Development of Consistent Metrics to Enhance Professional Communication Skills in Engineering Graduates

Grant recipients:

Alana Lund, Rania Al-Hammoud, Bella Tseng, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

(Project timeline: September 2024 - August 2025)

Description

This project seeks to harmonize the interpretation of graduate attributes in oral communication across the engineering curriculum, thereby enhancing student learning and professional preparation at the course level. Developing a common rubric for oral communication ensures consistent instruction, supports student growth, and enables meaningful outcomes measurements.  

The project addresses key research questions:  

1. how to effectively capture core graduate outcomes across courses in a single rubric, and  
2. whether its implementation improves student comprehension and performance in oral communication.  

Recognizing the critical role of communication in modern engineering, the project pilots the rubric in a first-year course, assessing its effectiveness through surveys and performance data, with the intent to extend its use to upper-year-courses. By providing clear, consistent criteria for developing communication skills, we seek to ultimately produce graduates who are proficient in both technical and non-technical tasks, thereby enhancing their adaptability and career prospects. 

Project Objectives

The overall aim of this project is to enhance student comprehension and application of oral communication as a continuing skill throughout the curriculum and necessary for career advancement. We intend to approach this goal through the development of a common rubric for oral communication within the curriculum, with the intent of facilitating consistent instruction, supporting student growth, and enabling meaningful measurements of student outcomes across all four years of the program. 

The project addresses the following research questions: 

1. How can core graduate outcomes in oral communication be effectively captured in a single rubric, such that a progression in student skill is adequately represented both for learning and assessment? 

2. Does the implementation of a common rubric improve student comprehension of oral communication as an engineering skill? 

3. Does the implementation of a common rubric improve student performance in oral communication?