Résumés in the development of undergraduate engineering identity: A genre analysis with teaching implications

Abstract

Undergraduate engineering students are often instructed to write engineering résumés working from models that come from different fields. As part of a project to develop stronger disciplinary instructional materials for engineering résumé writers, this study investigates a way to quantify the quality of engineering résumés based both on established rubric methods and on a new "scoring" mechanism by which significant differences in the types of disciplinary discourse enacted strong, moderate, and weak engineering résumés. This study is guided through Activity Theory, such that the "rules" of writing an engineering résumé are mediated not only by the general design, content, and style principles of written and visual communication, but are also mediated by the community in terms of what language and activities are most demonstrative of engineering expertise. Findings indicate that a blended approach to scoring engineering résumés may be a promising way to investigate the problem of teaching and evaluating engineering discourse by nonengineering faculty.