An evaluation of research students' writing support intervention

Abstract

Purpose-Achieving quality standards in postgraduate education, particularly among Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students, can be challenging. In addition to the diverse educational and cultural backgrounds of these students, thesis writing frequently involves the development of new skills associated with the comprehension of a large volume of information, critical analysis and the development of an academic writing style. Many students need support in one or all of these key areas. Universities currently provide a number of different writing support activities to address students' needs. The purpose of this study is to report on a writing support intervention that employed a specialist in academic writing to support HDR students in the business faculty. Design/methodology/approach-Following a two-year period, the intervention was evaluated to assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of this support using qualitative methods. The results of this study are presented and discussed from different angles. First, a lecturer in academic writing support outlines her observations and reflection on the value of individual consultations and students' progress. Second, the attitudes and experience of students and their supervisors to this service are discussed. This is followed by the faculty senior management view with regard to the effectiveness and efficiency of this service. Findings-This research found that both students and their supervisors expressed satisfaction with the service offered. Also it was found that the writing quality of submitted theses is improving; the costs of thesis editing have reduced; HDR students appear to be more satisfied with and confident of their academic writing; the attractiveness of the PhD program has been enhanced, as judged by the increase in PhD enquiries and the quality of potential applicants. Research limitations/implications-The results reported here indicate that the intervention was successful. However, the sample size was relatively small and the HDR candidates and supervisors were drawn from only one faculty in one university. Practical implications-The study provides some recommendations that could be taken into account by senior management and academic staff in order to set up and deliver a facultybased writing support service for HDR students, which would bring benefits to students, their supervisors, faculties and universities. Originality/value-The value of this research is that the writing program was proven to be beneficial for universities to support research students in the development of their writing skills, which in turn, could improve the quality of thesis and ensure on time completion.

“We make the invisible visible”: Investigating and evaluating the one-to-one consultation service at a UK higher education institution

“…Consistent with the positive perceptions of consultations services reported in previous research (Bell, 2000;Berry et al, 2012;O'Mahony et al, 2013), data gathered in this study pointed to highly positive perceptions of the consultations service. Questionnaire data showed 99% of 216 respondents stating they would recommend the service, while 95% of respondents said their consultation was either extremely helpful or very helpful, for a range of reasons including the sympathetic and knowledgeable nature of consultants.…”

“…Operationally defined in this paper as formal, institutionally mandated one-to-one consultant-student teaching and learning interactions focusing on the development of written language or other key academic language and literacy or study skills, consultation services are found with increasing prevalence at higher education institutions across the globe (Hyland, 2018;Raforth, 2014). These services are delivered through writing centres (Harris, 2004, cited in Hoon, 2009Tiruchittampalam et al, 2017), university Academic Skills Centres (Berry et al, 2012), Learning Skills Units (Ma, 2019), within faculties and departments (Ma, 2019;O'Mahony, 2013) and through English Language Centres and other units (Author, 2019 unpublished survey).…”

Comparison between Peer Feedback and Automated Feedback in College English Writing: A Case Study

“…An army of relevant studies are mainly focused on direct-indirect feedback (Wang, Wei, 2015;Li & Ye, 2016;Wei & Shi, 2016;Sarie, 2017) or global-local feedback (Yang & Wu, 2011;O'Mahony et al, 2013;Wang, 2016). In a bid to capture all existing types in written feedback, there is a necessity to incorporate both non-corrective and corrective feedback, including different types of the latter into research.…”

“…Some scholars argue against teacher feedback in the failure to offer speedy feedback (Bai, 2012), the negative result upon students to over-rely on their teachers and weaken their initiatives (Zhang, 2016). However, numerous empirical studies have indicated that teacher feedback helps students learn more and better (Chandler, 2003;Morch et al 2017), modify their essays towards greater grammatical accuracy, pragmatic appropriateness, complexity, clarity and comprehensibility (Li & Ye, 2016;Sarie, 2017), and thereby improve their writing competence (Wang & Liu, 2012;O'Mahony et al, 2013).…”

“…It is typical of student-centered L2 teaching and learning settings and often used in higher education (Wang, 2016;Ion et al, 2016 (O'Mahony et al, 2013;Wei, 2015), internalization of grammatical knowledge (Zhang, 2016) or better performance on content and linguistic performance (Zhou, 2013). Benefits from peer feedback are found to agree upon alleviation of anxiety, enhancement of self-regulated learning capability and critical thinking competence, increase of peer interactions and active participation, and improvement of overall writing skills (Tsui & Ng, 2000;Cai, 2011;Yu, 2013;Zhou, 2013;Forrer et al, 2015;Wei, 2015;Wang, 2016;Ion et al, 2016;Zhang, 2016).…”