Fall Semester - English Department

TECHNIQUES
Topics in Technical Communication
Fall 2011
Digital Writing Across Cultures
B
Results from university students in China, Germany, Palestine, and the United States
ig ideas and real-world thinking” is the current motto at
our university, Minnesota State
University, Mankato. Our digital writing inventory project fits well because
it is both unusual in its scope and
practical in its relation to our field of
technical communication.
In our globalized world, advances in
technology require enhanced international communication skills to become
successful in the field of technical
communication. To address this need
we, in English 4/567, International
Technical Communication, gathered data about the digital writing
habits of university students in four
countries. In the spirit of J. William
Fulbright, a pioneer in international
student exchanges, our goal in our
course about international technical
communication consisted of a virtual
“…exchange of students in the fields
of education, culture and science.”
The goals of this project were to collect data about digital writing and to
work cooperatively with students from
universities in countries outside of the
United States. Barry Thatcher and
Kirk St. Amant offer an insight on the
importance of collaboration in their
book, Teaching Intercultural Communication & Rhetoric: Theories, Curriculum,
Pedagogies and Practices, “Whether we
are collaborating with our local team or
with international colleagues, we need
to understand and appreciate the differences in the culture of individual team
members [and furthermore] collaborative competence refers to the ability of
individuals to adapt to new environments and team members” (Thatcher
148).
There are two key points required to
effectively collaborate between cultures.
First, each participant must effectively
give and receive feedback, which will
allow for increased communication
and enhance understanding of allcommunication. The second is being able
to recognize and use individual competencies to counteract the gaps in team
members’ abilities. Acknowledging and
working with these core competencies
increased our level of understanding
and communication between ourselves
and our international colleagues, and
also improved the quality of the finished product.
From previous interaction on our professor’s part, we were able to contact
international students who had good
English language skills and were familiar with the proposed technology. After
receiving positive responses from our
professors’ contacts we began interacting with our international colleagues
and formed a working relationship
The members of English 4/567International Technical Communication
“
Whether we are collaborating with our
local team or with international colleagues,
we need to understand and appreciate the
differences in the culture of individual team
members [and furthermore] collaborative
competence refers to the ability of individuals to adapt to new environments and team
members.
(Thatcher 148)
”
2
before initiating the project. Finally,
we distributed ourquestionnairesand
asked our international colleagues to
return them within two weeks’ time.
From August 22 to November 9, we
worked with students from Germany,
Palestine, and China, in order to
explore theirdigital writing habits. In
order for students to accomplish this
task, we distributed inventory surveys
and requested that each recipient
ask fellow students to participate. In
addition to the distributed surveys,
we conducted several Skype interviews with some of our international
partners to better understand their
responses to the questionnaire.
Methodology
For this project, we worked with
Chinese students attending Xiamen
University of Technology (China);
German students attending the University of Applied Science, Karlsruhe
(Germany), and Palestinian students
attending Birzeit University (Palestine); and students at our own Minnesota State University, Mankato.
On September 19, 2011, we formed
five groups. Each teamwas assigned
contact partners from the three international universities listed above.
Then eachgroup sent out initial
emails introducing themselves and
informing our partners of the objectives of our project. From September
21 to September 26, our class designed a questionnaire and revised
it together. The questionnaire asked
for information on how often certain
digital writing tools were used for
university life (such as email, writing
essays, and copying lecture notes), as
well as Internet access location and
Internet access type. A copy of this
TECHNIQUES Fall 2011
digital writing inventory is provided
in Appendix A.
On September 26, we sent 22 copies of the survey to our partners in
the different universities, via email,
and asked them to distribute the
questionnaire to other classmates and
return all completed surveys by October 10. A total of 27 surveys were
returned, with an additional 10 from
our class, giving us a total return
of 37 surveys. Of these completed
surveys 15 came from Palestine, 6
from Germany, 6 from China, and
10 from the U.S.
After the data was collected, we
separated into four groups and had
each team compilethe data for one
country that was surveyed. Then we
began to organize and analyze the
data from each university by calculating the averages, medians, modes,
minimums, and maximums.
