Abstract

Although effective technical communication is an important outcome of undergraduate education in STEM fields, limited process-based writing instruction occurs in these disciplines. This study employed an experimental design to examine the use of Calibrated Peer Review (CPR), an online peer review platform, to improve lab report writing in an environmental engineering course. Students who completed methods and discussion modules using CPR earned higher grades on the final lab report than students who completed abstract and introduction modules (which are generally less difficult to write) using CPR. CPR also had indirect effects on lab report grade that occurred via greater accuracy in assessing lab report quality. Moreover, CPR performance and lab report grades were almost entirely unrelated to student demographics, whereas exam grade was frequently much higher among students from dominant populations.

摘要

尽管有效的技术交流是 STEM 领域本科教育的重要成果，但在这些学科中出现了有限的基于过程的写作指导。本研究采用实验设计来检查校准同行评审 (CPR) 的使用，这是一个在线同行评审平台，以改进环境工程课程中的实验室报告写作。使用 CPR 完成方法和讨论模块的学生在最终实验报告中的成绩高于使用 CPR 完成摘要和介绍模块（通常不太难写）的学生。CPR 还对实验室报告的等级产生间接影响，通过更准确地评估实验室报告质量而发生。此外，心肺复苏术的表现和实验室报告的成绩几乎与学生人口统计无关，