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Acquiring writing competence in English-medium higher education
Albert Model 1. Introduction The situation I am addressing in this paper is English-medium education in higher education in the Netherlands. Education is student-centred, and discipline or domain focused: I use the word domain to cover the areas of study that students are increasing investigating where several disciplines (in a traditional sense) are integrated. For example, a programme in European Studies will incorporate elements of history, geography, politics, law, economics, sociology, anthropology, among others. In this situation, it is natural that the acquisition of domain knowledge and skills takes precedence over language enhancement, to the extent that language development may be constrained (Hellekjaer & Westergaard, 2003). Ideally, in this context, students on programmes taught through English would acquire domain-specific writing competence also through collaborative learning. Indeed, on some programmes this is the case where small groups of students collaborate to produce a joint paper. In English-medium programmes, we have attempted to integrate both the process and product approaches, with limited training in the process of writing while working towards a final product (which will be assessed). There is also integration with the various domains, in that the writing assignments are prescribed by the domain specialists and assessed jointly by both the specialists and the English language staff. Budgetary constraints, however, do not allow for very extensive guidance for the process. Study into citation behaviourIn order to examine further learning by doing in a partly English-medium programme in a non-English-speaking environment, a study was started which would investigate the acquisition of scientific writing. To keep the study within manageable limits, the research question was narrowed to examining how students acquire citation behaviour in their specialist domain. Citation behaviour is defined as the way in which writers report the sources of findings and opinions of other researchers. It is assumed that the way in which writers will do so is dependent on the depth and breadth of their knowledge within the domain. Thus, citation behaviour is taken as a proxy measure of the writers’ relative expertise in the domain; it reflects the degree to which they have become socialized in the domain. Appropriate citation behaviour will reflect the conventions within the domain. As Hartley (2001) has mentioned, it takes a long time to acquire the conventions of a discipline (domain). Previous studies of citation behaviour have looked at final products: published research articles (Hyland, 1999) and PhD theses (Thompson & Tribble, 2001). However, such studies do not give any evidence of how writers learn to produce such disciplinary patterns, i.e. the process they go through to achieve citation adequacy. The present study is limited to students’ explanations of their own writing process and of their citation behaviour1. 2. MethodThis paper reports on semi-structured interviews conducted as part of a pilot study with graduate students in their first year of PhD studies in psychology. Eight PhD students were approached and asked to participate in the study. If they agreed, they were asked to submit one or more papers that they had recently written in English as part of their PhD studies. Four students responded within the ten-day time frame (3 female/1 male). The interview comprised questions about the students’ background, their learning in psychology, their approach to reading and writing including sources of help, their perceptions of their citation behaviour, and their writing process. Examples were selected from the students’ own papers to represent the range of different usages in the text. For reasons of time, it was not possible to question the students about every instance. Each interview lasted about one hour and was conducted in English. The interviews were recorded on audiotape, and then transcribed. This paper reports on the relationship between the PhD students’ writing process and their perceived citation behaviour.
