G22 - The Consequence of Research is Writing: How Graduate Students and Faculty View Writing in BME

Introduction: : Biomedical Engineering graduate students, as with graduate students generally, often encounter many hurdles in writing and publishing (Goldsmith & Willey, 2016; Paré et al., 2011). The challenges of learning technical writing are particularly relevant to Biomedical engineering because research comprises a large breadth of research areas with varying norms, processes, and approaches that cross many disciplinary backgrounds. Despite technical writing being critical and particularly challenging, students typically learn these skills through mentorship and writing groups in the best case and trial and error in the worst case.
Academic literacy (Lea & Street, 2018) refers to a graduate student’s ability to effectively communicate their work within the expectations of their particular discipline. Students struggling with academic literacy often have underlying beliefs and approaches to writing that make publishing difficult and limit how successful they consider their research (Berdanier & Zerbe, 2018; Zerbe & Berdanier, 2020). Both graduate students and faculty rely on technical writing skills to communicate their research – often working in partnership and across disciplinary boundaries. While writing skills and techniques can be developed with experience, underlying beliefs and habits about writing may be carried into students’ careers and potential future interactions with their own graduate students. Given the heavily interdisciplinary nature of BME, we set out to understand how biomedical engineering graduate students and research faculty conceptualize academic writing and how those concepts differ.

Materials and

Methods: : To do so, we surveyed biomedical engineering graduate students and research faculty about their beliefs, goals, and experiences around technical writing. Data was collected using an online survey in the Fall of 2024 (IRB# H24349). The survey comprised both open- and closed-response questions drawing from researcher observations and prior theoretical work on challenges and frustrations engineering for engineering graduate students learning academic writing. The survey focused on abstract conceptualizations, rather than technical details, of academic writing. It was distributed via email to all graduate (MS and PhD) students (N=351), postdoctoral fellows (N≈20), and faculty (N=140) within a single biomedical engineering department at a large, public, research-focused institution. We received 44 total responses from participants, with 33 responding to a question self-identifying their status as MS students (n=2), PhD students (n=12), and faculty or postdoctoral fellows (n=19). We analyzed the data using an inductive analysis approach, focusing on the exploratory rather than inferential conclusions. Because our interest is primarily in the way participants conceptualize research and research writing, some questions were written in ways that were likely (by intention) to invoke some participant confusion (e.g., How important are each of the following to a research paper with the story, the facts, the findings, the narrative, and the argument as choices). All such questions were followed by an open-ended opportunity to explain one’s reasoning. Doing so allowed us to better observe where relevant differences in interpretation of terms often used colloquially to describe academic writing, as further described in the results.

Results, Conclusions, and Discussions:: The survey included three groups of themed questions: perception of academic writing as a process or a product; the importance of certain writing elements in a research paper (story, facts, findings, narrative, argument); and challenges with the writing process. Most graduate students considered writing a journal article as something that happens near the end of a project, considering it a consequence or necessary step in finishing a project. Research faculty were more evenly divided, about half described writing as a consequence of research and the other half viewing writing as integral and necessary throughout the research process. Explanations aligned with writing as integral to research did not necessarily mean the participant rated it as more of a process over product.
When asked to rank the importance of story, facts, findings, narrative, and argument to a journal article, participants typically ranked components associated with objective conceptions of research as more important. In both participant groups, facts were ranked as most important followed by findings. The sentiment of “the facts should speak for themselves” was common. Argument, story, and narrative were often relegated to communication skills that are useful, but not necessary. While still a minority, some faculty were more willing to recognize story as critical in writing in order to make results understandable and interesting to an audience. Many made comments suggesting difficulty separating the story, narrative, and argument – however others saw them as discrete. Despite its low ranking, graduate students and faculty alike reported finding a cohesive story and framing the argument as challenges when writing.
Overall, these preliminary results emphasize the potential for ambiguity inherent in learning academic writing, particularly what constitutes "real research." The results clearly indicate the need for BME mentors and mentees to engage directly with how each perceives the role and nature of writing within the research endeavor. This need is especially important in a field like BME because of its highly interdisciplinary nature. We anticipated future work using interviews to more deeply explore how conceptions of writing affect the graduate school experience.

Acknowledgements and/or References (Optional):: Berdanier, C. G. P., & Zerbe, E. (2018). Quantitative investigation of engineering graduate student conceptions and processes of academic writing. IEEE Professional Communication Conference (Procomm), 1–8.
Goldsmith, R., & Willey, K. (2016). “It’s not my job to teach writing”: Activity theory analysis of invisible writing practices in the engineering curriculum. Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 10(1), A118–A129.
Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (2018). The “Academic Literacies” Model: Theory and Applications. Theory into Practice, 45(4), 368–377.
Paré, A., Starke-Meyerring, D., & Mcalpine, L. (2011). Knowledge and Identity Work in the Supervision of Doctoral Student Writing: Shaping Rhetorical Subjects. Writing in Knowledge Societies, 215–236.
Zerbe, E., & Berdanier, C. G. P. (2020). Writing Attitudes and Career Trajectories of Domestic and International Students in the United States. International Journal of Engineering Education, 36(1), 226–240.