Undergraduates' Perspectives on Readiness, Writing Transfer, and Effectiveness of Writing Instructions in Engineering Lab Report Writing

Engineering undergraduates' academic writing experiences prior to entry-level engineering lab courses can be classified into three different groups: a group with both rhetorically-focused writing (e.g., first-year-composition) and technical writing courses; a group with only rhetorically-focused writing courses; and a group with no rhetorically-focused writing or technical writing courses. Using a lens of transfer theories that explain how much knowledge from one context is used or adapted in new contexts, these three groups can be called concurrent, vertical, and absent transfer groups respectively. This study, which is part of a larger project developing and implementing writing-focused modules in engineering labs, aims to investigate undergraduates' perspectives on readiness, writing transfer, and effectiveness of writing instructions in engineering lab report writing through a student survey. End-of-term online surveys (n = 40) of undergraduates in entry-level engineering lab courses were collected from three distinctive universities: an urban, commuter, public research university; an urban, private, teaching-focused university; and a rural, public, teaching-focused university. The survey questions have three parts: 1) student perspectives in writing in engineering disciplines; 2) how students use prior writing knowledge when writing lab reports in engineering lab courses; and 3) how engineering lab course writing instructions impact students' engineering lab report writing. Findings suggest that the three transfer groups present statistical distinctions on the readiness of writing engineering lab reports (concurrent group as the highest and absent group as the lowest). The three groups also show different perspectives on how their freshmen writing courses contributed their engineering lab report writing. The concurrent transfer group believed freshmen writing instruction regarding "focus on purpose" contributed most when they write lab reports, while the greatest number of vertical transfer group students mentioned "knowledge about format and structure" was most helpful. Many absent transfer students valued "identifying problems or questions" instructed from their freshmen writing-intensive philosophy course as the content they used most when writing lab reports. Ultimately, the analysis of the data suggested that despite their perceived preparedness for writing lab reports, most of the students felt their skills improved as a result of engaging in lab report writing activities.