What's the 'Problem' Statement? An Investigation of Problem-Based Writing in a First Year Engineering Program
Abstract
Conceptualizations of effective communication vary across contexts and are largely dependent on the needs and social practices of communities. As a global field of study and practice, Engineering is but one community where researchers and practitioners have come together to unpack and conceptualize what it means to communicate effectively, largely in response to the Accrediting Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) student learning outcome:an ability to communicate effectively. Focusing on a specialized sub-genre, the problem statement, this dissertation explores the communicative practices of students enrolled in a First Year Engineering program at a large Mid-west, STEM-focused university and faculty perceptions of students’ writing skills and communication strategies. Specifically, this research observes the recurrent rhetorical practices of first year engineering students through an ESP lens for genre analysis, investigates the recurrent instances of language observed in students’ texts, and explores faculty perceptions of effective communication in order to: (1) understand what impacts faculty perceptions of effective communication, (2) identify the expected rhetorical moves and steps of problem statements; (3) identify formulaic language that occurs with the expected rhetorical moves and steps for problem statements; and (4) explore possible interactions between the language choices students make and the pedagogical materials used to teaching writing in first year engineering. Conceptualizations of effective communication vary across contexts and are largely dependent on the needs and social practices of communities. As a global field of study and practice, Engineering is but one community where researchers and practitioners have come together to unpack and conceptualize what it means to communicate effectively, largely in response to the Accrediting Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) student learning outcome: an ability to communicate effectively. Focusing on a specialized sub-genre, the problem statement, this dissertation explores the communicative practices of students enrolled in a First Year Engineering program at a large Mid-west, STEM-focused university and faculty perceptions of students’ writing skills and communication strategies. Specifically, this research observes the recurrent rhetorical practices of first year engineering students through an ESP lens for genre analysis, investigates the recurrent instances of language observed in students’ texts, and explores faculty perceptions of effective communication in order to: (1) understand what impacts faculty perceptions of effective communication, (2) identify the expected rhetorical moves and steps of problem statements; (3) identify formulaic language that occurs with the expected rhetorical moves and steps for problem statements; and (4) explore possible interactions between the language choices students make and the pedagogical materials used to teaching writing in first year engineering. A corpus of 1,192 texts consisting of three assignments written by a total of 1,736 first year engineering students was compiled, and 117 pedagogical materials were collected. Using an iterative quantitative-qualitative approach to written discourse analysis, instances of formulaic language (4- and 6-word sequences) were identified in the corpus; formulaic language was then coded for the rhetorical functions expected in problem statements as qualitatively identified in the pedagogical materials. Additionally, three discourse-based interviews were conducted with FYE faculty. Interview data was coded for themes of effective communication and used to triangulate the findings from corpus analysis. Findings from the interview indicate that there are nine interconnected characteristics that influence faculty perceptions of students’ texts: (1) Audience Awareness, (2) Specificity of Content & Data, (3) Organization, Structure, & Logical Flow, (4) Reflective Writing Strategies, (5) Vocabulary & Discipline-specific Meanings, (6) Impact of Pedagogical Materials, (7) Clarity & Conciseness, (8) Genre Conventions & Formality, (9) Mechanics, Grammar, Punctuation, & Syntax. Findings from the corpus-based analysis indicated that students’ lexical proficiency of vocabulary and phrases with discipline-specific meanings influences students’ genre knowledge development. Additionally, students’ development of procedural knowledge and conceptual knowledge of engineering practices may benefit from explicit instruction that supports genre knowledge development for writing problem statements.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Staples, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Language arts|Linguistics
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