IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-27, NO.3, SEPTEMBER 1984 155

[9] H. P. Erickson, "English skills among technicians in industry," in TheTeaching of Technical Writing, D. H. Cunningham and HermanEstrin, Eds. Urbana, IL: Nat. Council Teachers of English, 1975,pp. 153-160.

[10] M.l. T. Rep .. vol. X, (Sept. 1982); and Technol. Rev., vol. 86, no. 3, pp.73-74, Apr. 1983.

[II] D. R. Woods and I. A. Feuerstein, "On teaching technical communi­cation," Eng. Educ., pp. 745-780, Apr. 1980.

[12] J. McAlister, HWhy engineers fail," Grad. Eng., pp. 73-74, Mar. 1983.[13] H. B. Michaelson, "The incremental method of writing engineering

papers," IEEE Trans. Prof Commun., vol. PC-17, no. I, pp. 21-22,1974.

Technical Writing Attitude Measurement andInstructional Goals

SUSAN FEINBERG AND JERRY I. GOLDMAN

Abstract-Although computers are important tools to help learnersimprove their writing skills, the instructor must still establish theinstructional goals of a course. This study presents an instrument, theTechnical Writing Attitude Measurement, that measures students' atti­tudes toward their technical writing skills and provides data andobjectives which help the instructor develop instructional materials andassignments to improve student skills. The Technical Writing AttitudeMeasurement, a Likert-type, self-report questionnaire, is based uponinstructional goals that may be divided into three categories: rhetoricalprinciples, planning strategies, and drafting skills.

The instrument was used to measure changes in student attitude towardtechnical writing skills. These changes were influenced by two mainmethods of instruction, the case method and the rhetorical approach toteaching technical writing. The study indicates that I) the instrument canbe used to measure change in student attitude toward technical writingskills; 2) the instructor can establish course objectives by administeringthe questionnaire; 3) the most significant change, as measured by themagnitude of a paired t- statistic, occurred in the drafting skills category.The authors suggest and illustrate several techniques for analyzing thedata generated by the Technical Writing Attitude Measurement.

STUDENT ATTITUDE TOWARD WRITING

E MP LOYERS and employees alike acknowledge thedifficulty of naming an occupation in which writing is

not a requirement. And whether the writer uses a computeror a pen, the writer may still experience writer's block.Even professional writers like E.B. White and John Updikeadmit to the frequent occurrence of writer's block. The

Manuscript received December 15, 1983; revised May 10, 1984.S. Feinberg is with the Department of Humanities, Illinois Institute of

Technology, Chicago, IL 60616.J. I. Goldman is with the Department of Mathematical Sciences,

DePaul University, Chicago, IL 60604.

work by J. Daly and M. Miller [5], based on theirinstrument to measure writing apprehension, revealed thatsome people are unduly apprehensive about writing, somuch so in fact that their apprehension may affect not onlytheir writing performance but their future career choice aswell. Additional work by L. and M. Bloom [1]reveals that anywhere between 10 and 25 percent of collegestudents, whether freshmen or graduate students, are fairlyanxious about their writing, at levels significantly higherthan their peers. Sending these students to a computerterminal may alleviate some of their anxiety [4], butcomputers for writing are just a tool to help learnersimprove skills. The instructor must still establish theinstructional goals of a course. If we identify the studentswith writing apprehension, can we also establish someinstructional goals and teach the skills to aid students withtheir writing processes?

Using the Likert-type scale [7], Daly and Miller designedtheir Writing Apprehension Test (W AT), which has beengiven to freshmen students in composition classes, upper­level writing students, and graduate students in social workand in English. The test provides the instructor withinformation about the trait of individual student apprehen­sion. The higher the score on the WAT, the more prevalentthe trait. Thus, as a respondent's apprehension increased,the score increased. It was both the hope of the instructorand the alternative hypothesis, tested by distributing theWAT before and after a course in writing, that instructionin writing would decrease writing apprehension as mea­sured by the WAT. The null hypothesis was that there

0361-1434/84/0900-0155$01.00 © 1984 IEEE

156 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-27, NO.3, SEPTEMBER 1984

would be no significant change in mean apprehension frombefore to after course instruction.

