Engineering and technology student perceptions of collaborative writing practices

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 46, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2003 265

Engineering and TechnologyStudent Perceptions ofCollaborative Writing Practices

—STEPHANIE NELSON

Abstract—Results are presented from an assessment of studentperceptions of collaborative writing practices before and after takingan upper division professional writing class. While most of the classesintroduced students to these writing practices, several did not. Theassessment was both quantitative and qualitative. Whether or notthey had prior experience in the classroom, all students generallyreported that they are likely to seek out opportunities to use bothpeer review and collaborative writing processes once they enter theworkplace. However, students who are exposed to these practicesin a classroom setting are more likely to report that they intend tocontinue these practices in the workplace.

Index Terms—Collaborative writing, engineering writing, peer review,writing pedagogy.

Manuscript received October 11, 2002;revised June 12, 2003.The author is with theDepartment of Technology,California State University,Los Angeles, CA 90032-8154 USA(email: [email protected]).IEEE DOI 10.1109/TPC.2003.819642

According to several sources,engineering and technologyprofessionals spend an averageof one-third of their time writing,and most write as members ofa team [1]–[3]. Yet engineeringand technology students, whooften struggle with writing tasks,generally write as individualsand are evaluated only by theirprofessors [4]. In my upperdivision professional writing class,I emphasize the importance ofseeking feedback from peers andexperts in the writing process, andI also attempt to prepare studentsfor collaborative writing projects.My rationale is that collaborativewriting and document reviewreflect the professional writingpractices they will face in theworkplace, thus, conditioningthem to view writing as a socialactivity will enhance their successas professional writers.

Collaborative writing practices arein widespread use in academictechnical writing curriculums and

in industry [5], [6], although theyare not without their detractors(e.g., [7]). Following Ingramand Parker, and also Cross[8], [9], I define collaborationas an activity that is social innature and leads to a sharedproduct for which the group takescollective responsibility. For myclass, all collaborative writingcomponents, defined by Thompsonas “invention, audience analysis,organization, drafting, revising,and editing” are conducted in class[10, p. 164]. Spilka points out thatcollaboration builds interactivity,teamwork, and negotiation skills[11], while Brumberger notes thatit builds community [12]. Clawsonpoints out that it promotes growthand increases the confidence ofweaker writers [13] and, accordingto Wilson, it educates writersto be “symbolic analysts” andenhances their sense of agencyas communicators [14]. Dunnfound that while her students didnot always prefer collaborationto writing alone, they invariablyreported that they “learned more

0361-1434/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE

266 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 46, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2003

as a result of collaboration” [15, p.39].

Cross differentiates peer reviewfrom collaboration by defining peerreview as seeking feedback fromothers before or after drafting; hecites recent survey findings that asingle corporate report is likely tobe reviewed formally or informallyby an average of 28 people [9, p.6]. Jordan notes that while peerreview does not always improvewriting skills per se, it does leadto more revisions, deletions,and improved attitudes towardrevisions [16]. Peer review responsecontrasts more favorably withresponses received when papersare graded in isolation; studentsreceive immediate feedback andexchange ideas actively [17].This practice helps students todevelop accountability for whatthey say through responses from acommunity of their peers [18].

The professional writing courseexamined in this study is primarilya professional communicationclass for students in numerousengineering and technologysubdisciplines. The courseincludes a fairly standard agendaof written formats for these fields(memos, procedures, résumés,process and product descriptions,proposals, news and analyticalreports, technical presentations,etc.). After teaching this course forseveral years, as well as trainingtwo other adjunct professors toteach it, I lacked any empirical datato verify that my emphasis on peerreview and collaborative writingwas convincing students that thesepractices should be continued oncethey left the classroom since theywould contribute to their successas professionals. Therefore, Ideveloped a survey to measure,by self-report, their willingnessto continue these practices intheir future workplaces. Thisshort assessment instrumentwas administered to seven upperdivision professional classestaught by four professors over atwo-year period (N = 120). Thisstudy avoids a common research

bias identified by Thompson [10],who notes that most research oncollaborative writing is carried outin the researcher’s own classroom.In this case, only two of theseven classes were my own. Nosignificant differences were foundin the responses from my classesand in the other three classesthat used collaborative writingand peer-review processes. Fiveclasses used peer-review andcollaborative-writing practicesin the classroom (N = 89) andtwo did not (N = 31), sinceone professor who was alreadyteaching the class when Ibecame the course coordinatordeclined to undergo training or tochange his curriculum to includethese practices. In addition,I administered a “pretest” tostudents who had not yet takenthe required upper division writingclass and, thus, were unexposedto these techniques, at least in aprofessional writing class setting.

