2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This full empirical research paper investigates how engineering faculty conceptualize the purposes and functions of doctoral writing. Writing plays a central role in doctoral programs as a means of demonstrating technical precision and rhetorical development and a foundation for completing key milestones such as comprehensive exams, dissertations, and journal publications. Faculty perceptions about writing are particularly important in students' writing development, as they shape supervisory approaches and ultimately impact doctoral student achievement. However, despite the key role of faculty in supporting doctoral students' milestones, faculty perspectives on writing remain underexplored. Previous research has addressed writing beliefs in general academic contexts or at the undergraduate level, but little is known about how engineering faculty conceptualize doctoral writing.
This study is guided by the Academic Literacies Framework (Lea & Street, 1998), which situates writing as a socially and epistemologically embedded practice. This framework informed the development of interview protocols to explore writing as a situated practice within engineering contexts. We conducted thirteen semi-structured interviews with engineering faculty members at a large, public, research-intensive university. Faculty were purposively recruited to capture a range of engineering subfields, complemented by convenience sampling used to supplement availability. Interviews lasted 45–60 minutes and explored faculty perspectives on doctoral research writing and supervision. Data were analyzed using a hybrid thematic approach by combining deductive and inductive coding. In particular, deductive coding was guided by themes previously found in research done with faculty in the social sciences (i.e., conceptions of writing as epistemic, instrumental, and communicative). Inductive coding was guided by the data that reflected additional layers of conception of writing in engineering. Inductive coding was done to capture discipline-specific insights. This hybrid approach to thematic analysis provided value in demonstrating commonalities across disciplines and unique ways engineering culture shapes writing expectations
The analysis revealed six distinct yet interconnected conceptions of doctoral writing among engineering faculty. Three themes aligned with prior findings from the social sciences, while three additional themes emerged as distinctive to engineering: socializing, funding acquisition, and advancement of the field. These findings offer discipline-specific insights into engineering, where distinctive research structures and genre conventions shape expectations for doctoral writing. The findings have implications for faculty development, particularly for designing supervisor training that frames writing as a socially and intellectually situated practice rather than merely a matter of technical accuracy. They also highlight the need to support doctoral students in managing conflicting supervisory expectations of writing.