Using Writing Assignments to Improve Conceptual Understanding in Statics: Results from a Pilot Study

Abstract

where she also serves as Assistant Department Head for Graduate Education and co-directs the Virginia Tech Engineering Communication Center. Her research includes interdisciplinary collaboration, communication studies, identity theory, and reflective practice. Projects supported by the National Science Foundation include interdisciplinary pedagogy for pervasive computing design, writing across the curriculum in statics courses, and a CAREER award to explore the use of e-portfolios to promote professional identity and reflective practice. Her teaching emphasizes the roles of engineers as communicators and educators, the foundations and evolution of the engineering education discipline, assessment methods, and evaluating communication in engineering.

Using Writing to Link Procedures and Concepts in Statics

“…The qualitative results presented in this paper are derived from data collected in a previous mixed methods study (see [9] for an analysis of the quantitative data). The following quoted text from that study describes the participants, setting, intervention and mode of implementation:…”

“…The instructor of EX2, Venters, led the teaching assistants through a training and norming process to ensure consistency in grading of the assignments. [9] Qualitative Data Collection Toward the end of the semester, all students enrolled in both the experimental and control sections were emailed a short, optional survey about their experiences in the course; among the survey questions was an invitation to participate in an interview. Out of the total pool of fortyone students who indicated their willingness to participate, interview participants were purposively selected based on their current course section with the intent of having roughly equal numbers of students from each section.…”

“…In statics, many students who struggle may be focusing only on procedure and rote learning [7] . Metacognition [8] and self-regulation may play an important role in promoting adaptive expertise, and approaches such as writing-out problem solution processes may promote metacognition [9] . We report on a structured experimental study that tests a writing-to-learn intervention in statics courses, with the goal of better understanding how writing may be used as a pedagogical tool to promote metacognition and conceptual learning of statics concepts.…”

Adventures in Paragraph Writing: The Development and Refinement of Scalable and Effective Writing Exercises for Large-enrollment Engineering Courses

“…Research conducted by Venters et al and Hanson and Williams, for example, investigated the method of having students explain computational problems using only words in order to incorporate writing in large classrooms. 6,11 For each assignment students were asked to write out the solution for one end-ofchapter problem instead of only writing the equations needed. Descriptions were limited to onehalf page.…”

“…Additionally, students reported no additional time needed to complete written problems, although many voiced frustrations on end-of-term surveys with the grading procedure, viewing it as inconsistent and confusing. 6,11 Yet despite the few reported issues with these studies, both represent successful methods for incorporating writing into large lecture courses without overburdening students and instructors with lengthy assignments.…”