Using the National Benchmark Tests in Engineering diplomas: revisiting generic academic literacy

Scholtz, Desiree

doi:10.4314/jlt.v46i1.3

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…However, it is important to note that all the tests used in South Africa appear to be based on roughly the same construct or definition of "academic literacy" (Scholtz 2012, Weideman 2006. Van Dyk and Weideman (2004) summarise the latter in competencies, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving academic literacy by teaching collocations

Nizonkiza

2017

SPIL

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This study explores the effect of teaching collocations on building academic vocabulary and hence improving academic writing abilities. A pre-/post-test experimental design was used to analyse collocations produced in two tasks completed by the study's participants, English majors at a university in Burundi. They were presented with a completion task and an essaywriting task before and after being exposed to a collocation-based syllabus. The results show that participants performed significantly better on the post-test than on the pre-test in their production of collocations in both tasks. This suggests that an intervention contributes towards building students' productive use of collocations in both cued recall and essay writing, supporting earlier findings (cf. Barfield 2009, Seesink 2007. In light of these findings, pedagogical consequences and avenues for improving higher education students' use of collocations in writing are discussed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholtz 2012). The main objective of this practice is to assess students' preparedness to meet the challenges posed in higher education institutions (Scholtz 2012, Van Dyk 2005, Van Dyk and Van de Poel 2013, Weideman 2006.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving academic literacy by teaching collocations

Nizonkiza

2017

SPIL

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“…This blueprint has been presented and discussed in a number of research studies in South African Higher Education in recent years (see, for example, Cliff and Hanslo 2009;Cliff and Yeld 2006;Cliff, Ramaboa and Pearce 2007;Scholtz 2012;Van Dyk and Weideman 2004;Yeld 2001), but it is worth re-presenting in the current context since it forms the basis for the subsequent discussion of entry-level students' academic literacy reading abilities. Table 1, it can be seen that academic literacy is here conceptualised as comprising textual and contextual meaning-making processes at word, sentence, paragraph and wholetext levels.…”

Section: Academic Literacy As a Constructmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entry-level students’ reading abilities and what these abilities might mean for academic readiness

Cliff

2014

Language Matters

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The National Benchmark Tests Project (NBTP) was commissioned by Higher Education South Africa and became operational in 2009. One of the main aims of the NBTP is to assess the extent to which entry-level students might be said to be ready to cope with the conventional demands of academic study in three key areas: academic literacy; quantitative literacy; and mathematics. This paper presents an analysis of the academic literacy readiness of a sample of registered students as reflected in their performance on the NBT in Academic Literacy, a standardised assessment developed in the context of the wider project. The paper presents a theoretical analysis of the construct of academic literacy as operationalised in the test. This is followed by a categorised empirical analysis of test-takers' performance on the test, in which the levels of academic readiness of these test-takers are presented and discussed. The argument presented highlights the diverse range of academic literacy levels of entry-level students, as well as implying the teaching and learning interventions that might be necessary to improve readiness. Concluding comments argue that some groups of students may be unable to cope with conventional academic literacy demands in the absence of explicit intervention.

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“…In order to be academically literate, students should be able to make meaning from texts, extrapolate from texts, apply high level inferencing and distinguish between essential and nonessential information, among others. In addition, students should be able to comprehend texts within certain domains (Klos, 2012;Ngaepe, 2012;Scholitz, 2012). Thus students' ability to cope with course work and academic requirements within specific disciplines are highly dependent on their ability to read academic texts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Needs Analysis for a Discipline-Specific Reading Intervention

Boakye¹,

Mbong²

2016

ELT

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This paper reports on a needs analysis that sought to explore students' reading challenges as an initial step in designing an appropriate reading intervention programme for first-year Sociology students. The aim of the paper is to suggest conditions for the production of an effective reading intervention programme by determining the needs of the students in the first-year Sociology class. A survey using an open-ended questionnaire was used to explore students' reading challenges. The responses were analysed using content analysis. The analysis showed a variety of learner needs and revealed that most of the students have difficulty in reading their first-year Sociology texts. Comprehension was the main challenge, but other specific areas such as vocabulary, length of texts, language, and affective issues such as motivation and interest were also mentioned. The findings show that this cohort of first-year Sociology students had reading challenges that involve cognitive, language and affective issues. Based on the results of the needs analysis an intervention programme that addresses cognitive, language and affective issues is recommended for this cohort of students.

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Using the National Benchmark Tests in Engineering diplomas: revisiting generic academic literacy

Cited by 6 publications

References 19 publications

Improving academic literacy by teaching collocations

Improving academic literacy by teaching collocations

Entry-level students’ reading abilities and what these abilities might mean for academic readiness

A Needs Analysis for a Discipline-Specific Reading Intervention

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