After analyzing the data, we arranged two Skype conferences with
our international partners in order
to discuss the data with them, ask
for clarifications on some points, get
their opinions and thoughts on the
data and the project, and get their
feedback on the survey. Three Palestinian and two German students
were able to participate in these conferences. We would have preferred if
those from China could have joined
in the conversation, but unfortunately, due to the 13 hour time difference,
our class was not able to speak directly with these respondents. However,
one member of the course was able
to arrange an independent Skype
conference with one Chinese respondent and gain valuable insights about
the Chinese digital writing habits.
Results and Analysis
T
he purpose of this inventory was
to examine the use of digital
writing devices across four different
universities. Specifically, we wanted
to compare the use of digital writing
tools across the four populations of
students. The following sections will
discuss our findings in the areas of
digital writing tools and their applications, the daily percentage of each
tool’s use, where students used the
Internet, and how they connected to
the Internet.
As stated, we examined the use of
desktops, laptops, cell phones, and
tablets forcommon university applications. From our analysis, we found
interesting trends with regards to
which device is used for each task.
We also found some surprising results
for Internet connection types and
places.
Figure 1
Digital Writing Tools Used
for a Specific Application
Lecture Notes
O
ne application that surprised us
by its popularity was the variety of ways people used their digital
writing tools for lecture notes. Overall, the Chinese students reported
a much higher percentage of time
spent writing lecture notes than other
3
Chinese students’results showed that
12% (Figure 10) of the digital writing
done on the phone was lecture notes,
while the highest value found in the
data was merely 4% for Palestinian
students (Figure 14). Both the U.S.
students and the German students’
results show that they did not write
any lecture notes using their smartphones (Figure 3 & 7).
Figure 2
studentssurveyed. Chinese students
wrote more lecture notes with every
device tested. With desktop computers, 41% (Figure 8) of their digital
writing was lecture notes, compared
to only 13% (Figure 12) of desktop
usage for lecture notes in Palestine.
This may be due to a difference
in the style of teaching between
Xiamen University and the others
sampled.
In Palestine, we noticed that essays
were written using laptops more than
desktops, but the usage patterns are
still similar on the whole between
each university’s students.
Another noteworthy point is that
Chinese and Palestinian students
were the only oneswho claimed to
use their phones for writing papers
and reports. Although the percentage
of use was only 6% of their entire
digital writing on this device, we
found it interesting that any papers
would be done on a smart-phone
(Figures 10 & 14).
Figure 4
Figure 3
We found it somewhat puzzling that
the Chinese students commonly used
their desktops for taking their lecture
notes at all. It is possible that they
copy their written lecture notes onto
their desktops after the class period
or that the lectures are conducted
in computer labs. More surprising is
that the Chinese students were one
of the few to use their smart-phones
for lecture notes in comparison to
the other studentssurveyed. The
We noticed that among students in
the U.S. only 3% reported using their
desktop computers for lecture notes,
while laptops were more commonly
used with a reported 18% (Figures
1 & 2). With that in mind, the U.S.
students used desktops to take lecture
notes the least of any other students
surveyed. Compared to the low
percentage of U.S. students who used
their desktops to take lecture notes,
and the high percentage of Chinese
students who reported using their
desktops for the same task, the German and Palestinian students used
desktops for lecture notes only 10%
and 13% of the time respectively
(Figures 5 & 12).
Figure 5
Figure 6
Society for Technical Communication - Minnesota State Mankato Student Chapter
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Notes to self
Percentage of Digital Writing
Tool Usage
A
nother area of interest was writing notes tooneself. Of the four
groups sampled, only the Germans
and Palestinians were shown to consistently use each of their devices for
simple notes to self, with their average around 13% each.
2%
Papers or Reports for Classes
T
he data shows that desktop computers were much more commonly used in the U.S. and Germany
than in Palestine or China for all
purposes, with the previously noted
exception of lecture notes. In this
case, the German and U.S. students
stated they used desktop computers for nearly 45% of their digital
writing overall, though they were
primarily used for writing papers and
reports (Figures 1 & 5).
Figure 7
W
Internet Access Locations
Figure 8
Figure 9
TECHNIQUES Fall 2011
aptop computer use averaged
45% for students acrossall four
universities (Figures 2, 6, 9, &13).
Throughout all the data, the most
common use of the laptop was for
writing papers and reports. When
examining the data across all four
student populations, the most consistent data was laptop use.
One interesting point in the data is
that German students reported a
higher use of desktops than laptops.