This paper provides findingsfrom the assessment surveys anddiscusses their significance. Thestudy addresses an importantquestion for educators ofengineering and technologyprofessionals as well as otherdisciplines: whether exposingstudents to social writing practicesin the classroom further empowersthem to continue these practicesonce they reach the workplace.This pedagogical strategy forwriting instruction has beendefined by Thralls and Blyer as“social constructionist” [19] andhas the aim of acculturatingstudents to become what Bruffeeterms “knowledgeable peers”in their professional discoursecommunity [20, p. 777].

The aim of the study is twofold:(1) to determine whether exposureto collaborative writing practicesin an academic setting wouldgarner commitment to replicatingthese practices in future worksettings and (2) to discern if myown classroom methodologiesfor collaborative writing wereencouraging students to place

greater value on these writingpractices. This article doesnot focus on the latter aim.Methodology for collaborativewriting pedagogy has been welldocumented in the literature,and my own has been publishedelsewhere [21]; what has been lessaddressed is how students perceivecollaborative writing practices andwhether they see them as a partof their future professional writing“best practices.” Additionally,the study does not addressperformance outcomes in termsof how effective collaborativewriting classroom experience wasin enabling students to be betterreviewers and collaborators and toproduce better writing products.These outcomes are determinedby my evaluation of their workand classroom activities, includingevaluation of their written peerreviews, and were not addressedin this study. However, from myexperience and the experienceof others, students who usedcollaborative writing practicesproduced increasingly betterproducts as they became moreexperienced and adept with thesepractices.

During my earlier career as ascience writer at a NASA center,I observed that many of the mostsuccessful writers sought multiplereviews of their work from theircolleagues, and many activelysought mentoring from writersthey perceived to be more expert. Iwas determined to take this insightinto the classroom. A rationaleand methods to provide mystudents with experience in writingcollaboratively and critiquing oneanother’s writing is presentedin [21], where I argue that peerreview gives students experiencein critical thinking and promoteseditorial skills. While peer reviewin the classroom can be helpfulin an editorial sense, studentsoften focus only on superficialfeatures; importantly, studentpeer reviews rarely model themore content-driven peer reviewthat is common in professionalcontexts. To move students toward

NELSON: ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF COLLABORATIVE WRITING PRACTICES 267

a more creative relationshipinvolving content negotiation andcritical-thinking skills, I also havethem write collaboratively (see[22]–[26] for additional rationale).Both of these classroom techniquesraise students’ comfort level athaving their work evaluated byothers in a professional setting,thus preparing them for theprofessional peer review process.

An additional incentive toincorporate peer review andcollaborative writing into my classcame from the backgrounds ofmy students themselves. OurUniversity serves a high numberof “educationally disadvantaged”students, defined as studentswho come from ethnically andeducationally disadvantagedbackgrounds and who are oftennonnative English speakers. Morethan half of our E&T students arenonnative speakers, and fewerthan 70% succeed in passing theUniversity’s lower-division writingproficiency exam on the first try.As Orr has recently noted [27],“. . . most of the world’s engineersare not native speakers of Englishand thus are considerablydisadvantaged in professionalterms” (p. 40). Additionally, ourstudents are financially amongthe poorest in the CaliforniaState University system. Theydo not come from professionalbackgrounds and neither do theirparents. They are unfamiliarwith professional workplacesand business communicationdiscourse protocols. Realistically,I cannot resolve all of thesestudents’ communication issues inthe short time that we are together.However, I can acculturate themto consider writing as a socialactivity, hoping that they willthen continue to actively seekfeedback on their writing fromexperts and more organizationallysocialized peers when they reachthe workplace.

Briefly, in order to provide peerreview and collaborative writingexperience for my students, I

assign them to groups of four atthe beginning of the term, usinga writing skills pretest to assesscurrent competency. These teamssit together and collaborate onwriting tasks as well as review oneanother’s writing throughout theterm. Each team contains at leastone more accomplished writerwho has done well on the pretest.For peer review, students arefirst extensively coached, receivea structured review rubric, andare evaluated as reviewers byboth myself and other students.As described in [21], studentsneed to be carefully trained andcoached, and peer evaluationsneed to be structured to bemaximally effective. Several ofthe questions I ask students toanswer in the peer review requirecareful analysis of the contextand purpose of the writing, whichI have found that students willnot normally address on theirown. For instance, under theconcept of “tone,” I ask studentsto consider the relationship of thewriter to his audience and thewriting situation. Is the writer ina position of authority? a trustedsource? considered an ally? asource of threat or discomfort tothe audience? speaking naturallyor stiffly? etc. Although tone isa difficult concept for studentsto grasp, it is crucial in effectiveprofessional writing, and studentswho lack professional experienceneed to learn to evaluate it alongwith other aspects of a draft. Foradditional peer review pedagogy,see [15]. For convenience, asample peer evaluation sheet ispresented in Fig. 1, and a samplecollaborative writing assignment ispresented in Fig. 2.

