scholarly journals Self-Assessment in Academic Writing: A UAE Case Study

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-67
Author(s):  
David Litz

The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student ratings and teacher ratings on a university-level writing assignment in order to investigate the extent to which students have the ability and wherewithal to accurately and reliably assess themselves on a finished writing product. The Pearson Product Moment coefficient was used to determine whether or not there was a statistical correlation between student scores and teacher scores while the Intra-Class Coefficient and Spearman Brown Prophecy formula were used to determine the degree of agreement between raters as well as amongst all of the raters for an average reliability score. In this case the results were very promising as it was found that student and teacher scores correlated very highly and demonstrated a strong degree of agreement. This suggests that self assessment may be used to assist students in this particular context to better understand the conventions of English writing and ultimately improve their overall writing ability.

Author(s):  
Eddy White

Unlike studies of teacher feedback on student writing, research into teacher self-assessment of their own feedback practices is quite rare in the assessment literature. In this reflective case study, the researcher/teacher systematically analyzed feedback practices to clearly determine the form and kind of formative feedback being provided on student essays, and also to compare these feedback practices to recommended practice from the feedback literature. The research took place in an academic English writing course for third-year students at a Japanese university. A close examination of the teacher feedback on the first draft of 21 student essays was undertaken, and more than 800 feedback interventions were identified and coded. Results of this investigation show a number of patterns of practice in giving feedback, including; extensive use of questions in teacher commentary, very limited use of praise comments, and varying amounts of feedback provided on individual essays. Results also show that the feedback practices discovered through this investigation align well with recommended best practice. The case study positions the teacher as ‘learner' in this feedback process, and calls for similar published research describing in detail what teachers do when providing feedback to students on their work.


Author(s):  
Eddy White

Unlike studies of teacher feedback on student writing, research into teacher self-assessment of their own feedback practices is quite rare in the assessment literature. In this reflective case study, the researcher/teacher systematically analyzed feedback practices to clearly determine the form and kind of formative feedback being provided on student essays, and also to compare these feedback practices to recommended practice from the feedback literature. The research took place in an academic English writing course for third-year students at a Japanese university. A close examination of the teacher feedback on the first draft of 21 student essays was undertaken, and more than 800 feedback interventions were identified and coded. Results of this investigation show a number of patterns of practice in giving feedback, including; extensive use of questions in teacher commentary, very limited use of praise comments, and varying amounts of feedback provided on individual essays. Results also show that the feedback practices discovered through this investigation align well with recommended best practice. The case study positions the teacher as ‘learner' in this feedback process, and calls for similar published research describing in detail what teachers do when providing feedback to students on their work.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Hanna Sundari ◽  
Rina Husnaini Febriyanti

<p>Argumentative writing plays an important role in academic writing at university level. However, learners mostly find that writing this essay a challenging and effortful task. This present study aims at exploring the structures of argumentative essay written by Indonesian EFL students from one university in Jakarta Indonesia. Moreover, it investigates their difficulty and constraints during composing the essay. Using a descriptive qualitative design, the authors selected writing assignment and questionnaire for collecting data. A layout of Toulmin model of arguments was used in analyzing the essays. The findings of the study show that the argumentative papers cover the main elements: claim (thesis statement), data, rebut, and rebuttal data using either in block pattern or point-by-point pattern. The elements show diverse in types. Logical analysis and explanation are the most frequently used on the papers. Though they present acceptable thesis with well-organized essay, some information is unrelated and data for supporting the claim are seemingly insufficient. In addition, the students think that this essay as difficult task. In general, lack of knowledge, vocabulary and practice cause the constraints. In specific level, the students report that giving argument, finding support and working on counterargument become source of difficulty and constraints.</p>


ReCALL ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon Chang

AbstractCorpora have been suggested as valuable sources for teaching English for academic purposes (EAP). Since previous studies have mainly focused on corpus use in classroom settings, more research is needed to reveal how students react to using corpora on their own and what should be provided to help them become autonomous corpus users, considering that their ultimate goal is to be independent scholars and writers. In the present study, conducted in an engineering lab at a Korean university over 22 weeks, data on students’ experiences and evaluations of consulting general and specialized corpora for academic writing were collected and analyzed. The findings show that, while both corpora served the participants well as reference sources, the specialized corpus was particularly valued for its direct help in academic writing because, as non-native English-speaking graduate engineering students, the participants wanted to follow the writing conventions of their discourse community. The participants also showed disparate attitudes toward the time taken for corpus consultation due to differences in factors such as academic experience, search purposes, and writing tasks. The article concludes with several suggestions for better corpus use with EAP students regarding the compilation of a corpus, corpus training, corpus competence, and academic writing.


