Design and implementation of a course in experimental design and technical writing

Abstract

This paper describes the development and implementation of a sophomore level laboratory course entitled "Experimental Design and Technical Writing." The course was created to meet multiple objectives for a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) program at the University of Southern Indiana. First, stakeholders from the program advisory board identified the importance and need for improvement in the communication skills of graduates. In particular, they expressed a desire for employees to excel with various forms of written memoranda and reports, and the ability to comfortably deliver formal and informal oral presentations. Furthermore, the importance of writing within one's discipline was affirmed at the university level with a 2014 rewrite of the general education requirements for all bachelor degree programs. The new requirements include two "Writing Intensive" experience courses to be 'embedded' within a disciplinary topic. In addition to addressing the need for instruction in technical communication, the new course adds experiential learning and ethics to the sophomore engineering curriculum. The format of this course is a 3 hour per week, combined lecture + laboratory, worth 2 credit hours. The syllabus has four content modules and an oral presentation module. Content includes experimental methods, design, and technical writing. The experimental methods component includes measurement error, calibration, experimental uncertainty propagation, and statistical analysis of data. Writing and oral presentation assignments are tailored to each module and call for an array of both formal and informal formats. Small section sizes (16 students) allow the instructor ample time to provide detailed reviews of student writing on assignments. The modular design of the syllabus can accommodate any number of potential experiments as long as they meet the course outcomes. Current content modules include truss design & analysis, measurement uncertainty quantification, ethics case studies, and a pendulum air rocket experiment. The final module is a group presentation on an experiment conducted during the semester. This paper will include additional details on the course modules, student perceptions of the course, and an assessment of student learning.