McCormick Writing Standards Project: Research

Main research question: What are the communication skills (standards) that engineering faculty at McCormick expect undergraduate students to achieve in their courses.

The 12 questions listed below will direct the interview conversations. They are written alternatively; some of them may or may not be posed according to the conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee. This protocol is semi-structured; interviewer may pose emerging questions (not listed below) as appropriate according to the interview conversation. Each interview is anticipated to last not more than 40 minutes. It is recommended for the interviewer to skip the remaining questions in each part if the designated time limit is exceeded.

Part I- Introduction questions to warm up the conversation. (Limited to 5 minutes)

1. What are the courses you typically teach in undergraduate level? (Alternative: Which ones include writing?)
2. How many undergraduate students do you teach in one semester/ in one course? (Alternative: What year are the students?)
3. Who reads and grades the written papers and exams in those courses?

Part II- Exploring the written communication standards in engineering. (Limited to 10 minutes)

4. What are the commonly shared written communication skills and knowledge in your field of study? In other words, do your colleagues, people in your discipline, agree upon some particular characteristics of a well written academic paper?
   (If interviewee doesn't speak about the standards or does not provide appropriate response or detailed explanations, the followings can be posed as appropriate)
   • What is important in writing an academic paper in your discipline?
   • What are the basic elements of a well written paper, and why?
   • When you review a research paper, what do you consider the most important that the paper should include?

Part III- Exploring faculty expectations of their students to achieve through their undergraduate education. (Limited to 15 minutes)

5. What are your expectations for your students’ papers in written communication?
6. How are those similar to or different than your expectations for an academic paper?
7. Do you assess your students’ ability to communicate effectively? And if so how?
   (alternative: When you grade your students’ written work, which written communication standards do you consider the most important and which ones the least important?)
8. (This item is subject to change and will be revised based upon the interviewee’s response pattern in the faculty survey. For instance if the interviewee has a highly positive response for the importance of writing clear explanation of technical subject in formal assessment, then the question will be-)
   You are one of the advocates of the importance of “writing clear explanations of technical subject” in formal assessment. How do you convey that importance in your instruction?
9. Do you provide instruction, guidelines, or a template to your students regarding your expectations of written communication standards? If so, what do you ask/tell your students to do?
10. Are there impediments to integrating communication instruction in your classes? (e.g. lack of time, confidence in teaching, excessive student population, etc.)

Part IV- Backing up the findings from Part III. (Limited to 5 minutes)

(After the participant speaks about her expectations from her students to achieve in written communication, in order to “back up” the findings, the following question can be asked.)

11. What are the written communication skills and knowledge you consider too advance for your undergraduate students? Why?

Note: In case the interviewee may feel uncomfortable of talking the “advanced” skills she doesn’t expect her students to achieve, inform her that you are asking those “unexpected advanced” skills in order to clarify the “expected” skills, not to identify what is not taught.

Part V- Ending the interview. (unlimited)

12. My questions are up to here; do you have anything else you would like to add about the written communication standards in your field or your students’ communication skills and knowledge you expect them to achieve? Or anything related I forget to ask, but you would like to talk about?

Interviewer will thank participant for her time and interest in participating the study. The recording will be stopped and the interview will end.
Based on the interviewee’s response to the last item of the faculty survey, interviewer will ask her if she is willing to provide copies of the instructional materials she uses in her class to integrate communication. If she does, request to pick them up.