Collaborative Research: Bridging the Writing Transfer Gap in Early Engineering Laboratory Courses

合作研究：弥合早期工程实验室课程中的写作转移差距

• 批准号: 1914593
• 负责人: Kenneth Lulay
• 金额: $ 5.54万
• 依托单位: University of Portland
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-07-15 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1914593&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Bridging; Writing; Transfer

This multi-institutional project aims to serve the national interest by improving college writing instruction and the technical writing abilities of engineering students. Although writing is a critical skill for engineers, employers frequently complain that engineering graduates need better writing skills. Undergraduate engineering curricula typically require various general education writing courses early in the program of study. However, engineering educators often do not have the tools to connect students' learning from early writing courses to their writing in engineering courses. The goal of this project is to improve the transfer of writing skills from college writing courses into engineering courses. To accomplish this goal, the project will develop an instructional module to facilitate transfer of writing skills from writing courses into the laboratory component of engineering courses. It will also evaluate whether the instructional module enhances student writing of engineering lab reports. This project expands on a previous project that demonstrated success in this approach at one institution. In this follow-on study, the writing module will be further refined and implemented at multiple institutions. The partnering institutions were chosen because of differences in the general education writing course requirements for their engineering students. Thus, this research study could identify writing instruction strategies that are transferable across different types of institutions. This Engaged Student Learning project will identify what transferable knowledge students bring from three far-transfer models: concurrent transfer in which students build on first year composition and technical writing courses; vertical transfer in which students have only completed first year composition; and absent transfer in which students have completed a literary course but lack both technical writing and the preparation in composition that is characteristic of first year composition. The collaboration includes at least one institution representing each of the three models, enabling exploration of two key research questions: "How can writing transfer be adapted across the US to a wide range of writing curricula in lower-division courses?" and "How can a transfer-focused writing module be implemented effectively in diverse engineering lab classrooms taught by any instructor?" Informed by a mapping of students' collective zone of proximal development, a lab report instructional module will be refined by adapting multiple scaffolds to support students' incremental engagement with lab report writing as engaged disciplinary learning. The module will include direct instructional materials and reference materials as supports for writing lab reports. The project will conduct quantitative and qualitative assessment of students' lab report writing as disciplinary meaning making, as well as students' development of technical communication skills. Results from this integrated mixed methods approach has the potential to advance knowledge about the impact of transfer-focused writing pedagogies on students' lab report writing competencies. This project is based on results from an exploratory project that showed statistically significant improvements in engineering students' lab report quality after implementing a writing transfer-focused lab report module at two institutions utilizing a vertical transfer model. These results suggest that a student-centered pedagogical approach that explicitly reinforces writing knowledge and skills from prior post-secondary writing experiences can be more productive than the traditional case study approach often employed in engineering writing instruction. With these encouraging prior results, the results of this project have the potential to be applicable to diverse engineering laboratory course settings across diverse engineering curricula. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources. This program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这个多机构合作的项目旨在通过提高大学写作教学和工科学生的技术写作能力来服务于国家利益。虽然写作是工程师的一项关键技能，但雇主经常抱怨工程专业毕业生需要更好的写作技能。本科工程课程通常要求各种通识教育写作课程在学习计划的早期。然而，工程教育工作者往往没有工具将学生从早期写作课程的学习与他们在工程课程中的写作联系起来。这个项目的目标是提高从大学写作课程到工程课程的写作技巧的转移。为了实现这一目标，该项目将开发一个教学模块，以促进写作技巧从写作课程转移到工程课程的实验部分。它还将评估教学模块是否提高了学生工程实验报告的写作。这个项目扩展了之前的一个项目，该项目在一个机构中证明了这种方法的成功。在这项后续研究中，写作模块将在多个机构进一步完善和实施。之所以选择合作院校，是因为它们对工科学生的通识教育写作课程要求不同。因此，本研究可以确定在不同类型的机构中可转移的写作教学策略。这个“参与式学生学习”项目将确定学生从三种远迁移模式中带来的可转移知识：学生在第一年的作文和技术写作课程中进行并发迁移；学生只完成第一年作文的纵向转学；学生完成了文学课程，但缺乏专业写作和写作准备，这是第一年写作的特点。该合作包括至少一个代表这三种模式的机构，使探索两个关键研究问题成为可能：“如何将写作迁移在全美范围内广泛应用于低年级课程的写作课程？”以及“如何在由任何讲师授课的不同工程实验室教室中有效地实施以写作迁移为重点的写作模块？”通过绘制学生最近发展的集体区域图，实验报告教学模块将通过调整多个框架来完善，以支持学生将实验报告写作作为参与学科学习的增量参与。该模块将包括直接的教学材料和参考材料，作为编写实验报告的支持。该项目将对学生的实验室报告写作进行定量和定性的评估，作为学科意义的制定，以及学生的技术沟通能力的发展。这种综合混合方法的结果有可能促进关于以迁移为中心的写作教学法对学生实验室报告写作能力影响的知识。本项目基于一项探索性项目的结果，该项目显示，在两所院校采用垂直转学模式实施以写作转学为重点的实验报告模块后，工程专业学生的实验报告质量在统计上有显著改善。这些结果表明，一种以学生为中心的教学方法，明确加强了先前中学后写作经验的写作知识和技能，比工程写作教学中经常采用的传统案例研究方法更有效。有了这些令人鼓舞的先前结果，本项目的结果有可能适用于不同工程课程的不同工程实验室课程设置。本项目由美国国家科学基金改进本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源资助。该计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。