Considering the fact that technology is changing the fieldof communication and that engineers are prominentamong those responsible for this change, we believe thefollowing question regarding change in attitude towardcommunication is particularly appropriate. Are the techni­cal communication courses, with their large engineeringstudent enrollment, improving students' attitudes towardtheir own technical writing skills?

WAT: THE FIRST MEASURE

For the purposes of this research, we first replicated thestudies using the WAT; the questionnaire was distributedto 50 students in freshman composition classes at theIllinois Institute of Technology and 50 junior and seniorlevel students in technical writing classes at Arizona StateUniversity. The responses of both groups indicate achange, a decrease. in mean apprehension from the firsttime the questionnaire was distributed (Time 1) to thesecond time the questionnaire was distributed (Time 2).The mean scores in the freshman composition classesdecreased from 69.6 to 62.8, for a decrease in apprehensionof 9.8 percent, which is significant at better than the 0.005level, using a paired t-statistic. The mean scores in thetechnical writing classes decreased from 67.8 to 63.9, for adecrease in apprehension of 5.8 percent which is alsosignificant at better than the 0.005 level.

While freshmen had greater apprehension about writingand greater relief after a composition course, we learn thata course in technical writing produces a significantdecrease in writing apprehension. But the WAT measuresonly apprehension; it does not attempt to measure attitudetoward skills acquired through instruction or to answer ourquestion: does course instruction improve a student'sattitude toward his or her own writing skills? We felt that aquestionnaire based upon instructional goals was neededto measure student attitude toward writing skills. Theinstructional goals we used were those generated fortechnical writing courses.

INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS IN TECHNICAL WRITING

The writing skills acquired in a technical communicationcourse fall under three categories. These categories, chosenby analogy with the Daly and Miller paper, just as theiritems were modeled after analogs in measurement ofspeech anxiety, are commonly used in technical writingclasses and in the published literature [9]. In technicalwriting classes instructors often use two pedagogicaltechniques: the case method of instruction and the syste­matic, rhetorical approach [6]. The textbook, DesigningTechnical Reports, by Mathes and Stevenson [8] emphas­izes the rhetorical principles of audience analysis, rhetori­cal purpose, and problem definition. These skills ofaudience, purpose, and problem definition taught underour category, rhetorical principles, are generally acceptedin all technical writing classes.

Several articles in Engineering Education suggest that inengineering courses instruction by the case method pro­vides students with valuable skills in technical writing. Intheir article "Evaluating Learning from the Case Method,"authors Vesper and Adams [10] reported that "cases teachstudents something different from what their other engi­neering courses generally do." Students felt cases added anelement of realism to their courses. Other contributionscited were giving exercise in thinking, spotting key factsamid less relevant data, identifying and defining practicalproblems, and foreseeing consequences of alternate act­ions. These planning strategies and drafting skills, alongwith the rhetorical principles for technical writing, wereincluded in the following categories to organize technicalcommunication skills into instructional goal categories.

Categories for Technical Writing Skills

1) Rhetorical Principles (including audience analysis,rhetorical purpose, problem definition)

2) Planning Strategies (including selection, analysis,solutions, organization)

3) Drafting Skills (including the ability to communicatein writing and to select and use data)

TWAM: THE SECOND MEASURE

Using these categories, we designed and tested a self­report instrument that measures changes in student atti­tude toward technical communication skills. The TechnicalWriting Attitude Measurement (TWAM) test has 26 itemswhich reflect the objectives of the instructional goals ineach of the three categories. The students are asked torespond to each item or statement by circling one of thefive possible response scores (see Table I).

