Attention to Student Writing in Postgraduate Health Science Education: Whose Task is It – or Rather, How?

Abstract

This article reports on an action research study designed to stimulate the metacognitive awareness of the writing of assignments in English of a group of students from diverse language and educational backgrounds, studying health science education at masters level. In the study, students were required to give and receive feedback on a marked written assignment to a peer, and receive feedback from a consultant working at the Writing Lab. They were then required to submit a reflective report, which constitutes the key data source for this study. An analysis of the reflective reports revealed that the students claimed that they learnt about their writing habits, about good academic writing, and about the experience of giving and receiving feedback. The study suggests that although an intervention making extensive use of a variety of sources of feedback appears to be able to stimulate students' metacognitive functioning in relation to their writing of assignments, a number of issues require concerted attention. These issues include: power relations and emotion, perceptions of legitimate authority, and the central role of the lecturer as disciplinary expert and guide. The article concludes with a recommendation for enhanced attention to intersubjective relations of power, language and identity in relation to feedback on writing, especially when peer feedback is involved.

Gaps and Overlaps in Supervisory Responsibilities: A Case Study of Bachelor’s and Master’s Students’ Thesis Writing in Two Departments

“…Furthermore, the internationalization of higher education and the increased popularity of Master's programs in both English and non-English speaking countries highlight the importance of language and cultural aspects for both teachers and students (Filippou, Kallo, and Mikkilä-Erdmann 2017;Leibowitz 2013). A likely combination is a teacher, supervisor, and student, all writing in English, but who are all non-native English speakers.…”

From autopsy to autonomy in writing centres: Postgraduate students' response to two forms of feedback in a health professions education module

“…This is a postgraduate programme in the Medical and Health Sciences faculty and the students enrolled in the programme are all full-time practitioners in health sciences fields. In the HPE module, Educational Research for Change, the students reflect on and write about feedback as part of their development as future medical educators (Leibowitz, 2013). Our sub-study used the writers' reflections on the consultation with the writing consultant and the writers' reflections on feedback by another student in the module to analyse how the writers viewed the writing support received during the module.…”