Investigating first year science students' academic writing development (original) (raw)
Related papers
How should undergraduate science students’ writing be understood when it does not meet the conventions of scientific writing? Studies have shown that the writing that students produce in their course work on tasks that imitate authentic scientific writing practices often do not match the tone, vocabulary and grammatical choices made by professional scientists. However, from the perspective of looking at the students’ word and grammar choices alone, it is not easy to understand why students make their particular and varied word and grammar choices and how those choices can be related to their understanding of the goals and discourses that are typical of science practices. Studying the writing of four first year earth and geographical sciences students on a science faculty’s alternative access program, from an assignment in a course that introduced them to the research article, it seems that the students persist with the social purposes of their various school writing practices in attempting their new university writing tasks. It is this variety in the social purposes of the writing that the students continue to draw on in university that can explain some of the ways in which student writing does not meet even the broadest writing conventions of the discourses of science. Yet it seems that some of the social purposes and the related writing practices of some students can help them transition their writing more easily into a form that has the usual characteristics of a typical science genre. Therefore, understanding the social purposes that students bring with them can be crucial to successfully introducing them to the discourses of science and showing them how the social purposes of scientific practice can be served in a genre such as the research article.
2024
Academic writing is a pivotal concern in the tertiary phase of education, yet with a great deal of drawbacks and challenges. The current study investigates academic writing-related challenges and possible mechanisms to overcome them. Therefore, the study delves into the avenue of academic writing hurdles faced by undergraduate students whose second language (L2) is English, specifically in the domain of sciences. This also examines the tactics formulated, from the standpoint of lecturers in tackling these impediments effectively. This research underscores both commonalities and disparities that resonate with the themes documented in prior scholarly works by harnessing qualitative data from a sample of undergraduate students and lecturers. The investigation identifies substantial contrasts between the viewpoints of students and lecturers concerning the challenges inherent in academic writing. While the preeminent concern for most L2 undergraduate students pertains to intricacies at the compartmentalised linguistic features, the focal point for most lecturers revolves around the holistic level, which encompasses a wider range of linguistic attributes. Moreover, the study unravels specific coping mechanisms students employ to navigate academic writing challenges. These discernments carry profound pedagogical implications, accentuating the imperative for providing pertinent writing models and interventions tailored to the individual requirements of L2 science undergraduates.
Students' and Teachers' Perceptions: An Inquiry Into Academic Writing
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 2012
Af ter one last look, Caleb (all names are pseudonyms) uploaded his paper comparing the economic systems of two neighboring countries, one a democracy, the other a kingdom. He was certain he had captured the essence of academic writing for this assignment in his social studies course. When asked what made his paper a good example of writing for an academic audience, Caleb explained that he had avoided the use of first person, checked spelling for errors, and followed the format prescribed by his teacher. His operational definition of academic writing had emphasized his attention to surface structures. He thought he knew exactly what his teacher wanted, but she was looking, instead, for evidence of deep connections with content through academic discourse. This misinterpretation is not uncommon. Awareness of the discrepancies between teacher expectations and student perceptions of academic writing can help teachers formulate an approach to student writing. Academic writing is a window into what students can do in the larger domain of academic discourse within disciplinary communities. In many ways, Caleb explored content in the important ways his teacher intended; however, his view of what was expected differed markedly from his teacher's. He is, after all, a novice in a secondary school (Heller, 2010) who has a ways to go in developing disciplinary expertise. Teachers often have well-defined perceptions of what content knowledge is and how that knowledge should be conveyed. Sometimes these perceptions are tacit and hard to define without sustained discussion, because they represent one's beliefs about linguistics, pedagogy, culture, and command of specific disciplinary knowledge and language. How students navigate academic discourse is evident in their written and oral classroom work. Realizing this, we wondered if students and teachers viewed academic discourse in the same ways. This inquiry focuses on students' and teachers' perceptions of written discourse in science, social studies, and English language arts in 10th grade. "Why do we have to do this?" Students often ask this question about written work. Let's be sure we teach them worthwhile skills.