Each statement is assigned a "valence" of + or - . Theitems are paired, a positive statement (which is positivelyphrased with respect to a skill) with a negative statement (anegatively phrased reference to a skill), to prevent a biasedresponse and to provide a method for evaluating reliability.Table II pairs the items and provides the categories underwhich the items fall. By analyzing the responses to theseitems, instructors may determine categories in which thestudents are confident and skills which may requireadditional instruction. Rhetorically based textbooks, suchas the one by Mathes and Stevenson [8], and two forth­coming case method textbooks [2], [3] provide material toimprove learner skills in technical writing.

To compute a student's attitude score, the instructortakes the sum of the positive valence item scores plus 78minus the sum of the negative valence item scores. Becausethe responses reflect an attitude, the higher the score, themore prevalent is the attitude. Notice that the maximumpossible "positive attitude" score is 130, since 13 positivevalence items at 5 each contribute 65; 13 negative valenceitems at 1 each (for a "positive attitude") contribute -13 tothe score, and 65 + 78 -13 == 130. In general, the higher astudent's score on the TWAM, the more positive in hisattitude.

FEINBERG AND GOLDMAN: TECHNICAL WRITING ATTITUDE MEASUREMENT

TABLE I

157

TECHNICAL WRITING ATTITuDE r1EASl'REHEUT

(+) 1.

N~ber of semesters completed __Major _

I enjoy writing reports supported by detailed facts.

(+) 2. I like to include quantitative material (n~bers

and data) in my technical reports.

(+) 3. I want to influence the audience's acceptance ofmy written ideas.

5

5

4

4

2

2

(-) 4. The material in this course discouraged me fromidentifying and defining practical problems.

(+) S. I feel I can communicate technical material inwri tinge

5

5

4 3 2 1

1

(-) 6. Presenting and selling my ideas in a technicalpaper rr.akes me nervous.

(-) 7. I don't enjoy reading about or recommending alterna­tive solutions to a problem.

(+) 8. The material in this course increased my knowledge of 5how professionals (such as engineers) work and whatthey write about at work.

4

4

2 1

2 1

1

(+) 9. The material in this course increased my ability todistinguish between fact and opinion.

(-) 10. I have a difficult time organizing my ideas in atechnical ~eport.

(-) lL What professionals such as engineers do and writeabout at work is a mystery to me.

(+) 14 It is easy for me to include and interpret data in areport.

5

5

5

4

4

2

2 1

2 1

1

5(-) l~ The material in this course increased my ability toidentify and define practical problems.

(+) l~ ~ben I ~ presented with an overload of material, Ihave difficulty stating the practical problem.

(+) l~ I enjoy reading about a problem and recommending a 5solution in writing.

(+) lh Organizing my ideas in a report is an easy task for me.S

(-) la I am not good at using quantitative material (n~bers

and data) in my writing.

(-) l~ Writing a technical paper is an unpleasant task for Me.S

1

(-) 2~ Discriminating between fact and opinion is afrustrating experience.

(+) 21 I enjoy describing a course of action in writing.

(+) 22 I enjoy presenting and selling ideas in a technicalpaper.

(-) 21 Meticulous attention to detail in technical writingseems to be a ~aste of ti~e.

(-) 2~ Describing a course of action in writing is afrightening experience.

5

5

5

4 3

2 1

1

1

1

(+) 2~ Given a large amount of ~aterial, I feel confident 5 1about identifying and defining a practical problem.

(-) 2~ Concern for the reader's acceptance of the intormaticn 2 1in my written reports is a ~aste of ti~e.

To compute attitude add scores from the positive items + 78­sum of negative items. r-~ay.imum posi tive atti tude = 130

We validated the internal consistency of the instrumenton 212 students in technical writing classes. The controlgroup was taught by one instructor who used a strongrhetorical approach and textbook to teach technical writ­ing. The experimental group included a random assign­ment of students instructed by five instructors who usedboth the case method of instruction and the systematicrhetorical approach. The results of the validation study [6]

indicated that changes in attitude were consistentlyreflected in the positive and negative valence items on thequestionnaire. This consistency was demonstrated withboth the case and the rhetorical instruction methods.