The desktop use was 49%and laptop
use was only 33% (Figures 5 & 6).
All of the other universitiessurveyed
reported using laptops more than
desktops. A representative example
of this would be the Chinese data,
where they reported using desktops
around 11% and laptops were used
46% (Figures 8&9).
Email and Text Messages
ith the advent of smartphones, cell phones can be
used for more tasks and more types
of writing than ever before; however, according to our data, the most
common use for phones in all four
universities is still text messaging
with around 56% of the total usage
(Figures 3, 7, 10, & 14).We also found
that tablets in the U.S. were only
used for non-academic emails and
for text messages. It appears from the
data that international studentsused
their tablets for a wider variety of
writing tasks. Students from Palestine and China reported that they
used their tablets for all of the digital
writing tasks that we asked about, in
contrast to the U.S. data which suggests that only two of the six (email
and text messages)were performed
on the tablet.
L
W
hen examining the use of
Internet, usage at work turned
out to beless than we expected.
Wealso found it interesting that most
Internet use was at home rather
than at each respective university.
This was noteworthy to us because
it seems that students spend a lot of
time on their computers while on our
campus. However, the Palestinian,
German, and U.S. students reportedly used Internet at home more
than twice as much as they did at
the university (an average of 66% of
usage was at home compared to only
22% of usage while at the university)
(Figure 17).Chinese students, on the
other hand, reported almost exactly
the opposite, with almost 60% of
their Internet usage occurring at
their university, and only 28% of
their usage at home (Figure 17). This
is a rather stark contrast to the other
Figure 10
Figure 11
Figure 12
three surveyed.
All universities surveyed reported
using “other” Internet access locations very rarely. Palestinian students
reported using “other” locations the
most, with a percentage of around
6% of their total Internet access
locations (Figure 17). The other three
all reported 2% or less for “other”
access locations (Figure 17).
Types of Internet Access
The most commonly used form of
Internet access across all cultures
was wireless (Wi-Fi) Internet, with
the exception of the Chinese students, whohad inconsistent results.
Overall,the Chinese students reported wide differences in Internet access
type. One student reported using
3G/4G access 70% of the time and
another reported no use of 3G/4G
at all. This type of inconsistency was
the case with all types of Internet access among our Chinese respondents.
Cable Internet was the second most
commonly used type of Internet access for all countries surveyed. Despite the increase in 3G/4G Internet
access worldwide, on average it was
not very widely used at any of the
four universities.
Problems We Encountered
D
istinguishing between “N/A”
and “0” was something that we
failed to do when we sent our surveys
out to our colleagues. More specific
instructions about the use of “N/A”
versus “0”would have been helpful to
those taking our surveys. We should
have been clearer that “N/A” meant
that the device was not owned and
therefore not applicable. We should
also have explained that putting
down “0” for a response meant the
individual had the item, but did not
use it for that particular task. For the
graphs and other data, and due to
this miscommunication,we changed
all “N/A” answers to “0”.
Figure 13
The biggest issue with international
communication that we faced was
The greatest use of 3G/4G was in
China with 21% usage (Figure 18).
Figure 15
Figure 14
6
TECHNIQUES
Fall 2011
Copy Editors:
English 576 students
STC Officers:
Annemarie Chapdelaine
Bob Furu
Jonathan Heide
Derek Wingert
Faculty Advisors:
Dr. Lee Tesdell
Dr. Jennifer Veltsos
TECHNIQUES is published by the Minnesota
State Mankato student chapter of the Society
for Technical Communication. You may only
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Figure 16
the fact that there were large differences in time between ourselves and
each of the participating universities,
between seven and thirteen hours for
each. This difference complicated
the ability to conveniently follow-up
with individual participants. Along
these lines, another issue that we
encountered was that some participants didn’t reply or remain in
contact with us aside from initially
agreeing to participate. There were
also those whoresponded indicating they would like to fill out the
survey, stayed in contact with is, but
never actually filled out the survey.
Still others remained out of contact
after our initial invitation, but filled
out and returned the survey by the
deadline. There was one case where
a Chinese student left a question
completely unanswered. This student
was contacted about the error, and
resubmitted the survey, but unfortunately the results were still not clear.
We decided not to include unclear
results in order to ensure the overall
integrity of our results.
As with any data collection, weunderstand that we would have had
better results if we had received
more data to analyze. No actual
trends can be talked about with confidence because we are dealing with
such a small representative slice of
the actual population.