STUDY AND FINDINGS

The “collaboration evaluation”assessment instrument consistedof four questions:

(1) In my future career, when Ihave a writing assignment, Iplan to seek feedback frommy professional colleaguesbefore I turn in or send outa final version of my writing.

(2) In my future career,when I have a technicalcommunication assignment,I plan to seek advice frommore senior or expertmembers of my organizationon how best to proceed.

(3) If given a choice betweenwriting collaboratively andwriting on my own at work, Iplan to write collaboratively.

(4) Please provide any additionalcomments about peer reviewand collaborative writing.

A seven-value Likert-scale surveyformat was chosen becausestudents are familiar with thissurvey value scale since it isthe same one used for studentcourse evaluations that areconducted each term. (For ratingpurposes, value 7 (“don’t know”)was treated as a nonresponseand is not factored into theanalysis). Additionally, optionalcomments were solicited on thesurvey form. While the quantitativequestions segregate peer review,expert review, and collaborativewriting, the prompt for open-endedqualitative comments lumps themtogether under the category of“peer review and collaborativewriting” in order to give studentsthe opportunity to address a broadrange of collaborative writingpractices. Indeed, I would arguethat the activities of peer review,expert review, and collaborativewriting can be subsumed underthe classification of collaborativewriting activities. Given the formof the assessment instrument,analyses of the findings wereboth quantitative and qualitative.Burnett and Duin have noted thevalue of using this dual approachfor research on collaborativewriting practices, since it morerichly contextualizes quantitativedata and overlays parameters andcorrelations on qualitative data[5, p. 8].

The survey was administered to120 engineering and technologystudents at the end of a requiredsenior-level professional writingclass taught by four different


professors over a two-year period.Additionally, the survey wasadministered to 136 students whohad not yet taken the requiredupper division professional writingcourse. In the seven writingcourses surveyed, all professorstaught essentially the samesubject matter and used the sametextbook, but, as stated previously,one professor did not include peerreview or collaborative writing inhis two classes.

The results of the surveys arepresented for: (1) students whohave not yet taken an upperdivision writing class (“unexposedstudents”; N = 136) and (2) studentsjust completing an upper divisionwriting class (“exposed students”;N = 120). Then, among the lattergroup, results are comparedfor classes where peer review

and collaborative writing wereconducted (“collaborative”; N = 89),and for classes where it was notconducted (“non-collaborative”;N = 31). The survey asked studentsto evaluate how likely they wouldbe to continue seeking reviews oftheir writing from both peers andsenior colleagues in their futurecareer work settings, and howlikely they would be to seek outcollaborative writing opportunities.

Overall, results showed a highlyfavorable response to peer reviewand senior colleague review, and agood but less favorable responseto collaborative writing. Resultsalso showed that students whowere exposed to these practices inthe classroom placed higher valueon them than students who didnot have experience. The meanvalues of the results are tabulated,

followed by a discussion of thecomments received on the surveys.

Exposed and UnexposedStudents This section brieflypresents results for students whowere not yet exposed to a requiredupper division professionalwriting class (N = 136), comparedto students who were justcompleting the class. The exposedgroup includes only the pool ofstudents who had been exposedto collaborative and peer reviewpractices (N = 89).

Not surprisingly, both groups ofstudents were favorable overallto seeking advice on drafts frompeers or experts, and were onlyslightly less favorable towardseeking out collaborative writingopportunities in the workplace. Asone article reviewer aptly put it,

Fig. 1. Sample peer evaluation sheet.


“who wouldn’t like Mom or applepie?” However, the results aresupportive of the value of exposureto these writing practices and bearfurther analysis. Table I shows theaveraged responses for the twogroups of students.

Students who were completingan advanced professional writingcourse that included peer review inthe class (exposed students) weresubstantially more likely to favorpeer review as a future professionalwriting practice. The overwhelmingmajority of exposed students“strongly agreed” or “agreed” withStatement 1 (94%), compared to75% for the unexposed students.Only 1% of the exposed studentsresponded negatively to thestatement, whereas nearly 6% ofthe unexposed students did so.

Clearly, experiencing peer reviewin the classroom leads students tovalue the practice more highly.

The response to Statement 2,concerning seeking advice fromwriting experts, may seemsurprising at first in that thedifferences are less pronounced.For this statement, studentsexposed to peer review (as wellas “expert” feedback from theinstructor) in their upper divisionwriting class indicated they werehighly likely to seek advice from anexpert in the workplace about theirwriting (95%); only 2% of studentsdisagreed with this statement. Inother words, reliance on their peersfor feedback in the classroom hadnot dampened their propensity toseek out more expert advice aswell. For the unexposed students,

85% “strongly agreed” or “agreed”that they would seek advice fromwriting experts in the workplace,and only 3% of students disagreedwith this statement. It is worthremembering that expert feedbackbears out the prior academicexperience of most students,whose writing is usually judgedonly by their professor.