DATA ON TECHNICAL WRITING ATTITUDE MEASUREMENT

After the 198I validation study, the questionnaire wasdistributed in the 1981-1982 academic year to 107 students

158 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-27, NO.3, SEPTEMBER 1984

TABLE IICATEGORIES FOR TECHNICAL WRITING SKILLS

Categories Paired Item Numbers

Rhetorical Principles +3,-26such as audienc::e analysis,rhetorical purpose, problem +14,-4definition, + 8,-11

+25,-15

Planning Strategies +12,-13such as selection, +16 ,-7analysis, solutions, +17,-10organi zation +21,-24

+22,-6

Drafting Skills + 1,-23such as the ability to + 2,-18communicate in writing + 5,-19and to select and use data + 9,-20

The items, shown with the positive and negative valence signs, arepaired and placed within the appropriate categories for technical writingskills.

in one-semester technical wntmg classes at OklahomaState University, the University of Minnesota, and M.LT.The students were instructed by a combination of the twopedagogical techniques: the systematic rhetorical approachand the case method. Usable returns were provided by 95students; an unanswered question negated the entire pair ofquestionnaires for that student. Of the 95 students, 59 wereseniors, 22 were juniors, and 14 were sophomores. Twenty­eight percent were in a field of engineering or engineeringtechnology, 27 percent were in science related fields, 23percent were in liberal arts, and 22 percent were in abusiness curriculum.

Students were asked to complete the questionnairebefore course instruction (Time 1) and complete it againafter course instruction (Time 2); furthermore, they wereasked to respond in writing to a case in technical writing.The mean of the Time 1 scores measuring attitude was92.22; the mean of the Time 2 scores was 95.72. The scoreswere tested with a paired r-test; moreover, we initiallywished to investigate the correlation of writing attitudewith writing performance. Improvement in attitude towardtechnical writing skills was significant at the 0.0005 level ofsignificance. That is, on the average, out of 10 000 suchexperiments only 5 would fail to show improvement inmean attitude toward these skills. The correlation ofattitude to writing performance was not statistically sig­nificant.

DETAILED ANALYSES OF THE SKILLS

The structure of the TWAM permits us to apply severalstatistical techniques for more detailed analyses. Forexample, we can further refine the analysis of our data onattitude by computing paired t-statistics within each of thethree categories. Table III presents the mean scores andvalues of the paired t-statistic for each of the threecategories. The most significant change, as measured bythe magnitude of the statistic, occurred in Category 3. Thestudent attitude raw score was most positive, with Time 2mean score == 77.8 percent of the maximum possible, in the

category of rhetorical principles. The positive items onaudience, purpose, and problem definition, for which thestudents had a category mean score of 31.12 out of 40, arelisted as follows.

3) I want to influence the audience's acceptance of mywritten ideas.

8) The material in this course increased my knowledgeof how professionals (such as engineers) work and whatthey write about at work.

14) The material in this course increased my ability toidentify and define practical problems.

25) Given a large amount of material, I feel confidentabout identifying and defining a practical problem.

Performance of a one-way analysis of variance proce­dure would precisely determine whether the differencesbetween the three category mean scores are significant.However, it is not really necessary to perform such rel­atively sophisticated tests to analyze the data. An easilycalculated frequency table can also furnish valuableinsight. Instructors may also wish to look at the shift instudent attitude from Time 1 to Time 2, either item by itemor in individual categories. We did a frequency analysis ofCategory 3, drafting skills, the category in which thestudents made their greatest gains. This category includesthe following positive and negative items:

1) I enjoy writing reports supported by detailed facts.2) I like to include quantitative material (numbers and

data) in my technical reports.5) I feel I can communicate technical material in

writing.9) The material in this course increased my ability to

distinguish between fact and opinion.23) Meticulous attention to detail in technical writing

seems to be a waste of time.18) I am not good at using quantitative material

(numbers and data) in my writing.19) Writing a technical paper is an unpleasant task for

me.20) Discriminating between fact and opinion is a frus­

trating experience.Tables IV and V present the results of this analysis.

