Assessing learning transfer and constraining issues in EAP writing practices

The aim of this study was to investigate what learners carry over from a general academic writing course to disciplinary writing settings and the variables constraining the quality of the outcome. Seven EFL university writing teachers and 58 students were selected using purposive and stratified sampling techniques. Data were generated using in-depth interview and document analysis. Thematic analysis and non-parametric statistical tools were employed to analyze the data. The findings showed that the students made limited learning transfer from the writing course to their writing settings across academic discourses. While surface level knowledge of grammatical features show better transfer, skills of discourse level writing processes, thinking strategies and vocabulary showed very poor transfer. A number of reasons are identified for the failure of learning transfer in the study setting. Among others, EAP teachers’ failure to bridge the EFL writing and content area writing practice contributed to this problem. The other variable causing this problem is students’ failure to make significant moves to adapt skills of writing processes and thinking strategies to new situations. Based on these evidences, alternative ways of improving the carryover impact of such courses have been put forward.

The Relationship between Comfort with Writing and Comfort Working with Numbers in STEM

Informed by writer-identity theory explaining links between emotion and identity, this study explores college STEM students’ feelings of comfort pertaining to math literacy, quantitative literacy, writing in STEM, and writing in general. Survey data from STEM majors (N = 134) was analyzed with Spearman rho tests of association. Results indicated that feelings of comfort working with numbers was significantly associated with comfort writing about numbers (rs = .504, p < .001); comfort writing about numbers was significantly associated with comfort writing in STEM (rs = .265, p = .002); and comfort writing in STEM was significantly associated with comfort writing in general (rs = .558, p < .001). This study suggests links between positive emotional experiences, which are implicated in identity performances, of quantitative writing, disciplinary writing, and writing in general. Future research on emotional experience and writer identity across the curriculum and in the disciplines is called for.

Technical writing as part of project management for engineers: using a writing-process approach to teach disciplinary writing requirements

This article focuses on how formative feedback can be used to help engineering students write precise and coherent management summaries that appeal to a mixed audience. Management summaries are especially challenging to master as students must strive for a balance between adhering to scientific standards and being intelligible for a wider non-expert readership. Students of Energy and Environmental Technology at the school of engineering (FHNW) in Switzerland write a total of six technical reports about their project work (mostly in German). By analysing two management summaries, the focus is laid on the lecturers’ approach of relying on formative feedback which supports and accompanies the students’ iterative writing processes. It is shown how in early semesters lecturers provide hands-on guidance, such as suggesting discourse markers or pinpointing vague references to sharpen students’ awareness of the need to write as concisely as possible for mixed audiences.

Disciplinary Writing Tutors at Work: A study of the Character of the Feedback Provided on Academic Writing at the BA Programmes at the Humanities Department

New students struggle to develop academic writing skills during transition to university. To meet this challenge, the Humanities department at the University of Southern Denmark implemented a research and development project to increase feedback to student writers. In the project, graduate students were trained as disciplinary writing tutors, and subsequently provided feedback on undergraduates’ assignments. The study presented in this article examines the feedback offered by the disciplinary writing tutors. As researchers, we ask, “What characterises the feedback offered by the disciplinary writing tutors?” The study is positioned in a sociocultural framework that draws on theories of disciplinary and academic literacy. Data was collected in four bachelor’s degree programmes and consists of the feedback given by the tutors and interviews with the tutors conducted at the end of the tutoring. Principal results indicate that the feedback on the students’ texts is distributed at the text layer of content and structure and the text layer of formalities. Feedback at the text layer of sentences is almost absent. Feedback on the writing and learning processes is limited. The discipline-specific feedback occurs as indications in the feedback to the BA students and is made clearer when comparing feedback in different programmes. The feedback the writing tutors provide demonstrates an understanding of academic writing as academic socialisation.