3. ResultsThe results show the perceptions of each respondent of how he or she went about writing a paper. Student J seems to follow a fairly straightforward path (Figure 1, left-hand panel). When he has an idea for a paper, he goes to the literature and write summaries of what he reads. After a selection process of the summaries, he makes a rough plan, and then writes a rough schema. He then writes the paper from start to finish. He checks, revises and edits afterwards until he is satisfied. Student K follows a somewhat similar process (Figure 1, right-hand panel). However, she makes only a very rough mental plan. She then writes sequentially, first describing the methods, the results, then the discussion, and finally the introduction. Her process differs from J’s in that she edits (for grammar and mechanics, etc.) continuously. But she revises afterwards too, until she is satisfied. _____________________________________________________________ Insert Figure 1 about here _____________________________________________________________
The reasons the PhD students gave for using non-integral and integral citations to cite previous research could be classified as research, discourse, or language and training. Each of these categories included a wide range of reasons, as shown in Table 1. _____________________________________________________________ Insert Table 1 about here _____________________________________________________________ 4. DiscussionThe pilot study shows that the PhD students perceive that they follow different writing processes, and the processes do not seem as neat as sometimes theory would lead us to believe (Hayes & Flower, 1980; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1987). What we may see here are the germs of some linkage. We may hypothesize that the “simple” writing process is associated with greater use of quotes, with fuzzy reasoning about the use of non-integral citations, and with the use of integral citations to create space to elaborate at length on previous studies. A more “careful” or “complex” writing process may be associated with sparse use of quotes, and with more rhetorical reasons for choosing integral or non-integral citations. Using citation behaviour as a proxy measurement, the main study is expected to show that students can learn to write relatively well in the discipline without much language guidance. While domain staff can certainly judge the content, conventions, organization, and style, they may not be explicitly aware of covert norms of the domain, a feature recently highlighted by Petersen and Shaw (2002). In this respect, domain staff may not be in a position to adequately explicate the specific linguistic features of the domain and the reasons for the linguistic choices made in the domain, nor may they be able to assist in enhancing language accuracy. For these purposes language experts can play a critical role in enhancing students’ written competences. 5. ConclusionIn conclusion, if the design and implementation of English-medium education is to be successful, the participants involved are facing a number of broad challenges. For example, more domain-specific research is needed to clarify the language and conventions of the domain. The research would allow training to be based on evidence rather than opinions. Second, programmes face the logistic challenge both to provide tailored feedback for the students and to cope with large numbers of students. In effect this demands finding solutions that enable the implementation of mass individualization. Solutions may involve providing not classes, but coaching at exactly the right time individual students require it, providing for instance tailored guidance in domain and genre analysis. Third, there is no “one size fits all”. Programmes and methodological approaches need to be customized to the different disciplines, the different conventions, and even the different approaches within same faculty, a point emphasized by Candlin (2002) who referred to the “heterogeneous fragmentation” in the disciplines and “competing institutional frames within the same academy”. Finally, the challenge is to develop methodologies that foster the collaborative construction of texts. Students have to be trained to work together in teams within their domains, to provide effective and efficient feedback on the work of their peers, and to assess appropriately their own input and that of their peers (cf. Sluijsmans, Dochy, & Moerkerke, 1999). In this way, they may be gradually socialized into the culture and conventions of the domain. In English-medium education, this challenge increases in importance in that the domain comprises participants from all over the world. Notes1 The study forms part of a longitudinal investigation into whether, in English-medium education in a non-English-speaking environment, writers can achieve domain-specific citation adequacy with limited (or no) support. ReferencesBereiter, C., and Scardamalia, M. (1987). The psychology of written composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Candlin, C. (2002). Opening address. 13th World Congress of AILA, Singapore, 16-21 December 2002. Flower, L., and Hayes, J.R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32: 365-387. Hartley, J. (2001). Students, writing and computers. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 1, 1: 10-15. Retrieved 29 September 2002 from: http://www.psychology.ltsn.ac.uk/vol_1_issue_1.html Hellekjaer, G.O., and Westergaard, M.R. (2003). An exploratory survey of content learning through English at Nordic universities. In: Van Leeuwen, C., and Wilkinson, R. (eds.). Multilingual Approaches in University Education. Nijmegen: Valkhof Pers, pp. 65-80. Hyland, K. (1999). Academic attribution: Citation and the construction of disciplinary knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 20, 3: 341-367. Petersen, M., and Shaw, P. (2002). Language and disciplinary differences in a biliterate context. World Englishes, 21, 3: 357-374. Sluijsmans, D., Dochy, F., and Moerkerke, G. (1999). Creating a learning environment by using self-, peer- and co-assessment. Learning Environments Research, 1: 293-319. Thompson, P., and Tribble, C. (2001). Looking at citations: Using corpora in English for academic purposes. Language Learning and Technology, 5, 3: 91-105.
Figure 1. The writing process of two PhD students. Left-hand panel: student J. Right-hand panel: student K.Table 1. Reasons for using non-integral and integral citations, elicited from PhD students’ interviews
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Last modified on :
02 October, 2006
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