Meaning-making in academic writing: A comparative analysis of pre- and post-intervention essays
Language Matters, 2011
This article reports on a discourse analysis of academic essays written by two groups of second-year university students. The categories of analysis are three key features representing each of the three main functions of language identified by Systemic Functional Linguistics. The ideational function is represented by logical relationships, the interpersonal function by appraisal, and the textual function by thematic development. The pre-and posttest essays of all the members of a subject-specific and a mixed group of students were electronically tagged for Logical Ideation and Appraisal, whereas the pre-and posttest essays of only one respondent in each group were analysed for Thematic Development. Main findings were that students in the crossdisciplinary group acquired a more marked command of stance and engagement than the members of the subject-specific group. They also acquired a more varied repertoire of lexico-grammatical devices that facilitate cohesion and mark logical relationships. Students in the two intervention groups improved about equally in terms of their ability to develop an argument systematically. The results showed that a visible pedagogy and ample opportunity for practice are effective, irrespective of whether the focus of the intervention is on one particular subject-field or a cluster of subject-fields within a broad disciplinary area.
Improving Students’ Scientific Writing
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013
At universities students have to possess well-developed academic skills, such as making oral presentations, extracting the key information from the scientific texts or taking notes, in order to succeed in their studies. The article addresses one of such skills, i.e. writing an abstract/a summary, which students usually write on a weekly basis during their university studies and, particularly, when they have to write a longer seminar paper, a bachelor paper or a dissertation. Therefore, the article discusses how this type of scientific writing should look like and provide a few tips of completing it. In conclusion, a specific teaching example is outlined.
Students’ Ways of Understanding Academic Writing
Journal of General Education and Humanities, 2022
Universities have placed academic writing skills as valuable skills for university students; some universities have compulsory modules for undergraduates, and some have dedicated writing centers for students to seek assistance in composing academic writing. Without a doubt, writing in English, particularly for those whose first language is not English, is considered a complex and challenging skill to master. In addition, academic writing is even more complex, as an essential element of academic writing is the inclusion of claims and opinions. Therefore, the struggle observed is that students cannot voice their opinions in a formal writing context, which perhaps resulted in the structure of the written piece not being coherent and cohesive as per the standard of academic writing. In order to achieve its aim, this study will use a phenomenographic research approach to investigate the undergraduate"s conceptions of academic writing. A phenomenography approach is used in this study because students" experience composing academic writing would be the focus, and the research object would look at the variation in ways of experiencing such phenomena. The study relates to learners from various faculties at the University with a common ground of their English language proficiency that is used to gain entry to the University.
High school science students are routinely asked to read and produce lengthy, technical explanations in classroom contexts and on high-stakes content tests. However, teachers may be unaware of the complexity of these language-based tasks, particularly for English language learners (ELLs). Through documentary discourse analysis of scientific explanations from a standard chemistry textbook and ELL student writing, this study identifies opportunities for explicit language instruction in the secondary science classroom and shows that an understanding of the linguistic features of disciplinary texts can be used to promote students’ academic English literacy development while meeting content goals. This collaboration between a university researcher and local educator has implications for teachers, teacher educators, and the use of systemic functional linguistics in schools. Cite as: Accurso, K., & Levasseur, J. (2014, April). Writing the scientific explanation: Opportunities for L2 literacy development using systemic functional linguistics. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Philadelphia, PA.
A Systemic Functional Linguistics-based Analysis of Students’ Problems in Writing Exposition Text
Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference on Applied Linguistics (CONAPLIN 2018), 2019
Among various texts taught in secondary schools, exposition text is considered one of the most challenging texts to be learned by students. Informed by Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, this study seeks to investigate what problems encountered by students in writing exposition. To achieve that, a sample of students' writing therefore was purposively taken to be analyzed using SFL Framework. The results of the analysis identified several challenges encountered by students in writing exposition text including the use of impersonal pronoun to create more objective feeling and attitude toward the issue being discussed and the use of proper structure to show plurality. In term of textual metafunction analysis, the challenges are in the form of the use of proper conjunctions (including internal and causal conjunction) to create strong connections between clause and the proper organization of Theme-Rheme in thematic progression.