Language & Education Network Research Seminar - Kate Graham: What are the academic essay writing experiences of MIS undertaking a full-time taught Master’s degree at a university in the West of England?

What are the academic essay writing experiences of MIS undertaking a full-time taught Master’s degree at a university in the West of England?

Although a large amount of research has been carried out to investigate multilingual international students’ (MIS) experiences of academic socialisation at English-speaking universities, a vast majority is at undergraduate level (Tobbell & O’Donnell, 2013) and limited studies have been carried out with postgraduates, particularly those studying at Master’s level (Wette & Furneaux, 2018).

This presentation will discuss a small qualitative research study, carried out for my Master’s dissertation, which explored the AW development of 3 MIS undertaking a taught Master’s degree.  Data was collected via a single remote interview to investigate how they experienced the process of writing academic essays and the resources they utilised to help meet academic expectations and disciplinary norms. An academic discourse socialisation (Duff, 2010) theoretical framework was used to interpret the findings. 

After reviewing current literature and highlighting the limitations of existing studies, I will outline how these informed my research questions and the design of the study.  The findings of my study will then be presented and discussed with reference to the academic discourse socialisation framework. My presentation ends with a consideration of the implications of this study and future areas for research. 

Speaker: Kate Graham (MEd Exeter)