Table IV shows the number of students and their shift inresponse from Time 1 to Time 2 for the drafting skills itemsabove. For example, 4 students strongly disagreed withItem 1 at Time 1 while only 1 student strongly disagreed atTime 2; 44 students agreed with Item 1 at Time I whereas58 students agreed at Time 2, a shift of 14 students.

For a clearer interpretation of the data, Table Vaggregates the responses in Table IV to the drafting skillspositive items 1, 2, 5, 9 and the negative items 23, 18, 19,20. The positive items reflect a shift of 30 (==28 + 2)responses to agree and strongly agree, indicating thatstudent attitude toward these skills improved. For thenegative items, the students shifted 36 (==34 + 2) responsestoward disagreement, indicating that their negative atti­tude toward these skills decreased. These changes instudents' attitudes toward drafting skills imply that instruc-

FEINBERG AND GOLDMAN: TECHNICAL WRITING ATTITUDE MEASUREMENT

TABLE IIIMEAN SCORES FOR THE THREE CATEGORIES OF TECHNICAL WRITING

Sxu.ts (N = 95)

159

MEAN SCORE

MAXIMUM TIME 2 MEAN SCORETIME 1 TIME 2 SCORE AS "A PERCENTAGE OF

POSSIBLE MAXIMUM SCORE POSSIBLE

RHETORICAL PRINCIPLES 30.14 31.12 40 77.8%

(8 QUESTIONS)

PLANNING STRATEGIES 33.86 35.21 50 70.4%

(10. QUESTIONS)

DRAPTING SKI LlS 28.21 29.38 40 73.45%

(8 QUESTIONS)

COMPUTED

t- STATISTIC

2.8415

2.5663

3.4618

While student attitude toward skills improved in every category, students were most confident about their skills in Category1 (rhetorical principles: audience, purpose, and problem definition). The most significant change, as measured by the paired t­statistic, occurred in Category 3 (drafting skills).

TABLE IVFREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF 95 STUDENT RESPONSES FOR CATEGORY

3-DRAFTING Sxiu.s

Strongly StronglyDisagree Disagree Undecided Agree Agree

I tern Nurnbe r T1 T2 T1 T2 T1 T2 T1 T2 T1 T2(+) 1 4 1 18 15 21 14 44 58 7

(+) 2 1 13 16 15 15 53 56 11 7

(+1 5 0 1 6 14 67 77 10

(+) 9 1 2 17 10 27 27 42 43 13

(-)23 17 14 51 59 16 14 9 6

(-) 18 4 53 62 19 21 18 7 1 2

(-) 19 3 7 35 46 29 19 21 21 7 2

(-) 20 8 10 66 72 14 9 7 0 0

Table IV shows the distribution of student responses from Time 1 (TI ) to Time 2 (T2) . It is interesting to note that on the T2

questionnaire, 87 out of 95 students agreed or strongly agreed with Item 5: I can communicate technical material in writing.For the negative Item 19, there was a shift from strongly agree and undecided to strongly disagree and disagree. Only 13students out of 95 still were undecided or agreed with Item 20: Discriminating between fact and opinion is a frustratingexperience.

tion, using a strong rhetorical approach and case studies,improves attitudes toward technical writing skills.

CONCLUSIONS: RELATING INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS TO

ACQUIRED SKILLS

Now, when everyone is turning to the computer terminalto help produce technical documents, it is important toremember that electronic text editing is a tool in writing tohelp learners improve their writing skills. Instructors mustfirst establish instructional goals, which underlie theTW AM, and then provide instruction, tools and assign­ments to meet them. The TWAM measures the studentattitude toward these writing goals and toward theirtechnical writing skills.