The results from Statement 3,concerning whether studentswould choose to writecollaboratively given theopportunity, showed no majordifference between the two groupson average. Notice, however,that the standard deviationfor the unexposed group wassignificantly high. Over a fifth ofthe unexposed students (21%)responded negatively to the

Fig. 2. Sample collaborative writing assignment.


question, compared to 9% ofexposed students. Of the exposedstudents, 69% “strongly agreed”or “agreed” that they wouldseek out collaborative writingin the workplace, compared to54% of unexposed students.The closeness of the averagedscored can be attributed to thefact that the exposed studentswere less favorable to the practicethan they were to expert or peerreview. As will be shown below,exposure to collaborative writingpractices in the classroom did notsignificantly increase favorableresponses to this practice. Thecommonest complaint expressedabout the practice by students wasthat the burden of the work wasoften distributed unfairly, withthe more conscientious or skilledstudents bearing the brunt of thework. This complaint is echoed inthe workplace [9], and as manyhave pointed out, group-writingprojects must be carefully planned,managed, and evaluated. Thisfinding has caused me to rethinkmy own collaborative writingclassroom methodology.

Finally, it is interesting tocompare the third student group,students who had completedan upper division writing classthat did not include peer reviewand collaborative writing (thisgroup is referred to as the“non-collaborative” group insucceeding sections), with theexposed and unexposed groups.

For Statement 1, regarding peerreview, these students fell in themiddle ground between the othertwo groups regarding whether theyagreed or strongly agreed that they

TABLE IMEAN VALUES WITH STANDARDDEVIATIONS EXPOSED VERSUS

UNEXPOSED STUDENTS (VALUESCLOSEST TO 1 ARE THE MOST POSITIVE)

would seek out peer advice (94%exposed, 81% non-collaborative,75% unexposed). However, forthe remaining two statements,students who were not exposedto peer review and collaborativewriting in their upper divisionwriting class were even lesslikely than students who hadn’tcompleted a professional writingclass to value expert reviewand collaborative writing. ForStatement 2: 95% exposed,82% non-collaborative, 85%unexposed. For Statement 3: 69%exposed, 47% non-collaborative,54% unexposed. The number ofresponses in this third group issmall compared with the numbersin the other two, resulting inless confidence in the findings.Therefore, for Statement 1, I wouldargue that completing an upperdivision writing class with no peerreview did not significantly raisewillingness to seek out the practicein the future. For Statement2 (expert advice), completingan upper division writing classessentially had no bearing onstudent willingness to seek outexpert advice in the future, andfor Statement 3 (collaboration)where the difference is mostsignificant, it can be cautiouslyobserved that students who havetaken a professional writing classwith no exposure to collaborativewriting are even less willing totry it in the future than studentswho have yet to complete aprofessional writing class. Thislast finding in particular supportsthe importance of exposingstudents to collaborative writing inprofessional writing courses.

Collaborative and Non-Collaborative Classes Thissection presents results for thecombined upper division writingclasses (see Figs. 3–5), whichincluded the classes where nopeer review or collaborativewriting was conducted (termed“non-collaborative” classes), as wellas classes where these practiceswere used (termed “collaborative”classes). The combined group isshown here to stress that whether

or not they have direct classroomexperience with collaborativewriting practices, students whohave completed a professionalwriting class generally understandand value input from experts andpeers on their professional writingtasks, and generally would seekto write collaboratively. As thesefigures show, the overall results arehighly favorable, with the majorityof students “strongly agreeing”or “agreeing” with Statement 1

Fig. 3. Statement 1: Combinedclasses.




(90%) and Statement 2 (92%), andfewer, although still a majority ofstudents, either “strongly agreeing”or “agreeing” with Statement 3(54%).

Collaborative Versus Non-Collaborative Classes Figs. 6–8present comparative results(for the positive-only findings)for the five classes where peerreview and collaborative writingwas conducted, and for the twoclasses where it was not. Notethat percentages are reportedfor each group on a scale that

Fig. 6. Comparison of collaborativeversus non-collaborative results forstatement 1.


varies from figure to figure.What is most visually apparentin the figures is that the mostpositive value, “strongly agree”is significantly higher for thecollaborative group for all threestatements—most notably forStatement 3. The vast majorityof collaborative-group students“strongly agreed” or “agreed” withStatement 1 (94%), Statement 2(95%), and Statement 3 (69%).

For the non-collaborativeclasses, while the resultsremain favorable—perhapseven surprisingly so given thatstudents had no formal classroomexperience—the results also showthat students were significantlyless likely to “strongly agree” or“agree” that they would seek outthese writing practices once theyentered the workplace.

Mean Values The group meansfor the collaborative and thenon-collaborative groups for eachquestion are shown in Table II.Standard deviation in all thesurvey response groups was nothigh enough to significantly affectthe probability of the findings withtwo exceptions: (1) in the case ofthe non-collaborative classes, duemainly to the smaller sample sizefor that group and (2) in the caseof Statement 3 for the unexposedgroup, due to the wide variance ofresponses.


