Download `A lot of students write badly but we don`t know

“A lot of students write badly but we don’t
know why” – an investigation into the
perceptions, beliefs and experience of
academic teaching staff regarding student
writing problems in one institutional
context
Richard Bailey
University of Aberdeen
[email protected]
Context, conduct and focus of the research
• Context - UK ‘new’/post-92 university
• Research strategy – an institutional case study
realised through a critical ethnographic-style
inquiry involving semi-structured interviews;
open and exploratory talk
• Participants – cross section of academic
teaching staff, 48 in total from diverse
disciplinary backgrounds: traditional humanities,
applied and hybrid disciplines in social and
applied sciences and ‘emergent’ disciplines
Respondents were asked the
following:
• What is student writing in your discipline? / What
particular features distinguish student writing in
your discipline? / What expectations are there of
student writers?
• Is student academic writing changing?
• What innovations in student writing practices
and assessments have taken place in the
school/department/in the modules you teach?
Presentation of the data
Excerpts from the data which illustrate:
1) Staff perceptions and beliefs about student
writing at the transcriptional/basic skills level
2) Their expectations and beliefs about students’
academic writing capabilities generally
3) Students’ academic writing and heterogeneity
in assessment practices
4) Staff experience of, and views on student
writing and assessment in and across study
areas
5) An extended excerpt illustrating the experience
and perspective of an individual teacher
1. Staff perceptions about students’ writing at the
transcriptional/basic skills level
Sometimes students try to be overcomplicated.
Other times they simply don’t write well at all.
We do not penalise directly for poor grammar.
There is a limit to how much time as teachers we
could and should spend on correcting poor
English. I refer them to the study skills centre.
(History)
[Students] take study skills in the first year but this
doesn’t always filter through into their writing.
Even in the core courses in the second year
students are badly in need of assistance in basic
writing skills (English)
The literacy issue is two-fold: home students
have poor grammar and the overseas
students can’t write (Business School)
My view is that it [poor student writing] is not
to do with aptitude or rationality; it is to do
with poor grammar. What makes a
difference is what they read and their
exposure to different writing styles… It is
because students rarely have to write
(Applied Sciences)
Sentence structure and grammar can be a real
problem. They have difficulty structuring
complex thought in a way that is comprehensible
to the reader. When they get into argument there
is often a morass of messy words. They borrow
ideas and barely paraphrase them or do so
badly. Many students can write well in certain
circumstances but the assignment is not the
right one. When they talk through the
assignment with the teacher they generally do
better because the teacher provides the
structure (Education)
2. Expectations and beliefs about students’
academic writing capabilities in general
Essay writing is a test of ability to express yourself
well in writing. The facility to write in the
academy needs to be built up over time starting
with building blocks (History)
I have run an essay lab for students in their third
year because they are weak at writing essays.
We are encouraged to devise innovative
assessment and then the students are put
through exams in which they write discursively.
We haven’t given them the skills to write essays
(Psychology)
We are required to keep nursing records. Students
learn how to use the appropriate phraseology or
turn of phrase to manage this. Student writing
practices are driven by professional
requirements. It usually takes students a good
six months to get the hang of how to write in the
academic style… The traditional essay is the
common requirement across courses. Students
misread questions or fail to use support from the
literature. Students also have to write reflectively
and produce reflective essays. This can be a
source of confusion (Nursing)
3. Students’ academic writing and heterogeneity in
assessment and practices
Student writing includes seminar logs, exam questions, portfolios and
biographies, essays, reports and diaries (Sociology)
Normally students write reports. There is some discussion and
referencing but it is not a ‘statement and discuss’ type assignment.
However, there are exams in which students have to write
discursively. There are differences between courses as they require
different ways of writing (Business School)
We would never accept writing in the first person; the standard style
that is required is the third person. There may be areas of the
School where it is the case they write differently. I don’t know about
that. (Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences)
In Geography some modules are applied but many
are theoretically based. We don’t have many
report based assignments. We still use
traditional essays of two or three thousand
words (Applied Sciences)
In the Environmental division there is great
diversity in the way students are required to
write: field-trip write-ups, essays, lab reports. We
don’t define what our style is. Several years ago
[students’ writing] skills were not considered
good enough. What employers want is a more
report style of writing. There was something of a
transition from essays to reports. (Applied
Sciences)
4. Student writing and assessment in and across
areas of study
People are obsessed with referencing and plagiarism
nowadays…A lot depends on the audience and the
objective of the writing, of course. Students are confused
by practices between modules. There are differences of
opinion about what is acceptable and we [teachers] have
different standards (Computing, Engineering and
Information Sciences)
It is quite clear that they [students] confuse ‘assertion’ and
‘evidence’ and that they don’t quite understand what a
consistent argument is nor what is required with
structure…Using a quotation is not enough. That’s a
particular bug-bear of mine. They do it in the social
sciences. (History)
Staff have certain views on academic standards.
For example how big words like ‘argument’ or
‘structure’ are used. We could sit down and
discuss what these words mean but we wouldn’t
necessarily agree. (Sociology)
Different interpretations of words do occur when
staff talk; during moderation for example. The
process can reveal big differences in the way
people see things like ‘structure’. Practices vary
among staff and across the branches [of
Nursing]
5. Issues and concerns in student writing and
assessment: a teacher’s perspective
We have many joint degrees with other
departments. The system of writing or their
structure [in other discipline areas] is not the
same as ours. What we have is a pick n’ mix
situation. Students have to switch from different
modes of thinking and writing. There is too much
marketing going on for joints that maybe aren’t
really feasible. Before coming into academia I
was out in the big wide world. I have a slightly
different view of things and about how people
learn. They have preferential learning styles…
We have to value essays because they are the
best way of synthesising knowledge. They are
absolutely essential for assessment. But in an
interdisciplinary degree structure we are
measuring different things. It is something we
[the department] are going to have to talk about.
They [students] need to understand why we ask
them to write in certain ways and we need to
show more understanding of the difficulties they
face to retain students. Those on joints are
particularly vulnerable (Social Sciences)