Assessing the Writing Skills of Entry-Level Undergraduate Business Students to Enhance their Writing Development during Tertiary Studies
Aims & method
As indicated above, the aims of this study were:
• to design a writing task for a large cohort of first year tertiary students in order to assess their written English skills; and
• to establish the level of support they might require to be successful in the first year tertiary context.
The cohorts for this study consisted of students enrolled in first year foundation units for the Bachelor of Commerce over the last three years (2003, 2004 and 2005). In 2003, the task was trialled with a cohort of 587 students enrolled in Information Systems 100; in 2004 and 2005 the cohort consisted of 532 and 670 students, respectively, enrolled in Legal Framework 100. The cohorts comprised students who were enrolled part-time or full-time, local or international, and school leavers or mature age students. Information Systems 100 and Legal Framework 100 are two of six core/ foundation units that must be completed by students undertaking a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Curtin.
It was considered important to inform students fully about the project and to explain our aims, in order to gain their trust and, indeed, their participation in the study. We therefore took the opportunity to explain the study to them during orientation week lectures, when unit requirements were explained to them by Unit Coordinators. One of the researchers then spoke to students about the writing project and explained the sort of writing task they would be asked to undertake early in the semester. The same person spoke at all sessions in order to ensure a consistent message to students. We were particularly keen to assuage any concerns and reassured students that the aims of the task were diagnostic, and that they would have access to information about their performance. Students were also reassured about absolute confidentiality and were made aware that the results of the task would have no bearing whatsoever on their marks for the unit.
Students were told that they would be required to write half to three quarters of a page on one of three or four topics, where the emphasis would be on the language and not so much on the content. The task was planned to take place during their first or second one-hour tutorial of semester, and would take 20 - 30 minutes to complete. The information obtained would be used by project staff to gauge the extent of support that might be needed and to better plan our support services. Only project staff would have access to information obtained and unit lecturers and tutors would only have access to summary data and not individual data. The first and second time the task was implemented, students could contact staff at the Communication Skills Centre to obtain their individual rating and receive feedback, if they so desired, but only a few took up this option. The third time the task was implemented, results were returned to students through their tutors, with a covering letter informing them of the availability of support seminars in academic writing, and urging them to attend these, especially if they fell in the lower bands.