Author(s):  
Xiaodong Zhang

This study reports on how a Chinese suburban English writing teacher responded to systemic functional linguistics (SFL)-based distance education. The study draws on qualitative content analyses of the teacher’s reflections, interviews, and classroom interactions. The results show that through SFL-based distance education, the teacher, interacting with his agency, overcame multiple constraints and developed academically in terms of how to understand valued academic writing. Additionally, the teacher also harnessed this newfound knowledge to support students’ socialization into academic English discourse. The study concludes the effectiveness of SFL-based distance education for English writing teachers in similarly constrained contexts, which could be enhanced by teachers’ agency. Implications of the study include synergizing the SFL-based curriculum with distance teacher education so that language educators can better assist students in gaining the knowledge needed for navigating academic English literacy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Karlen ◽  
Miriam Compagnoni

Implicit theories about the nature of human attributes as either malleable or fixed influence how people perceive knowledge and approach different tasks. Two studies explored the relationship between implicit theory of writing ability, metacognitive strategy knowledge (MSK), and strategy use in the context of academic writing. The pre-study with N = 51 university students revealed a significant correlation between students’ implicit theories and their MSK. Self-reported quality and diversity of strategy use, assessed by open-ended questions, were not significantly associated with students’ implicit theories. Expanding strategy use measures, study 2 ( N = 133) found significant correlations between a more malleable theory and more frequent use of metacognitive strategies. Confirming the results of the pre-study, the results of study 2 showed that a more malleable theory of writing ability was directly associated with higher MSK. In sum, the results illustrate the importance of linking implicit theories to self-regulated learning.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 154-161
Author(s):  
Sadaf Tariq ◽  
Sumaera Mahmood . ◽  
Sarwat Mubeen .

Psychologists and educators believe motivation as a significant factor that has an effect on student learning and accomplishment. It is a general argument that suitable motivational orientations make learning easy while unsuitable ones obstruct it. Intrinsic motivation is a kind of motivation that approach from individual factors within a person rather than merely from some outside motives. Intrinsic motivation shows learners commitment in learning for its personal interest. In Pakistan, perhaps little research has yet been done in this field. The study was conducted to find the relationship between intrinsic motivation and academic achievement of students at university level in province Punjab, Pakistan. The main objectives of study were, to finds out profiles of students with respect to intrinsic motivation and academic achievement, to find out difference among male and female students on intrinsic motivation and academic achievement. The population of the study comprised of 600 male and female students studying in universities of Punjab, Pakistan. The sample consisted of 300 male and 300 female students of universities selected through multistage sampling procedure. In order to measure intrinsic motivation of students, an adapted version of Harter’s (1981) intrinsic motivation scale was used. Academic achievement of students was measured through their university results. The scores on each variable were calculated and summarized through mean and standard deviation scores. The significance of difference between mean scores of male and female and BA and B.Sc students on the study variables were calculated by t-test (two-tailed). The relationship between intrinsic motivation and academic achievement was computed by using Person ‘r’. The results of the study revealed no gender difference. Both male and female were found to be equal in intrinsic motivation and academic achievement.


Author(s):  
Vanessa Simonite

In a module designed to develop skills in presenting and evaluating statistics, students of mathematics and statistics were given an assignment asking them to research and write a piece of data driven journalism. Data driven journalism is a new phenomenon which has expanded rapidly due to the growth in open data, new visualisation tools and online reporting in newspapers, periodicals and blogs. The assignment provided students with a writing assignment that was individual, small-scale, research-based and embedded within their discipline. The students were asked to formulate a research question that could be investigated using survey data available from an electronic data archive. The result of the investigation was to be written up as a piece of data driven journalism for online publication, including a data visualisation. In addition to using discipline-based skills and written communication, the assignment required students to use research skills and digital literacy. An assignment set in the context of writing for the public extends students’ writing experience beyond the domains of discipline-based professional reports and academic writing. Data driven journalism provides opportunities to develop students’ writing alongside other skills for employment and can be used to design assessments for a wide range of disciplines.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document