It is not surprising that the overallmeans are highly supportive ofthe statements, and that bothsubgroups—the five classes thathad experience with collaborativewriting practices and the two thatdid not—reported that they valuethese practices and intend to usethem in the workplace. Engineeringand technology students, who donot typically consider themselves“strong writers,” understand theusefulness of feedback on theirwriting, and many would probablybe more comfortable writing in agroup. It would be interesting toreplicate this study for anotherscientific discipline or institutionwhere writing skills are initiallyhigher.

Again, the averaged differencesbetween the collaborative andnon-collaborative classes aresignificant, particularly withregards to Statements 1 and 2,and are somewhat significant forStatement 3 (responses were 13%more positive for Statement 1, 15%more positive for Statement 2, and5% more positive for Statement 3 inthe collaborative classes). I believethat the differences were not moresignificant for two reasons. First,as alluded to above, the conceptsof teamwork and collaborationpossess merit in their own rightto engineering and technologystudents. Since an understandingof the value of teamwork is aprogrammatic “desired outcome”for engineering and technologystudents [4], they are instructedin the value of teamwork andcollegiality in many other courseswithin their major and thus areconditioned to and already familiar

TABLE IIMEAN VALUES WITH STANDARD

DEVIATIONS, COLLABORATIVE VERSUSNON-COLLABORATIVE CLASSES (VALUESCLOSEST TO 1 ARE THE MOST POSITIVE)


with collaborative practices.Second, the peer review and/orcollaborative writing experiencewas a negative one for a fewstudents in the collaborative-onlygroup, perhaps dissuading themof the value of the experienceand causing them to rate thesepractices more negatively thanstudents with no experience inthese writing practices. This pointsto a need to further develop myinstructional methodology for thisaspect of the course.

DISCUSSION

In order to shed additional lighton the quantitative findings, Iturn now to a discussion of thecomments that students addedto their evaluations. For studentswho were just completing anupper division writing class,the number of comments wasunusually high in this surveycompared with typical courseevaluation surveys—85 out of 120students included comments ontheir surveys. This is significant,since the group who had not yettaken a professional writing classhad very few comments—onlysix out of 136—suggesting thatstudents who had not beenexposed to professional writinghad little to say about its practices.For the group just completinga professional writing class, thecomments were overwhelminglypositive, as with the survey resultsthemselves, but the commentsoffer additional insight in the formof justifications for, or conditionalstatements to, their responses. Idivided the comments into twogroups: non-collaborative andcollaborative-only. Then for eachgroup, I used a “grounded theory”approach [28], [29] that putssimilar data into groups firstbefore applying categories to thegroups. The resulting “discovered”categories for each group arepresented below. I include samplecomments from each category typeand group.

Non-Collaborative GroupComments The initial categories

that presented themselves onreading the comments was thatthey were either “negative” or“positive” about peer review andcollaborative writing. Of the 20comments received from 31 surveyrespondents, I classified ten aspositive and ten as negative.

For this group, positive commentsabout collaborative writingpractices were the following:

• helps you get ideas andinformation on how otherswrite;

• more ideas are better than oneidea;

• provides positive feedback;• you learn more from your peers

as opposed to doing it all onyour own;

• collaborative writing seeksunification and a unified team(like in sports) is powerful;

• it is hard to catch your ownmistakes;

• it helps us know if we aregetting our point across;

• collaborative writing is good forgetting more information andknowing what is the objective;

• it gives you differentperspectives on how towrite;

• it is a good idea to seek seniorintelligence . . . then I will writeon my own with more comfort.

Negative comments (or commentscontaining reservations) aboutcollaborative writing practices werethe following.

• In this course, the instructorgave us good feedback on howto do the assignments andhow to make our papers better,whereas in peer review youstart to use everyone else’sideas instead of your own.

• In collaborative writing, othersmight take over and turn downyour ideas.

• I do not know much aboutpeer review and collaborativewriting, but I think manypeople prefer to do things ontheir own.

• When more people areinvolved, it becomes confusing.

• Sometimes it is good to doa project or assignment in agroup, but sometimes it is bad.

• Collaborative writing takes aspecial group of people whoare willing to work together. Ifit is a forced group, typicallyone person tends to do all ofthe work.

• Even though collaborativewriting provides for a biggerrange of ideas, workingin teams can bring somecomplications. For example,finding common time can be ahassle.

• Collaborative writing can eitherbe a really good experience ora really bad one. In my ownpersonal experience, a fewmembers of the group do mostof the work.

• If individual opinions arevalued, other types of writingmay be more appropriate.

• Collaborative writing can bedifficult due to differences inwriting style and knowledge ofthe subject; it works best wheneach individual is assigned asection.

