Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis is a contrastive case study which explores elements of student writing in \nrelation to higher order thinking of 12 students enrolled in a Foundation in English \nCourse at the University of the Witwatersrand. All of the students speak English as an \nadditional language. They were admitted to the university through an alternative \nadmissions route that recognised their academic potential in the early 2000s. The \nstudy examines a number of factors related to students’ academic dispositions and \npersonal qualities, their capacity to develop comparison and discursive writing and \nthe growth in their ability to reflect on their writing tasks through the foundation year. \nIt has developed an integrative approach for investigating contextual and courserelated \nissues which contributed towards students’ cognitive and meta-cognitive \ngrowth as first year university student in transition. \nThe research methodology makes use of socio-cognitive instruments for assessing \nstudents’ levels of cognition through their writing. In particular, the SOLO taxonomy \n(Biggs and Collis 1982) has been adapted as a tool for analysing student responses to \nthe different task types and for assessing student engagement with the course \npedagogy and feedback practices. It uses a meta-cognitive hierarchical model \n(Perkins 1992) for gauging how students reflect on their writing development in \nresponse to the meta-level questions integrated into the course material. For its \ntheoretical framework, the study draws on socio-cultural understandings of student \ncognition and learning, local and international research in the field of higher \neducation as well as current developments in academic literacy and social \nconstructivism. The implications of both the developmental and socially-based \nperspectives are examined in order to make sense of the pedagogical data within the \nFoundation Course. There is a particular focus on the range of scaffolding devices \nused to promote higher order thinking. \nA number of key findings emerge from the detailed comparative analysis of the two \ngroups of students (‘solid’ and ‘borderline’) based on their academic performance on \nthe Foundation Course. The most significant is the establishment of a profile of \nii \nstudents who have benefited the most from the various forms of scaffolding and \nassessment practices on the course. The study reveals that students in the solid group \nshow adeptness at higher order reasoning, explanation, elaboration and reflection \ncompared to those from the borderline group who are unable to benefit optimally \nfrom the intensive interaction and mediation on the course. The analysis unpacks the \nintrinsic and extrinsic factors that promote or inhibit engaged learning on the course. \nIn so doing, it highlights strengths and gaps in the pedagogical orientation of the \nteaching pedagogy for developing academic potential in this context. \nIn order to address generalised, deficit views within the university about the \nperceived under-performance of ‘foundation students’, the study aims to present a \nmore nuanced account of how students have engaged with academic literacy on the \nFoundation Course. It seeks to understand how students develop higher order \nthinking in the transition from school to university and have the capacity to make \nprogress in a course in which educational strategies and assessment practices are \nhighly scaffolded on an extended four-year degree programme. The case study \nmethodology underlines the importance of documenting and tracking student \nprogress more systematically and assessing the extent to which they transfer \nacademic literacy competencies to other disciplines. The thesis investigates \npossibilities for integrating the educational strategies described in the thesis to \npromote transitional learning for first year students at university.
Author: Laura Dison
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2132347177