TECHNIQUES Fall 2011
Further Research
A
s with most studies, we have
thought of additional questions
we would like to answer in future
research. Some of these questions
include:
• What languages do the students write in primarily?
Presumably German students,
for example, most often write
in German, but do they also
write in English and other
languages?
• If students write in more than
one language, how do they
convert their keyboards? This
is particularly interesting in
the case of Chinese and Arabic. Do those students converttheir keyboards in some way
to adapt to English, when they
write in English?
• If students are studying in
English for some of their
courses are theyalso writing in
English for those courses
• What changes in digital writing habits will we see across
time with these same student
populations?
7
Conclusion
I
n this study, international university students shared information that
allowed us to expand our own understanding of the use of digital tools
in different countries. The results
of our survey showed that students
in China, Germany, Palestine, and
the U.S. differ from one another in
their use of digital writing tools and
Internet usage.
There are many possible reasons for
the differences we saw. For example,
the availability and popularity of
specific technology differed in each
region of the world. From our Skype
conferences with our colleagues we
learned that, although tablet devices, such as the iPad, are popular
in the U.S., they aren’t as popular in
Germany or, like in Palestine, tablet
devices are still rarely even seen. This
shows that although tablet use in
the U.S. is growing, the availability
and popularity isn’t widespread in
other regions of the world. It is then
practical and valuable for a technical
writer to remember that devices and
programs they are familiar with may
not be used the same internationally.
We also found that different devices
were not equally used for different
academic tasks. The current trend
in technology is to make devices that
are capable of many different types
of work e.g. smart-phones and tablet
devices. Our results suggest that these
devices are not being used to their
full potential in the surveyed countries. This further suggests to us that
future international technical communication would require communicators to develop and design content which accommodates content
creation and content consumption
devices. An example of this would
be to duplicate one media into adobe
flash, PDF, and re-sized versions so it
can be viewable via different devices.
Figure 17
Research into the availability of certain devices and restrictions on Internet usage between countries should
be further examined to gain a better
understanding of why students from
one university in a country work differently from students at another.
During this study we applied the
concepts we learned through our
intercultural course readingsto gain
interesting knowledge from our international partners. To better understand the changing use of technology
in the academic setting, we suggest
further research into the areas we
have examined in this paper.This is
especially true with concern to device
use and restrictions in global technology, which must be better examined
to gain a more complete understanding of various technology used for
digital writing by university students.
Society for Technical Communication - Minnesota State Mankato Student Chapter
8
Appendix A
•
Digital writing tools
Fill in the cells with the percentage of time you spend with each tool and type of writing in a typical week at the
university. The total of each tool should equal 100%. If a category doesn’t apply to you, indicate n.a. (not
applicable).
Types of writing for specific digital devices used at my university
Lecture
notes
Digital writing tools
I use
Desktop computers
Portable computers
(laptop or net book)
Mobile phones, smart
phones & other
handhelds
Other portable
electronic devices
(tablets)
Papers or
reports for
classes
Email
messages to
professors
Other
email
messages
Instant
messaging
(SMS)
Notes to
self (not
email)
Totals
100
100
100
100
1. Indicate the percentage of time you use the following digital writing tools in one week:
Digital writing tools I use
Desktop computers
Portable computers (laptop or net book)
Mobile phones, smart phones & other
handhelds
Other portable electronic devices
(tablets)
Totals
Percentage of use in one week
100 %
2. Internet access location
The total should equal 100%. This table refers to one week.
Internet access
location
Home/student
housing
University
Percent (%) of
weekly Internet
use from…
Workplace
(outside of
university)
Other WiFi (Internet cafes,
etc)
Totals
100
3. Internet access type
Internet access type
The percentage (%) of
my Internet access in
one week is as follows
Wireless/WiFi
3G/4G network
Cable
Other
(telephone dialup)
Totals
100
Appendix B
Fulbright. Fulbright International Educational Exchange Program.
2011. http://fulbright.state.gov/history.html (accessed November 30, 2011).
Thatcher, Barry. Teaching Intercultural Rhetoric and Technical Communication; Theories, Curriculum, Pedagogies and Practices. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Company, Inc., 2011.
Society for Technical Communication - Minnesota State Mankato Student Chapter