Attribute 7 and Assessing Written Communication Skills in Engineering

Abstract

This paper will focus on Attribute 7,“Communication Skills” – and, specifically, on writtenassignments. This paper has grown out of twoinitiatives, one at my institution and one undertakenindependently as part of a national study. For thefaculty-wide initiative, we are preparing rubrics thatcan be used throughout the faculty as guidelines forattribute assessment in undergraduate Engineeringcourses. However, we have little information onAttribute 7; which courses, for example, target Attribute7 and how is it assessed? What kinds of assignments arestudents being asked to complete? More broadly, whatshould we be teaching and assessing if we choose totarget Attribute 7 in our outlines?Interestingly, it is the independent nationalstudy that may help us in this endeavor. After collectingcourse outlines from all the Engineering departments,we can first determine which courses target Attribute 7and then analyze the written course assignmentsaccording to 20 identifiable variables, such as length,genre and grading criteria. The challenge will be incalibrating Attribute 7 and our undergraduate program,including the undergraduate communication courses inour school that instantiate Attribute 7. In this paper, wewill report on our progress thus far, both in the processof identifying the written assignments our students arebeing asked to do and in the development of facultywiderubrics.Finally, although linking attributes to learningobjectives and determining the levels of communicativecompetence can be very challenging, we hope to showthat these two initiatives may help to make the tasks lessdaunting and more manageable for all the stakeholdersin the education of our Engineering students.