learning Space in Traditional Courses

A primary goal of both distance and traditional courses should be that of distance reduction-a shrinking of the mental and time-dimensional separation between the students, the instructor, and the content to be learned. This sort of reduction brings the learning events of a class together in a holistic way that maintains an ongoing dialog with participants. This article reports the results of a study that evaluated the use and effectiveness of course websites in three undergraduate technical communication courses. Research questions investigated students' site visit frequency, purpose of use, and perceptions of distance reduction during out-of-class times via the constant availability of course companion sites. A survey was conducted to measure student responses to the course website used in their technical communication course. Anecdotal and empirical data indicate that course companion sites do decrease students' perceived distance during out-of-class times; however, they also produce unanticipated results, such as increased student dependency on online information and a low tolerance for out-of-date information. Future research is suggested to further investigate the impact of course websites on both cognitive and affective modes of student participation and learning.

大学における「テクニカルコミュニケーション（ＴＣ）」科目での小論文に関する一考察

In this paper, the contents of the assignment of the Technical Communication (TC)course, which has been continued from 1994 at Kogakuin University, and the educational effects obtained by this course are explained.The TC is a method to communicate the technical information in order to understand easily.In this course, we gave the students the assignment that they make "SHIKAKU"of a hiragana into the Chinese character of two characters, and write the brief paper on it.As a result, it is recognized that employing above assignment is effective to understand the TC and this course is necessary for students.It is concluded that our trial brought educational effects a great deal.

Assessment of Communication Competencies in Engineering Design Projects

Reforms in engineering education have caused a shift from the traditional stand-alone course in technical communication for Engineering students towards communication training integrated in courses and design projects that allows students to develop four layers of competence. This shift creates opportunities for realistic and situated learning, but offers challenges for assessment of communication competence at student, course and program levels. On the basis of a detailed definition of communicative competence, three formats for integrated communication training are described: Linked to design projects, integrated in design projects and integrated at program level. Assessment of communication competence in these formats is constrained by their characteristics with regard to student motivation, individual and group work, and situated learning.

How Much is Enough? The Assessment of Student Work in Technical Communication Courses

This article reports the findings of a national survey of members of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW). The survey focuses on practices of assessing student classroom work and specifically asked technical writing instructors what they assess, how they assess, and what they would like to do to assess their students optimally. In addition to reporting responses to these questions, the article concludes with recommendations for improving student assessment practices at the departmental, programmatic, and course levels.

Using Focus Groups to Supplement the Assessment of Technical Communication Texts, Programs, and Courses

In this article, we recommend a research methodology, focus groups, that we have found useful in supplementing other, more commonly used measures of qualitative and quantitative assessment. We explain why focus groups are particularly well suited for assessment, how we have used them in our research to examine teacher and practitioner perspectives of effective technical writing, and how others might use them for evaluating texts, programs, or courses.

A Laboratory in Citizenship: Service Learning in the Technical Communication Classroom

This article presents an argument for and offers illustrations of service learning in technical communication courses and curricula. Alongside traditional internships that prepare students as future employees, service learning provides students with an education in engaged citizenship. This article reviews service-learning literature, discussing specifically the advantages of projects to students, faculty, and the community. The authors also describe three projects in which instructors and students integrated service learning and technical communication in innovative ways.

Conversations with Technical Writing Teachers: Defining a Problem

This article brings to light a topic that surfaces regularly among technical writing practitioners and theorists but is rarely addressed in the literature of the field. Stuart Selber deals with it in his 1997 essay "Hypertext Spheres of Influence" (see especially page 30), but a check of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) Bibliography for the last two years produced only one recent article obviously devoted to it (see Mitra). The topic centers around this question: Is teaching technology problematic for technical writing instructors? Voices are heard here of 64 ATTW members who were queried on their roles as teachers of technical writing in relation to the demands made upon them to also be teachers of technology skills. Answers are presented and examined in terms of "teacher lore," the informal sharing of teacher experiences and opinion/feeling about those experiences. The article concludes with a call for more research to clarify the roles teachers of technical writing should be playing in an age where technological determinism—shown by a tendency to turn a technical communication course into a software tools course—can be seen as a threat to effective teaching of complex workplace rhetoric.