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Quality of Academic Writing for Engineering Students at Lund University

Reinhold, Isabella LU ; Batstone, Kenneth John LU ; Gallardo Gonzalez, Isabel LU orcid ; Troian, Andrea LU and Yu, Rixin LU (2017) The 2nd EuroSoTL conference
Abstract
The development of good writing skills is fundamental not only to publish scientific results, but also to have a deeper understanding of complex subjects. However reports from the Swedish Higher Education Authority from 2012-2015 suggest that engineering students at Lund University have unsatisfactory academic writing skills. Our paper investigates how students of the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University perceive academic writing and the effects of a writing intervention.
To obtain information on students’ education in, attitude, perception of its difficulty and their own skill towards academic writing, we constructed a survey which was sent out to engineering students at Lund University. This yielded 62 responses showing that... (More)
The development of good writing skills is fundamental not only to publish scientific results, but also to have a deeper understanding of complex subjects. However reports from the Swedish Higher Education Authority from 2012-2015 suggest that engineering students at Lund University have unsatisfactory academic writing skills. Our paper investigates how students of the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University perceive academic writing and the effects of a writing intervention.
To obtain information on students’ education in, attitude, perception of its difficulty and their own skill towards academic writing, we constructed a survey which was sent out to engineering students at Lund University. This yielded 62 responses showing that students want more opportunities to develop their writing, but that they grade their writing skill high and the difficulty low.
The effects of a simple writing intervention, briefly discussing the importance of good writing practices during a laboratory session, was investigated for one student group. This was done using a random selection of laboratory reports for one control group and one intervention group. The overall quality of the students’ writing was not significantly improved with the intervention. However the quality of the conclusions, the report section with the lowest quality rating, was higher for the intervention group. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
categories
Higher Education
host publication
Transforming patterns through the scholarship of teaching and learning : the 2nd European conference for the scholarship of teaching and learning | Lund, Sweden, June 8-9 2017 - the 2nd European conference for the scholarship of teaching and learning | Lund, Sweden, June 8-9 2017
pages
7 pages
publisher
Lund University
conference name
The 2nd EuroSoTL conference
conference location
Lund, Sweden
conference dates
2017-06-08 - 2017-06-09
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
e7299b02-985a-485c-b8c5-9f8717f63331
alternative location
http://konferens.ht.lu.se/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/Reinhold_etal.pdf
date added to LUP
2017-11-02 14:44:03
date last changed
2019-04-30 11:30:59
@inproceedings{e7299b02-985a-485c-b8c5-9f8717f63331,
  abstract     = {{The development of good writing skills is fundamental not only to publish scientific results, but also to have a deeper understanding of complex subjects. However reports from the Swedish Higher Education Authority from 2012-2015 suggest that engineering students at Lund University have unsatisfactory academic writing skills. Our paper investigates how students of the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University perceive academic writing and the effects of a writing intervention.<br/>To obtain information on students’ education in, attitude, perception of its difficulty and their own skill towards academic writing, we constructed a survey which was sent out to engineering students at Lund University. This yielded 62 responses showing that students want more opportunities to develop their writing, but that they grade their writing skill high and the difficulty low.<br/>The effects of a simple writing intervention, briefly discussing the importance of good writing practices during a laboratory session, was investigated for one student group. This was done using a random selection of laboratory reports for one control group and one intervention group. The overall quality of the students’ writing was not significantly improved with the intervention. However the quality of the conclusions, the report section with the lowest quality rating, was higher for the intervention group.}},
  author       = {{Reinhold, Isabella and Batstone, Kenneth John and Gallardo Gonzalez, Isabel and Troian, Andrea and Yu, Rixin}},
  booktitle    = {{Transforming patterns through the scholarship of teaching and learning : the 2nd European conference for the scholarship of teaching and learning | Lund, Sweden, June 8-9 2017}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Lund University}},
  title        = {{Quality of Academic Writing for Engineering Students at Lund University}},
  url          = {{http://konferens.ht.lu.se/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/Reinhold_etal.pdf}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}