Programmatic Outcomes in Undergraduate Technical and Professional Communication Programs

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the process of coding and analyzing data from 376 Programmatic Student Learning Outcomes (PSLOs) from 47 technical and professional communication (TPC) undergraduate degree programs. The resultant findings suggest that TPC program administrators adopt common PSLOs, eliminate embedded PSLOs, and consider the assets of PSLOs beyond assessment. Such practices will ensure that PSLOs support students as a primary audience and cohere with broader disciplinary understandings of education at the undergraduate level in TPC.

KEYWORDS:

• Programmatic research
• outcomes
• undergraduate programs
• program administration

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Tanya Zarlengo and Laura Wilson for invaluable assistance at key parts of this project. The authors also want to the thank the generosity of colleagues who shared their outcomes with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geoffrey Clegg

Geoffrey Clegg is an Assistant Professor of Business and Technical Writing at MSU Texas, His work has been published in Posthuman Praxis in Technical Communication, The Political Turn in the Trump Era: Writing, Democracy, Activism, Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, and Programmatic Perspectives.

Jessica Lauer

Jessica Lauer is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. Her current research interests include investigating the presence of technical writing instruction in secondary education as a potential bridge to the TPC service course. She is also interested in examining the ethical dimensions of using and teaching project management software. She received her PhD from Michigan Tech in 2017.

Johanna Phelps

Johanna Phelps , PhD, MPA is an Assistant Professor of English and Director of Technical and Professional Writing at Washington State University Vancouver. She researches Writing Studies methodologies, IRBs, and community engagement praxis in hopes of advancing equity, equalizing opportunity structures, and promoting justice.

Lisa Melonçon

Lisa Melonçon is a professor of technical and professional communication at the University of South Florida where she also directs the graduate and undergraduate programs. Her teaching and research focuses on the rhetoric of health and medicine and programmatic and professionalization dimensions of the field.