Communication skills are very important for engineers, especially when they need to justify professional choices by developing arguments in written documents. Engineering students at Universidad del Norte learn how to write argumentative documents in the second semester. However, when students reach their senior year, their communication skills do not show their previous training. The paper presents preliminary results of a diagnosis of this skill in engineering students of different programs, different semesters and two different universities. The methodology for the diagnosis consisted in asking students to first read documents on a particular subject, and then, in the classroom, to write an argumentative essay about the same topic. All students used computers and submitted their essays digitally. The professors evaluated the essays by using a predefined rubric. Results show the students have a low level in academic writing and argument developing. Few students properly cited their sources and no essay fulfilled the minimum requirements for an argumentative document. Noticeably, even though all students employed word processor software, they did not use grammar or style check features. As a consequence, the research team believes that students may not be familiar with these tools. Additionally, students do not allow time for the text to settle before verifying the document, or they do not correct it before submission. Regarding formal aspects of the argument document, fifty percent of the students do not include a thesis in the introduction. Nonetheless, in most cases the research team identified some statements that could form or be understood as a pseudo-thesis. Essays in general lack evidences and facts to support the arguments. Moreover, most essays did not provide a conclusion where they clearly set the reader in a context and they did not resume the thesis.

The paper presents the most important results from a study in argumentative communication skills, developed in three engineering undergraduate programs from year 2012 until 2014. The work was performed by a multidisciplinary group in two Colombian regions. During year 2012, professors noted that senior students had problems in both oral and written communication. Therefore, engineering professors decided to join expert faculty in communication skills and to design a long-term project to help students. The project was meant to improve these skills, and it included four phases. Phase one diagnosed basic communication skills. Phase two employed an academic intervention. Phase three developed a new diagnosis in argumentative writing skills. Finally, phase four developed a different intervention for argumentation. The first two phases included students from the first cohort as the reference group and students from a different cohort as the experimental group. The research evaluated data by means of one rubric and one student opinion survey. Both tools were validated by experts. Results show performance improvement in the second cohort after the intervention. The outcome agrees with related work reported in the literature. During phase three, professors performed a diagnosis through the curriculum, specifically in argumentation. The study encompasses students enrolled in different courses and semesters from Electrical, Electronics and Systems Engineering at Universidad del Norte (Barranquilla, Colombia), and a course from Electrical Engineering at Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Medell?n Campus). Results show students achievement in argumentation, which was used to design a pedagogical intervention to improve student performance. Phase 4 assessed the same skill in the new cohort, executed the intervention and finally evaluated the results. The academic intervention was carefully planned in every phase. During the intervention, the group used multimedia tools as video and Academic Blackboard in order to make a homogeneous strategy in all engineering programs in different places in the country. Additionally, the professors employed a Google Docs form in order to speed up evaluation process. The students wrote argumentative essays before and after the intervention, employing the "Five Paragraph Essay" technique. Statistical analysis shows improvement; therefore, we can conclude that it was possible to enhance argumentation skills of the students.

This paper presents the results of the first phase of the project that was developed in order to enhance oral and written communication skills in students coursing the last semester in engineering at the Capstone Design curse. At this level the student has completed both the basic training cycle (in which he had to study the subjects Competence Communicative 1 and 2) as the professional core and therefore expected, according to criterion 5 ABET, that a student is ready to finish off your formation with a design experience that includes multiple stages whose reach extends, in some cases, the implementation of solutions. During initial phase of the project was developed an advanced specific training to professors to provide them tools to understand the problems of oral and written expression within students. At this same stage an opinion poll was applied to students in order to know their impressions of the importance of communication skills in engineering and in particular, in the course Capstone Design. As well, a rubric was designed so that teachers could evaluate the communication skills in this first group. The Rubric designed allows rating on a scale of 5 points the quality of different aspects of communicative competence of students in relation to their Final Report. The Rubric was created from the enumeration of oral and written aspects that are deemed essential for proper support of a Final Report of a technology project. The project is now in the second phase, which consists in training for professors, class lectures and tutorials for students. Preliminary results presented in this report show that students are fully aware of the importance and need to develop better oral and written transferable skills in not only the Capstone Design class, but also all along their career.