VRKM – Approaches to written assignments

Extensive research has been done on how important students’ native language is to their whole educational experience. On the other hand, the significance of language in the evaluation of the written work of students has received a relatively low priority. In order to learn how students and faculty at a college of liberal arts and sciences approach writing projects, both groups were asked to participate in an interview. The objective was to gain an understanding of the many ways to writing that students employ, particularly when they are aware that their knowledge is insufficient for the work at hand. Additionally, the objective was to investigate the methods that teachers use to try to make sense of student writings that are often confusing with regard to the correctness of the material. When reading unclear text fragments, the teachers should be able to sometimes effectively distinguish the discipline content from the linguistic form. A few thorough examples are offered to illustrate how this might be done. This leads to a discussion on the necessity of putting an emphasis on the significance of language in education, which in turn leads to some suggestions for improving written assignments.

Even though there are some instances in which students can study and exhibit their new information and skills without much language being employed (for example, practising with a pipette in a wet laboratory), academic education in general relies significantly on language.

Language used in academia is characterised by formal conventions and a level of accuracy that is far higher than the level of precision and level of formality seen in language used in everyday life. All pupils, whether they are native or non-native speakers of the language being taught, will experience some level of difficulty understanding and communicating in this language. According to Read (Citation2015), which reads, “Although the problem of academic language may be particularly visible or acute for second-language speakers, in fact, we argue that academic language is intrinsically more difficult than other language registers” (114), academic language is inherently more difficult than other language registers. Because many teachers believe that written language is the ideal form for students to consolidate and exhibit their knowledge (Hyland Citation2013), the ability to express oneself in writing is even more vital in academic studies than it is in day-to-day living.

Language is frequently emphasised in academic instruction and evaluation because of its significance, particularly in written language’s function in both; this is especially true because students frequently underestimate the impact that language plays. Students who are taking a course on techniques and statistics, for instance, frequently have the misconception that they are studying mathematics under a different guise. They assume that their performance is determined on their ability to calculate and reason, rather than their capacity to precisely explain ideas and draw conclusions. In a class like this one, the teachers may select their words carefully in order to make their students understand that statistically significant results are not always relevant. However, students frequently are unaware of the significance of these seemingly insignificant linguistic distinctions, and as a result, they may fail to express that understanding in their writing. There are pros and cons to both approaches to solving this issue. A learner needs to have a certain level of comprehension of the material before they can comprehend why and how the intricacies of language matter in the discourse of a certain academic field. On the other hand, pupils might not fully understand topics if they do not comprehend the language on a deeper level conceptually (Richardson et al. Citation2016). When students are given feedback on their performance, Sutton (Citation2012) brought out a similar reciprocal relation between language form and content. She argued that students need a fundamental understanding of the subject matter in order to decipher what the feedback implies.

The practise of use terms that sound familiar but, when used in the context of a particular field of study, have a technical meaning that can be subtly or occasionally completely different from how the words are used in common conversation is a problem that frequently arises in academic writing. These words frequently refer to what Meyer and Land (Citation2003) call “threshold concepts,” which are concepts that are deemed fundamental to a field and that, if comprehended, cause pupils to view things in a different light. Examples of this can be found in the fields of economics, mathematics, and statistics, and they are called opportunity cost, complicated numbers, and significant. According to Kaplan, Fisher, and Rogness’s (Citation2009) research, students are more likely to draw erroneous associations when words that have a precise technical meaning but are also used in everyday English. According to Richardson, Dunn, and Hutchins’s (Citation2013) research, it is vitally important for students to have a solid grasp of lexically ambiguous words. Students frequently make the mistake of incorrectly applying the meaning from ordinary life to academic contexts. For instance, they frequently fail to recognise that a significant outcome in quantitative studies is not necessarily an important one. They ought to be aware of the fact that a statistically significant finding may in fact be useless for the aim of an investigation, which is the precise reverse of what the term “significant” means when used in everyday English. It is important to keep in mind that native speakers of English may be at a disadvantage in certain situations in comparison to non-native speakers, given that the common meaning of such phrases may be more deeply ingrained in their conceptual frameworks, making it more difficult to avoid using them.