A categorical bipolarization thatalso emerged was that of the groupversus the individual. Groupscould enhance ideas of individualsand possessed strength in unity,but were inconvenient to convene,could devalue individual ideas,could make the task more difficult,and if unevenly balanced, couldresult in the more knowledgeableor conscientious members beingshouldered with the bulk of thework.

Another theme that emergedwas the group as a learningmechanism. Groups can teachyou how others write, give youpositive feedback, give youdifferent perspectives, point outyour mistakes, and let you know ifyou are getting your point across.In this regard, groups provide amodel for students of learning ina context other than an expert inauthority imparting knowledge asdirectives, since peer commentsare offered as suggestions rather


than requirements. (While mostwriting teachers offer their reviewcomments as “suggestions,” it ismy experience that few studentswill take these suggestions asother than mandatory directives.)

Collaborative GroupComments Compared withthe non-collaborative comments,the collaborative commentswere much richer. Thenon-collaborative comments oftenseemed “uninformed” while thecollaborative respondents spokefrom experience. Sixty-five of the89 collaborative respondents wrotecomments; five comments wereevaluative of the class overall anddid not specifically address peerreview or collaborative writing. Thecomments were overwhelminglypositive, but they were moredifficult to classify simply aseither positive or negative. Indeed,following the prompt, 16 of thecomments differentiated betweenpeer review and collaborativewriting, having positive thingsto say about one writing processwhile being more critical ofthe other. Of the 60 commentsspecifically addressing peer reviewor collaborative writing, 42 couldbe classified as positive, three asnegative, and 16 as mixed. A fewexamples of each are shown below.

The three negative comments arethe following.

• Don’t you know thatcollaborative writing slowsproductivity?

• I do not think it helped a lot.• I tend to write creatively in

a more relaxed environment(home). The more time I have,the better the results.

Typical examples of the 42positive-only comments are thefollowing:

• I am a very good writer andI seek others’ comments forproofreading and additionalideas.

• Peer revision really helpsbecause it provides feedback

and your peers give you ideasyou never would have thoughtof.

• More brainpower addedimpetus and better criticalthinking overall with lesssubjectivity!

• My peers were an essentialpart of my learning experiencethis quarter.

• Peer review gave me goodfeedback and showed me howmy writing stands comparedto that of my classmates.

• It was easier to see themistakes of others, and whenwe received our paper we wereable to see the mistakes wedid not see before.

• It allowed me to learn not onlyfrom my mistakes, but fromothers’ mistakes as well.

• Others can help you with toneas you tend to write based onemotions.

• I feel peer review andcollaborative writing provideinsight on whether you arecommunicating your pointeffectively.

• Collaborative writing workedbetter than anticipated.

• The fact that everyone in mygroup was so different in termsof writing styles allowed me tokeep an open mind.

• Four brains work better thanone.

• Definitely helpful in earning abetter grade.

Examples of the 16 mixedcomments are the following:

• The only collaborative writingI like is when the other groupmembers write the paper. Iprefer to write on my own.Peer review is good for findingmistakes I missed.

• Peer review is always helpful.Collaborative writing dependson the flow of the group. Somegroups work great together,while other groups are just apain in the butt.

• Usually, I do not likecollaborative work. However,in this class I believe that itwas appropriate and beneficialbecause I had a good team.

• Peer review was very helpfulto me. Collaborative writingwas a little harder because ofvery different levels of writingand points of view.

• Peer review is very helpful inmy opinion. But my personalpreference is to write alone.Having to get together with agroup for every little thing canbecome tedious at times.

• I believe writing collaborativelybrings better content to thepaper; however, for smoothertransitions between sentencesand paragraph a single writeris more beneficial.

• At certain times [collaborativewriting] helps, but certaintimes I work better alone.But it is always good to getfeedback.

• Since everyone has a differentstyle, I like everyone to write ontheir own and then brainstormwith copy in hand. Even anadmitted terrible writer canadd concepts and you needvaried points of view for thebest effort and to appeal to awider scope of audience.

Other themes emerged from thecollaborative comments that werenot present among the commentsfrom students with no collaborativeexperience. Foremost among thesewere both positive and negativecomments about the socialaspects of these writing processes.Examples are the following.

• It allowed students to get toknow each other. Overall, Ithought it was very beneficial.

• I am a very quiet person andafraid of sometimes askingstupid questions. But throughthis class, I noticed thatwriting collaboratively is thebest solution. We all havedifferent ideas that we can gettogether to make one big planor solution.

• Peer review is only helpfulwhen everyone reallyparticipates. The few that domake a difference but it wouldmake a greater difference ifeveryone would participate ina group activity.


• I felt that the peer reviewsneeded a kick in the butttoward the end of the quarter.

• At the beginning of the quarter,all I had in my mind was todrop the class. I was terrifiedof having someone read myassignment, but I finally gotconfident enough and stayedin the class, I thank [theteacher] and my colleague[names a group member].

