Date of Award

11-13-2019

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.Ed.

Department

Education

Keywords

Academic Writing, Academic Writing Development, Challenges, Chinese International Graduate Students, Individual Writing Consultations

Supervisor

Zuochen Zhang

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

When entering graduate school, many Chinese international graduate students, particularly those in education programs, struggle to meet the new academic expectations they encounter (Huang & Klinger, 2006), particularly with respect to writing assignments as they are writing in an additional language at an academic level for the first time. To support these students, many universities offer writing support in the form of writing centres that offer one-on-one consultations. These programs are critical to give students the support they need to improve their academic outcomes and achieve their potential. However, these services face a number of issues, ranging from a lack of funding and training, to the establishment of clear pedagogical guidelines, and there is limited research on the strategies these writing centres employ and how they can be improved. In addition, there is a gap in the literature on individual writing consultations (IWCs) with respect to students’ perspective as most research focuses on the perspectives of those operating writing support services. This exploratory study’s objective is to investigate what a small group of Chinese international graduate students enrolled in education programs think of IWCs at a Canadian university. This study is unique because it focuses on students’ experiences and perceptions of IWCs. By exploring these perspectives, the current study seeks to examine what these services need to effectively support this population, what they lack, and how they can be improved.

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