Engineering Communication

Project introduction and background information

Nowadays, engineers face complex engineering problems crossing even engineering domains. Solving societal problems requires collaboration and communication in multidisciplinary, inclusive teams. In fact, the global CDIO community (innovative educational framework for producing the next generation of engineers) underlines the importance of communication, as it is 1 of the 4 learning outcomes they pose crucial within engineering programmes. That is one of the reasons why the Twente Onderwijs Model (TOM) has been developed. It educates students to work collaboratively in teams in solving such problems. However, these TOM based projects are primarily performed by students following the same BSc programme.

Objective and expected outcomes

1) Make a thorough analysis of the current engineering communication education across 12 BSc programs of University Twente, by retrieving detailed information at course level from Osiris and by interviewing a minimum of 12 lecturers, 12 students and 6 working field committee members.

2) Based on input from Objective 1 and literature review build a community to explore and define overarching ideas and concepts that form the basis for a generic framework for engineering communication education regardless of the type of engineering programme, and exchange best practices and discuss cases at recurrent meetings

3) Create an annual engineering communication teaching event in which all lecturers and students from the BSc programmes participate, and which will form the basis to spread the results of Objective 2

To obtain these objectives an evidence-informed approach is executed.

Results and learnings

Objective 1: Results analysis

Engineering communication is defined as a process by which engineering information is exchanged between (sender and receiver) individuals and groups through a common system of writing, graphics, speech, symbols, signs, equations, code or behavior.

12 BSc programmes (Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering, Civil Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Business & IT, Technical Computer Science, Creative Technology, Electrical Engineering, Advanced Technology, Biomedical Technology, Chemical Science & Engineering, Applied Physics) cover a wide range of established and newer engineering profiles, and have sufficient overlap with the programmes offered at other 4TUs. The intended learning outcomes of all 12 BSc programs of the year 2023-2024 contained three common terms regarding engineering communication: communication, collaboration and interdisciplinary. Analysis of the intended learning outcomes of all courses offered by the 12 BSc programs shows that on average, engineering communication is offered in about 31% of their courses (ME 24% and BMT 42%). Subsequently, engineering communication was split in 5 categories based upon the results of CEE Free Sprits Think Tank 2015 (A. Kamp, R. Klaassen (2016).  Impact of Global Forces and Empowering Situations on Engineering):

• Written – e.g. scientific reporting, summarizing, lab journal documenting
• Graphic – e.g. sketching, CAD drawing, data visualizing
• Oral – e.g. presenting, discussing, giving (peer) feedback
•  Equations/mathematical – e.g. formulating equations, mathematical modelling, parametrizing
• Programming – writing and reading algorithms, task structuring, numerical calculating

The motivation these 5 categories is that reflect the typical ways that engineers use to communicate technical information with all stakeholders including their peers.

Written communication has the largest share with being present as a learning outcome in 51% of the courses, and programming receiving the lowest attention with being present as a learning outcome on average in 22% of the courses.

Objective 1: Results interviews with lecturers and focus groups with students

Ethical approval as received (nr. 240543) from University of Twente ethical committee. In total, 8 lecturers from 7 programmes were interviewed, and 6 students from 5 programmes joined the focus group sessions.

Associations of items related to the set 5 categories were confirmed by both lecturers and students. Lecturer’s indicated that written, graphic and oral communication are relevant for communication with all stakeholders, whereas equation and programming are relevant for communication amongst engineering peers. This is in line with the relative share of intended learning outcomes (see above). Notable is that despite more focus on written communication, students feel less trained (score 3.00 of 5) in written communication compared to equation/mathematical communication (score 3.67 of 5). Lecturer’s indicate that individual assessment of writing skills as a huge challenge for large student groups. They embrace assessing progression in learning engineering communication rather than isolated summative assessment; and plea to increase the use of their feedback provided to students to enhance their learning, reflect on it, and visualized their progress more explicitly.

Objective 2: Overarching framework

Both lecturers and students are positive about developing an overarching engineering communication learning line. The lecturers confirmed that for all 5 categories the basics are recommended to be taught for all engineering students regardless of their background, especially regarding writing skills, peer communication, presentation, and data visualisation. A first concept of a framework could be to offer the same workshops on the basics to all students in combination with extended training and application within the context of their chosen BSc programme. This will be further supported and analysed using literature, and collection of detailed examples of potential basic workshops.  

Objective 3: Communication event

Both lecturers and students are support the idea of starting first with organising a single engineering communication event that is repeated annually. Preconditions they set is that the event can be fun but foremost the learning goal should be clear for all students. Lecturers’ suggestions to increase the awareness of the relevancy of engineering communication were the involvement of real stakeholders, and offering real-life scenarios within their chosen BSc programme. Lecturers gave suggestions for the concept of the event, such as observing and experiment and writing a summary for a wide audience, a hackathon with a pitch presenting the results and/or a team dynamics game. All indicated that they are willing to participate in some form to organize the event.

Recommendations

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Practical outcomes

• Students expressed during the interview to a lesser extend the importance of engineering communication, especially as proposed in this broader sense including programming and the use of equations as a means of communication.
• Students find less equipped in writing even though a larger share of the time is spend in training of that communication category
• Students indicate that lecturers often assume that they already know or can do things, whereas many items are new to them. So, a recommendation is to align even more within the community of lecturers when and how education of communication skills are offered. Sometime a small reference to elements that students should have had within a previous course already helps to make the links more explicit.
• Students also indicate that it takes more time than is offered to digest all, and show progression in communication skills.

Impact on students

This project can have the following impact on students:

• Enhanced understanding of the importance of engineering communication both to possess as an engineer and to interact with all stakeholders
• Education of engineering communication is offered in a more coherent manner via an overarching framework which helps them to engage more and more explicitly see their progress