Advancing Adaptation of Writing Pedagogies for Undergraduate STEM Education Through Transdisciplinary Action Research

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by investigating how to help engineering and science students develop effective communication skills. Both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering have emphasized this critical competency. Nevertheless, communication skills remain challenging for students to develop. The long-term objective of this work is to improve the writing skills of undergraduate students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees in a lasting, cost-effective, and scalable way. This transdisciplinary project will build on an intensive existing collaboration between STEM and writing-studies faculty. Best practices for teaching writing have been established by previous research in writing studies. However, these practices remain largely unadopted in most STEM classes. STEM students must master different genres and conventions, depending on their discipline. Examples include technical reports and talks, standards, laboratory reports, and scientific papers for the archival literature. In addition, STEM classes tend to be large and few STEM faculty are trained to teach and respond effectively to student writing. This project will investigate the effectiveness of a program called Writing Across Engineering & Science (WAES) in promoting faculty adoption of best practices and engaging students with professional writing throughout the undergraduate curriculum. This research project will i) inform continued developments to the WAES program, ii) build a faculty community working to adapt and innovate best practices from writing studies to suit the constraints and objectives of different types and sizes of STEM classes, iii) initiate evaluation of the effectiveness of those adaptations and innovations, and iv) advance understanding of how to promote pedagogical change, both within writing studies and for overall faculty development. WAES is a transdisciplinary program that empowers STEM faculty to teach writing more effectively within their disciplinary contexts. The project will apply a transdisciplinary action research approach that integrates cross-disciplinary collaboration, ongoing research, and educational reforms. The effectiveness of the WAES program at promoting pedagogical change and engaging students with writing will be evaluated through a rigorous mixed-methods, triangulated assessment plan. Objective 1 will evaluate the effectiveness of the WAES program in increasing STEM faculty awareness of best practices from writing studies and encouraging their creative adaptation of those best practices. The qualitative, mixed-methods approach will include faculty surveys, course materials, faculty interviews, and observations of WAES sessions, mentoring meetings, classes and course staff meetings. These data will be analyzed for uptake/rejection of concepts from writing studies and for emergent themes. Objective 2 will assess the impact of the WAES program on students’ engagement with writing. Student engagement will be assessed first through surveys in paired WAES-impacted and control classes, using both affective and behavioral questions. Stimulated elicitation interviews will be conducted with students for a deeper understanding of impacts. Student writing samples will be collected, and multidimensional analysis of linguistic and rhetorical features of the writing will be initiated. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources. The IUSE: EHR program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This project is in the Engaged Student Learning track, through which the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.