• I enjoy working collaboratively.It has helped me build myteam skills.

• Collectively, this class and mypeers were excellent.

Students in this group alsodiscussed workplace aspects intheir commentary. Examples ofthis theme are the following.

• This is definitely something Iplan to practice in business.

• I would always agree to workcollaboratively in the futureinstead of individually.

• It is a good idea to speak withfellow workers about yourwriting.

• It is extremely helpful. Thereshould be more of it in allclasses and in the workplace.

• In class, peer review wasexcellent. Unfortunately, thesame does not always applyin the professional world. Myclassmates were great teamplayers.

• I believe that writing is sosubjective that more seniormembers of an organizationare not always the bestchoices for advice. Secretariesare usually the best choice.

Finally, students provided advicefor conducting these writingprocesses in the class, as shown inthe following examples.

• Perhaps instead of assigninga specific group to evaluateour work, you can assignother groups to evaluateassignments.

• Maybe a few more groupwriting assignments shouldhave been given.

• I discovered that the level ofeach member should be more

balanced. The concept is thatthe stronger writers help theweaker ones. What happens ifthe strong writers need help?

• Peer reviews/evaluations mayneed to have more specificquestions. Ratings such as 1to 5 on specific areas of writingmay help.

Group work in the classroom has anumber of issues associated withit, as these comments point out sowell. Groups need to be trained,provided with evaluation rubrics,monitored, and held accountableto one another. See [30] for adiscussion of tactics to mitigatea number of these problems;I am currently implementingmore structure, evaluation, andmore coaching presence into mymethodology.

CONCLUSION

Both the quantitative and thequalitative findings from mysurvey indicate that engineeringand technology students arealready predisposed to value peerreview and collaborative writingpractices, regardless of whetherthey have taken a professionalwriting course or have beenexposed to these practices inthe classroom. However, givingstudents actual experience withthese practices in the classroomclearly demonstrates their value tothem in a more concrete manner,and also appears to convince themeven further of its benefits.

While this finding is intuitive, it isnot a foregone conclusion. Whatif actual exposure to collaborativewriting, for instance, turnedstudents off to this practicebecause the groups were notmonitored to make sure onewriter wasn’t saddled with allof the work? Almost all of mystudents have had a bad teamworkexperience at some point in theiracademic careers. Many havealso experienced another studentrequesting to “see what they did”on a homework assignment andthen had that student plagiarize

their work. Thus this surveywas a test of the effectiveness ofmy own classroom methods aswell as of the value of exposureto these collaborative writingpractices. From my study, Ireasonably conclude that it isimportant to expose students topeer review, expert review, andcollaborative writing practicesin the classroom if we want toencourage them to seek out thesepractices as professionals, just asit is important to methodologicallystructure students’ experienceswith these practices so that theyare maximally beneficial. Whilethis article does not focus on thelatter conclusion, it does providereference to numerous articleson classroom methodology forcollaborative writing pedagogy,including my own [21], upon whichthis survey is based.

As others have pointed out(e.g., [7]), the transition of thesepractices from the classroom tothe workplace will not always beeasy, and many of our graduatingstudents are entering currentprofessional situations wherethese practices may rarely bethe norm. Nonetheless, lack ofcamaraderie as a “best practice”among writers in the workplacedoesn’t mean we should beteaching writing self-sufficiencyto our students. Hopefully,empowering our students asprofessional communicatorsmeans too that they will go intothe workplace and improve thecommunication practices as well asthe products of the companies thatemploy them (see also [14, p. 74]).

As any student of human behaviorknows, correlation between statedattitudes and observed actionsis problematic. People do notalways act according to theirstated intentions, particularlywhen intentions are professed inan idealized classroom settingregarding a yet-to-be-acquiredprofessional work role. The nextlogical step would be to followthese students into the workplaceto investigate if indeed they have


found ways to carry out their statedintentions to put collaborativewriting practices to work for themas professionals. Again, part ofthat variable will be determined

by the professional organizationswith whom these students becomeaffiliated. The impetus is alsoon organizations to transformcollaborative writing activities,

which are currently most ofteninformal, one-to-one relationships,into core organizational practicesby structuring, valuing, andrewarding them as such.

REFERENCES

[1] Anon., Engineers spend one-third of their time writing, in Eng. Times,p. 1, Aug. 1983.

[2] C. M. Spretnak, “A survey of the frequency and importance of technicalcommunication in an engineering career,” Tech. Writing Teacher, vol.9, pp. 133–136, 1982.

[3] M. L. Kreth, “A survey of the co-op writing experiences of recentengineering graduates,” IEEE Trans. Profess. Commun., vol. 43, no.2, pp. 137–152, 2000.

[4] Director, Engineering Accreditation Commission, ABET, EngineeringCriteria 2000, Baltimore, MD, 1999.

