Cross-Sectional Assessment of Technical Writing: Tool Development and Preliminary Data Analysis

An in-depth assessment of undergraduate written and oral communication skills from two departments (Civil Engineering and Biological Systems Engineering) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) was performed using several measurement tools to gain a snapshot of the skill level of the students.Three writing assessment tools and one oral assessment tool were developed and applied to a cross-section of students for this study: A writing attitude survey to assess engineering students' perspectives, reflections, and opinions about writing skills; A basic writing skills test based on a similar test created by the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications to determine students' ability to recognize correct grammar, sentence structure and punctuation, A writing sample assessment rubric and methodology to systematically assess engineering students' writing samples; A technical oral presentation assessment rubric, with both individual and group components, to assess senior-level capstone oral presentations.The writing assessment tools were applied to freshmen, juniors, and seniors in the two departments.The oral presentation rubric was integrated into the capstone presentations from the two departments.The three primary findings from this study were that (1) many engineering students start college with weak writing skills;(2) a significant number of engineering students are graduating with writing skills below the desired level; and (3) based on the ACT score, a basic writing skills test and a writing sample, a heuristic can be developed to effectively identify students required to take an additional writing course at the start of his/her college career.