ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Final-year project (FYP) writing requires technical and vocational education and training (TVET) students to transform disciplinary knowledge into coherent, academically appropriate technical texts. Yet writing support is often separated from the technical tasks through which such texts are produced. This study examined student needs, perceived usability and acceptance of an expert-reviewed Cross-Curricular Instructional Model of English Writing Skills (C-IMEWS) prototype designed to embed writing support within authentic FYP activity. A cross-sectional questionnaire was completed by 218 students from seven faculties at a Malaysian technical university. Because the instrument originated before the study was narrowed to writing, two legacy speaking-focused items were excluded from the publication analysis. Four writing-relevant composite measures demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .929-.970; omega = .947-.974). Students reported strong perceived value/integration (M = 4.13, SD = 0.55), writing/research capability (M = 4.17, SD = 0.58), usability/implementation (M = 4.14, SD = 0.57), and overall acceptance (M = 4.20, SD = 0.60). Prior experience of writing a technical or project report in English was associated with higher scores across all four constructs (Cohen's d = 0.45-0.58), whereas gender and faculty differences were not statistically significant. A robust multiple regression explained 85.2% of the variance in overall acceptance; perceived usability/implementation showed the strongest unique association (standardised beta = .539, p < .001), followed by perceived writing/research capability (beta = .286, p = .004). Open-ended responses converged on needs for report organisation, scaffolding, examples/templates, feedback, and digital or AI-supported assistance. The findings provide needs and acceptability evidence for a writing-integrated FYP prototype, but they do not establish causal improvement in writing performance. Classroom-based trials using direct writing outcomes are required as the next validation stage.
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