[5] R. E. Burnett and A. H. Duin, “Collaboration in technicalcommunication: A research continuum,” Tech. Commun. Quarter.,vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 5–21, 1993.

[6] C. W. Heilman, “Techniques for collaborative technical writing andediting projects applied in a technical writing classroom,” in Proc. 41stAnnu. Conf. Soc. Tech. Commun., Arlington, VA, 1994, p. 97.

[7] H. N. Shirk, “The fallacies of collaboration: A critique of group work intechnical communication pedagogy,” in Proc. 42nd Annu. Conf. Soc.Tech. Commun.n, Arlington, VA, 1995, pp. 79–82.

[8] S. Ingram and A. Parker, “The influence of gender on collaborativeprojects in an engineering classroom,” IEEE Trans. Profess. Commun.,vol. 45, pp. 7–20, Mar. 2002.

[9] G. A. Cross, Forming the Collective Mind: A Contextual Exploration ofLarge-scale Collaborative Writing in Industry. Cresskill, NJ: HamptonPress, 2001.

[10] I. Thompson, “Collaboration in technical communication: a qualitativecontent analysis of journal articles, 1990–1999,” IEEE Trans. Profess.Commun., vol. 44, pp. 161–173, Sept. 2001.

[11] R. Spilka, “Collaboration across multiple organizational cultures,”Techn. Commun. Quarter., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 125–145, 1993.

[12] E. R. Brumberger, “Collaborative projects in a technical writing class: Acost/benefit analysis,” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol.27, no. 2, pp. 194–202, 1999.

[13] S. Clawson, “The impact of collaborative writing on the individual,”Teaching and Change, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 55–69, 1993.

[14] G. Wilson, “Technical communication and late capitalism: Consideringa postmodern technical communication pedagogy,” J.f Bus. Tech.Commun., vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 72–99, 2001.

[15] D. S. Dunn, “Collaborative writing in a statistics and research methodscourse,” Teaching Psychol., vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 38–40, 1996.

[16] M. K. Jordan, “The effect of cooperative peer review on college studentsenrolled in required advanced technical writing courses,” DissertationDAI, Univ. Maryland, College Park, 1983.

[17] B. M. Henschen and E. I. Sidlow, “Collaborative writing,” CollegeTeaching, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 29–32, 1990.

[18] K. A. Bruffee, A Short Course in Writing. Boston, MA: Little, Brown,and Company, 1980.

[19] C. Thralls and N. R. Blyler, “The social perspective in technicalcommunication,” Tech. Commun. Quarter., vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 249–270,1993.

[20] K. A. Bruffee, “Social construction, language, and the authorityof knowledge: a bibliographic essay,” College English, vol. 48, pp.773–790, 1986.

[21] S. J. Nelson, “Teaching collaborative writing and peer reviewtechniques to engineering and technology undergraduates,” in Proc.ASEE/IEEE Frontiers Educ. Conf., Kansas City, MO, Oct. 18–21, 2000.

[22] D. A. Windsor, “An engineer’s writing and the corporate construction ofknowledge,” Written Commun., vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 70–285, 1989.


[23] U. McGowan, J. Seton, and M. Cargill, “A collaborating colleague modelfor inducting international engineering students into the languageand culture of a foreign research environment,” IEEE Trans. Profess.Commun., vol. 39, pp. 117–121, Sept. 1996.

[24] K. Riley, “Seven habits of highly effective writers,” IEEE Trans. Profess.Commun., vol. 42, pp. 47–51, Mar. 1999.

[25] A. R. Gere and R. D. Abbott, “Talking about writing: the languageof writing groups,” Res. Teaching of English, vol. 19, no. 4, pp.362–381, 1985.

[26] R. D. Bogdanowicz, “Communicative competence: Business savvy andthe technical writer,” Technostyle, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1–5, 1987.

[27] T. Orr, “Assessing proficiency in engineering English,” IEEE Trans.Profess. Commun., vol. 45, pp. 40–44, Mar. 2002.

[28] B. Glaser and A. Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Chicago,IL: Aldine Press, 1967.

[29] A. L. Strauss and J. Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research: GroundedTheory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990.

[30] A. J. Herrington and D. Cadman, “Peer review and revising in ananthropology course: Lessons for learning,” College Composit.Commun., vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 184–199, 1991.

Stephanie Nelson is an Associate Professor in the College of Engineering, Computer

Science, and Technology at California State University, Los Angeles. She worked for

16 years as a Technical Writer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory while earning

her doctorate degree in Communication under a NASA tuition-support program,

and now consults at a NASA center as a writing coach. She has taught writing and

professional communication as an adjunct professor since 1995 and was appointed to

her current position in 1999.

Engineering and technology student perceptions of collaborative writing practices

Documents

Transcript of Engineering and technology student perceptions of collaborative writing practices