The management of information has become one of the central competencies needed in a technological society. The development of systems for the storage, retrieval, editing, packaging, dessemination, and utilization of scientific and technical information is especially needed. Just as crucial, however, is the necessity to train individuals who can assume information management and “linkage” roles. The scientific and technical communicator is one such individual. This paper attempts to explicate the concept of technical communication competence and demonstrate the potential utility of its operational counterpart in the training of students in scientific and technical communication. The potential benefits of implementing a technical communication competence testing program in scientific and technical communication curricula are explored, both for students and for educators and professionals.

The teaching of basic composition courses is oriented toward not only improving skills but also toward favorably affecting the student's orientation about writing; skills alone are insufficient unless one also has a predisposition toward using those skills. The recently emerging concept of writing (Daly & Miller, 1975a) appears to have a major relationship to both skill achievement and attitude toward writing. Writing apprehension is defined as a specific case of general communication apprehension one's anxiety or fear about communicating in real or imagined communication situations (Daly & Miller, 1975a). Such apprehension is said to outweigh individual projections of possible gains from the communication situation (Phillips, 1968). These apprehensions toward communicating appear to lead to a number of deleterious effects in various environments. For example, in oral communication situations, individuals who are highly apprehensive communicate less (Wells & Lashbrook, 1970), disclose less (Hamilton, 1972), and achieve less socially (McCroskey & Sheahan, 1977), academically (McCroskey & Daly, 1976; McCroskey & Andersen, 1976; Smythe & Powers, 1978), and occupationally (Daly & McCroskey, 1975), than do individuals who are low in apprehension. Furthermore, individuals who are highly apprehensive in written communication use fewer words, statements, ly words, commas, and delimiting punctuation (Daly, 1977, in press), and less intense language (Daly & Miller, 1975c), and their is rated lower in quality (Daly, 1978; Book, 1976). Book (1976) suggests further major differences in structure, language use, and amounts of information conveyed between high and low apprehensives. Composition teachers develop significantly less positive expectancies of high apprehensive students than of low apprehensive students. Occupations with low requirements are more desirable to high apprehensives than those with high requirements (Daly & Shamo, 1976). In addition, high apprehensives have lower success expectations of themselves in classes than low apprehensives, perceive themselves to have been less successful in previous oriented classes, and are less likely to take advanced courses demanding writing. (Daly & Miller, 1975b). Given such an abundance of clearly defined negative effects for the high apprehensive students, attention must be drawn toward possible allevia-