How Engineering Students Learn To Write: Fourth Year Findings And Summary Of The Ut Tyler Engineering Writing Initiative

The Departments of Electrical Engineering and English of the University of Texas at Tyler have completed the Engineering Writing Initiative (EWI), a four-year longitudinal study investigating how engineering students learn to write, how they apply these skills in their studies, and how instructional practice may be reconfigured to better develop these skills. The questions which formed the charter of EWI were: ≠ What are engineering students’ attitudes, practices and skills with regard to writing, and how do those attitudes, practices and skills develop over time? ≠ Does writing in engineering courses help students become more involved with those courses and understand and apply the ideas of those courses? ≠ How can we incorporate what we learn about students’ attitudes, practices and skills in order to improve our instructional practice with regard to writing? EWI employed multiple data-gathering methods (semi-annual writing prompts, individual interviews with students, written surveys of students, and student writing samples gathered in portfolios). It employed several assessment strategies (quantitative analyses of student writing samples, quantitative analyses of written surveys, and qualitative analyses of interview transcripts).