There is a large body of research literature on the role of language in the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds and at all levels, including more specific issues that have to do with acquiring knowledge in non-native language settings. This importance of language and language skills for the learning process of the student has been recognised for a long time and has received a considerable amount of attention. This has resulted in an extensive body of research literature. This research does not address the significance of language to the educational experience of a student or the obstacles that difficulties with a student’s first or second language can present to the process of acquiring new information. Instead, the emphasis is placed on the writings that students produce in order to demonstrate their gained knowledge, particularly when doing so calls for the use of jargon that is distinctive to the discipline. We are going to examine these pieces of writing from the point of view of the students in their capacity as writers, as well as from the perspective of the instructors in their capacity as readers.

Students are required to transfer their knowledge (content) into a text (form) that can be comprehended and evaluated by the instructor in order to successfully complete a writing assignment. I won’t get into the philosophical debate of whether or not there is knowledge that can exist apart from language; rather, I will just presume that concepts have to be communicated in language.

When it comes to writing, students may use a variety of approaches. Either they will attempt to be succinct and get to the point, or they will choose to write a lot in order to demonstrate their level of understanding. If they are aware that their subject matter knowledge is lacking, they may strive to conceal this information or they may opt to be transparent about it. One of the goals of this study is to collect the experiences of students in order to determine whether or not they do, in fact, use such a wide variety of tactics, and, if they do, what motivates them to do so and why they do so. On the other hand, while reading student work that was written for an assignment, teachers have to determine whether or not a student has successfully answered a question or accurately stated an argument. Because students use a variety of strategies in their writing, the question arises as to whether or not teachers use a variety of strategies in reading to address these strategies used by students, and if they do, what those strategies are. When reading, unlike during an oral test or presentation, a teacher does not have the chance to call for a reformulation on the spot; rather, a student is required to make use of the text in its current form. The academic literature on’reading methods’ concentrates, for the most part, on teaching students how to read; however, the tactics that instructors use when they read for assessment have received very little attention, despite the fact that instructors frequently experience difficulties in this endeavour.

If a student gives the right response to a question or skillfully shows a line of reasoning in a paragraph, then it is quite simple for a teacher to make the connection between the student’s ideas and the content of the lesson. Information that is obviously incorrect or is simply absent does not present any interpretation challenges and does not require a unique reading strategy. However, if a student adds material that is not pertinent to what is otherwise meaningful prose or if the writing contains components that are obviously contradictory, a reader must have some means to deal with such information. An intriguing situation arises when a student’s language is unclear, which makes it possible for a reading to imply either X or Y, with X being the correct reading and Y being the incorrect reading. This creates an unusual scenario. When this occurs, it becomes difficult to disentangle form and content.

In this study, the participants’ reading strategies were investigated, and they were asked to reflect on and discuss what they do and how they do it. Conversations of this nature will place a strong emphasis on the difficult situations in which student papers are ambiguous, making it difficult to correctly understand the material and, as a result, to conduct an evaluation of the student’s performance. A few examples collected from students’ responses to questions on a methods and statistics examination will be offered in order to illustrate how textual ambiguities may or may not be addressed when reading. These examples were taken from the test.

No student speaks academic language naturally, and academic writing in particular is not a student’s first language. Even though it could be argued that students whose first language is not the language of instruction are in a less advantageous position for academic studies than native speakers, the approaches to writing and reading that will be investigated in this study could be applicable to both native and non-native speakers alike. Because problems of this nature with language are not exclusive to any one field of research, it would be fascinating to collect data from students whose academic interests span a wide range of fields, as well as from professors who specialise in teaching a variety of subject areas.