[NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Report 1, part 1:] Technical communications in aeronautics: Results of an exploratory study

A study was undertaken that explored several aspects of technical communications in aeronautics. The study, which utilized survey research in the form of a self-administered questionnaire, was sent to 2,000 randomly selected members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Six hundred and six usable questionnaires (30.3 percent) were received by the established cut off date. The study had five objectives. The first was to solicit the opinions of aeronautical engineers and scientists regarding the importance of technical communications to their profession; second, to determine their use and production of technical communications; third, to seek their views on the content of an undergraduate course in technical communications; fourth, to determine their use of libraries/technical information centers; and finally, to determine the use and importance of computer and information technology to them. The findings add considerable information to the knowledge of technical communications practices among aeronautical engineers and scientists and reinforce some of the conventional wisdom about technical communications and question other widely-held notions.