Developing Learners' Academic Writing Skills in Higher Education: A Study for Educational Reform

2002 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nahla N. Bacha
2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Sugeng Purwanto

<p>This is to report a 2-Year Research Project (2015-2016) funded by the Directorate General of Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia, which aims at justifying whether or not the online mode of task-based writing assignments (of various genres of English texts) could improve the writing skills of the students at higher education. An action research was conducted in College of Economics and Business Studies, Stikubank University (UNISBANK) Semarang, Central Java Indonesia in response to the lack of time allocated to students’ writing activities in their English class. Three cycles of treatments were employed—each with five phases, (1) identification of problem area, (2) collection and organization of data, (3) interpretation of data, (4) action based on data and (5) reflection of action. The findings showed that—compared with the initial condition— there was a mean increase of 31% and an increase of 121% in the students’ scores beyond the passing score of 61. Also, the students’ writing motivation increased considerably (&gt;86% toward positive attitudes) as revealed in the survey at the end of the treatment program.</p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Callies ◽  
Ekaterina Zaytseva ◽  
Rebecca L. Present-Thomas

The importance of appropriate assessment methods for academic writing skills in higher education has received increasing attention in SLA research in recent years. Despite this, there is still relatively little understanding of how academic writing skills develop at the most advanced levels of proficiency. Use of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is one way to ensure the comparability of findings across research efforts and continue to move the field forward. This paper presents some key concepts and definitions from the fields of SLA and advancedness research, language assessment and corpus linguistics and introduces several papers that address writing assessment within the context of higher education.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-459
Author(s):  
Ivana Trajanoska ◽  
Marija Andonova

Leonard J. Rosen defines academic writing as an “informed, logical, clear, well structured, and based on evidence” (Rosen, 2009) prose style which serves to describe, understand, and further investigate the world around us. Academic writing rests upon common standards of logic and clarity which enable writers to enter into a conversation through their writing. Developing effective writing skills for academic purposes is a crucial aspect of higher education. These skills are indispensable for the students since they affect their overall academic success, but also their life outside the university. The present paper deals with the challenges of developing effective writing skills for academic purposes in the Macedonian language in students in the Republic of North Macedonia. It presents a part of the findings of a five-year research conducted at the higher education institution University American College Skopje (UACS). The aim of the research is to explore the gap between the expected already acquired writing skills at secondary school and the writing skills for academic purposes the students should develop in higher education. The present paper presents the data obtained from the self-evaluation process conducted from spring semester 2015 until spring semester 2019. The quantitative research method was used in the research and the quantitative data obtained were analyzed, textually interpreted, and visually presented. Twenty nine point three percent of the students said that they knew how to write a short essay where they would present evidence for a point of view and 32.4% said that they are not sure how to do this. Even though writing an essay (titled “project assignment”) is a required part of the mandatory State Baccalaureate (Matura) exam since 2010 and all students had completed it in order to enroll at University, 38.3% of the students involved in the research said that they do not know how to do this.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-91
Author(s):  
E. I. Shpit ◽  
V. N. Kurovskiy

Intensification of research work at engineering universities of Russian Federation leads to the increase of publication activity of graduate and PhD students in high-impact English language journals. However, the level of academic writing skills still remains rather low. On one hand, it results from the fact that the majority of applicants to engineering institutions have only basic knowledge of a foreign language. On the other hand, the curriculums of most Russian universities do not include developing academic writing skills as a stand-alone discipline or a part of the “Foreign Language” discipline. This paper aims at considering the main constituents of academic writing in a foreign language, such as the current state policy in higher education, the content of academic writing for engineering specialties, the publication process participants, the available resources for developing and improving the required skills in the realities of university language education; as well as identifying the external factors which create favorable conditions for developing academic writing skills of engineering students.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Eleni Meletiadou

Peer assessment (PA) is one of the most popular forms of alternative assessment currently used in higher education institutions worldwide. In the current study, PA was used as an inclusive assessment tool to enhance students' writing skills and motivation towards writing and learning in general. Forty-two undergraduate students attended an academic writing module for one academic semester. The overall aim was to develop their writing skills taking into consideration their individual differences and ensuring all students had an opportunity to succeed. Students received training in PA and were then involved in reciprocal anonymous PA. Findings indicated that learners improved their writing skills considerably and became more independent learners. Their motivation also increased as they could better understand the assessment criteria. However, they confessed that they needed more training and support and they believed that PA should also be used in other modules and courses to enhance student collaboration and reflection.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natela DOGHONADZE ◽  
Ekaterine PIPIA ◽  
Nikoloz PARJANADZE

The article deals with various aspects of plagiarism: definition (discriminating it from cheating and copyright violation), types (intended / unintended), involved people, causes, prevention, detection and punishment of plagiarism. A survey (questionnaire containing 42 items to be assessed in a 5-point Likert scale and one open- ended item) was conducted in Georgia. The questionnaire developed based on the literature review was uploaded on social media in three variants (to analyze the results separately and compare them): for students, for researchers and for assessors. The obtained results revealed that the opinions of the three groups of respondents differed to a certain degree, but were quite similar, eventually. The survey disclosed the existing problems, such as: lack of academic writing (in the native and especially foreign language) and research skills, lack of training in avoiding plagiarism, insufficiently clear university policies in the area, the emphasis on punishment instead of prevention, etc. Based on the obtained results recommendations for universities are given concerning plagiarism policies. 


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