Integrating Industrial Feedback into Role-Playing Scenarios in Laboratory Classes for Improved Technical Communication Skills Transferable to the Workplace

Abstract Despite the immense value of effective communication skills for undergraduate students, effective integration of these skills into the engineering curriculum can be challenging. Proficient communication has been directly linked to enhance career progression, yet many engineering graduates lack this important skill. Students need to learn communication skills that are transferable to the practice of engineering yet often do not recognize the significance of the technical communications they do as an undergraduate to their future careers. As the standards and norms of effective communication in engineering depend heavily on the context of engineering practice, engineering communication is situated and rhetorical. Therefore, one way to help shift the students out of student mindset so they can begin to assume an identity in the engineering profession is through situated learning, where communication assignments are situated in the "real world" and reflect discipline specific workplace genres. Since students can see the relevance to their future careers of what they are learning, this approach can also help foster student engagement. A role-playing scenario was implemented into a senior engineering laboratory class at a land-grant institution approximately five years ago. In the role-playing experience, students are "interns" at a consulting company. Lab objectives are written as "company memos," instructors are given management titles such as CEO and CFO, and tailored assignments target different genres of engineering technical writing. Initially changes were based on an instructor's previous industry experience, however, the landscape of communication in engineering practice changes rapidly. In order to ensure what was being taught in the class was relevant to current practice, a survey regarding how often one uses different communication genres and the communication skills they find most important was sent to members of the Department Advisory Committee (DAC) that have a wide range of industry experience. All five DAC members responded, and several key findings were discovered. The industry representatives indicated that in terms of genres, email messages, meeting minutes, and meeting agendas were their top three used communications. Short reports (less than 3 pages) and proposals were ranked 6th and 7th, respectively, while formal reports (more than 3 pages), ranked 11th out of 16 genres. Additionally, presentation materials were ranked 4th and in a separate question regarding important communication skills, presentation skills were ranked highly with only listening skills being ranked higher. Since the course largely focused on formal written technical reports and proposals, the students were not learning genres that would benefit them most upon entering the workforce. Based on survey results, instructors incorporated meeting agendas, meeting notes, and a group presentation into the course. Additionally, based on feedback from the industry representatives, rubric constructs were revised to better reflect important industry-relevant skills. Instructors were also transparent about why assignments were given and how they were relevant to the engineering practice. Student and alumni feedback regarding communication skills has been positive and a future study will study the impact of the course on alumni's early careers.