Thus far, the research in this area suggests that aftertaking a class in technical writing, the student improves in

attitude toward technical writing skills; furthermore, writ­ing apprehension diminishes. By using the questionnaireearly in the course, the instructor can plan assignments tomeet course objectives. Examining the group's initialattitude toward one of the items provides some valuableinformation on the need to improve a particular technicalwriting skill. Skills such as "I like to include "quantitativematerial in my report" and "I like to report and interpretdata in my report" may be strengthened through specificassignments or cases if the group is particularly apprehen­sive about these skills. If the questionnaire is used at thebeginning and end of the course, the instructor can analyzethe data and draw conclusions regarding both the shift instudent attitude from Time 1 to Time 2 and the categoriesin which the students made their greatest gains.

More research must be done to correlate student attitude

160 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. PC-27, NO.3, SEPTEMBER 1984

TABLE VDEMONSTRATING CHANGES IN STUDENT ATTITUDE: AGGREGATED STUDENTRESPONSE TO POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ITEMS IN CATEGORY 3-DRAFTING

SKILLS, AGGREGATED FROM TABLE V

Response Positive Items Negative Items

Change in # Change in #Time 1 Time 2 of responses Time 1 Time 2 of responses

Strongly-Disagree 8 5 -3 32 34 +2

Disagree 54 44 -10 205 239 +34

Undecided 77 60 -17 78 63 -15

Agree 206 234 +28 55 38 -17

StronglyAgree 35 37 +2 10 6 -4

Table V indicates that students changed their attitudes toward their drafting skills from Time 1 to Time 2. After instructionin technical writing, an additional 28 responses agreed with the positive items in Category 3, thus indicating the attitude towardthese skills improved. The changes in student responses toward the negative items clearly supports the fact that students'negative attitude toward the skills decreased as their positive attitude increased.

toward technical writing skills with actual writing perfor­mance, especially in subsets of the population. But, for themoment, instructors can help learners improve theirattitudes toward their technical writing skills by identifyingthe items important in technical writing and emphasizingthat these skills are obtainable by students in the course.Technical writing, like all writing, is not "some Platonicideal unattainable by mortal writers" [1, p. 52]. Whenstudents read a technical case, discuss in class or in groupsthe purpose of a technical report, design the structure of aproposal, present the facts in a clear narrative or visualform, and rewrite, revise, or edit, then they gain confidencein their own technical writing skills and develop the self­critical ability to evaluate their own work. Confidence intheir technical writing skills and the ability to evaluate theirown work are the hallmarks of mature professionals.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank the following people fortheir participation in this study: Profs. R. J. Brockmann,

C. Sides, T. Warren, and V. Winkler.

REFERENCES

[I] L. Z. Bloom, "Teaching anxious writers: Implications and applica­tions of research," Composit. Teaching, vol. 2, pp. 47-57, 1980.

[2] J. Brockmann et al., The Case Method in Technical CommunicationTheory and Models. Ass. Teachers Tech. Writing, to be published.

[3] B. Couture and J. Goldstein, Casesfor Technical Writing. Boston,MA: Little, Brown, to be published.

[4] C. Daiute, "The computer as stylus and audience," College CompoCommun. vol. 34, pp. 134-145, May 1983.

[5] J. A. Daly and M. D. Miller, "The empirical development of aninstrument to measure writing apprehension," Res. Teaching Eng­lish, vol. 9 pp. 242-248, 1975.

[6] S. Feinberg, "Evaluating the effectiveness of case method instructionin technical communication," Technical Communication, NASAConf. Publ. 2203, 1981, pp. 85-93.

[7] R. Likert, "A technique for the measurement of attitudes," ArchivesPsych01. no. 140, pp. 5-55, 1932.

[8] J. C. Mathes and D. W. Stevenson, Designing TechnicalReports. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976.

[9] J. C. Paradis, "Improving technical communications to improveproductivity," Chem. Eng. pp. 31-32, Mar. 14, 1983.

[10] K. H. Vesper and J. L. Adams, "Evaluating learning from the casemethod," Eng. Educ. pp. 104-106, Oct. 1969.