Recipients
Nicole Westlund Stewart, PhD, Writing and Communication Centre (Co-Investigator)
Wade Wilson, PhD, Department of Kinesiology (Co-Investigator)
Nadine Fladd, PhD, Writing and Communication Centre (Co-Investigator)
Dave Drewery, PhD Candidate (Research Assistant)
Project Summary
This study examined how likely students were to engage in productive writing habits while writing a position paper for an introductory online course (AHS 107) and how such habits were related to four desirable outcomes: writing self-regulatory efficacy, writing apprehension, satisfaction with the writing assignment, and self-reported performance. First-year undergraduate students (N = 91) completed an online survey within a week after they had submitted their paper.
Research Questions
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that in the fall of 2020, incoming first-year students who had not yet learned the rhythms of university life had no choice but to take their courses online. As a pandemic pedagogy for the logistics of teaching online in an emergency was emerging, much of the discourse in publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education (Williams June, 2021) and University Affairs (Hellmans et al., 2021) focused on how best to support the wellbeing of students dealing with the challenges of student life during a pandemic. This study explored undergraduate students’ productive writing habits in an online communication-intensive course. It sought to understand the extent to which such students used select habits as they completed aposition paper. This studyalso explored the relationships between undergraduate students’ productive writing habits in an online setting and their psychological reactions to writing. That is, we aimed to identify those habits that are negatively associated with writing apprehension and positively associated with writing self-efficacy to highlight ways for students to best manage their writing process. After completing an online questionnaire package (for the study), students completed a reflection activity that taught them about productive writing habits to help them develop a plan for managing their own writing apprehension and writing self-efficacy in their courses.
Our research questions were:
RQ1: What is the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the writing habits self-assessment instrument our team designed?
RQ2: How are students’ writing habits related to their writing self-efficacy and writing apprehension towards a course writing assignment?
Findings
Results of the surveys suggest that some productive writing habits associated with desirable outcomes (e.g., thinking about the audience, finding an appropriate time and place to write) were used frequently by students. However, other productive writing habits that are also associated with desirable outcomes (e.g., writing among others, thinking of writing as a social practice) were infrequently used by students. These findings – that students are already skilled at making use of some of the productive writing habits with the best outcomes, but that they rarely use socially-oriented writing habits – are relevant for educators who aim to enhance students’ writing habits and writing experiences in an emergency remote-teaching context. This research reveals that there are untapped opportunities for supporting students through the writing process by intentionally teaching and integrating socially-oriented writing habits into courses.
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