There are three major implications of the present study for teaching disciplinary writing at the undergraduate level. The first implication comes from the differences found between psychology and chemistry, the two disciplines investigated in this study. The second and third implications come from the findings of this study within the disciplines of psychology and chemistry.
Psychology and chemistry have different research paradigms and these differences are realized in the way research is written up. As discussed in chapter 5, psychology and chemistry have different approaches to and expectations of undergraduate writing. Such differences might be reasonably extrap- olated to include other disciplines in the social sciences versus physical sciences. Previous research on disciplinary writing (e.g.,Conrad, 1996; Gray, 2011; Hyland, 2000; Swales, 1990)has shown important differences in academic writing in different fields and it follows that these disciplinary differences would also be present in the writing expectations and assignments at the undergraduate level. In this study, instructors in both chemistry and psychology expected students to have basic academic writing skills (though this was not clearly defined) which the instructors assumed students had acquired in high school and through their freshman composition courses. Writing in high school and freshman composi- tion is not usually oriented to any particular discipline. Students whose experience with academic writ- ing includes writing expository, argumentative, or reflective essays, or generic library research papers (typical assignments in high school and freshman composition courses) might have a difficult time meet- ing even the basic expectations of professors in disciplines like psychology and chemistry. Perhaps a dis- cipline-focused writing course offered during the first year of study would help to expose students to the writing style and expectations of their majors. Since many students delay declaring a major until their sophomore year, writing courses could be offered for disciplinary areas rather than for specific ma- jors as each major already has a critical thinking through writing course that students take later in their course of study.
The second implication of this study is that students would benefit from both more opportuni- ties to write in their disciplines as well as explicit writing instruction with more uniform expectations for the types of writing assigned. The results of this study show that in psychology, students do not consist- ently begin writing until the 3000 level. When they do begin writing, the majority of writing tasks as- signed require the same skills, namely summary and critical response. The expectations for these as- signments, however, vary from instructor to instructor. The critical thinking aspect of these writing as- signments is where instructors indicate the students are particularly lacking in skill. In disciplines like psychology, teaching students how to summarize a source and demonstrate critical thinking through their response early in their academic careers might benefit them throughout the program. It also seems that instructors in psychology are unaware of both the similarity in writing tasks across courses and the lack of consensus in what is expected from similar assignments in different courses. Creating flexible standards for similar writing tasks that are agreed upon by all instructors might help students be more successful by giving them a clearer idea of expectations and more opportunities to practice their skills. In chemistry, all writing is in the form of laboratory reports which involve the same basic sections with slight variations. Students begin writing full laboratory reports in chemistry1211 and 1212, though only one report is required. Although the basic writing task is the same across courses, the expectations vary greatly from instructor to instructor. Instructors at the lower levels usually inform students, both verbally and in writing, that they should write with concision, avoiding personal pronouns and using pas- sive voice, but that students are told to write this way, does not mean they understand how to write this way. Instructors find the discussion sections of laboratory reports to be the site where student writing is least satisfactory as students are not writing enough and not engaging in a critical analysis of their work. To this end, students (and instructors) would probably benefit from explicit instruction on the structure and expectations of laboratory report writing, with a focus on critical thinking, early in their program. As
with psychology, standardizing expectations across sections and courses might help students develop an understanding of disciplinary writing more easily.
The third implication of this study comes from the disciplinary writing students are exposed to throughout their undergraduate program. In both psychology and chemistry the students interviewed for the present study cited reading professional writing as an important source for learning to write in the style of the discipline. As shown by the course readings collected for this study, however, students are not reading professional writing very frequently. In psychology, students are encouraged or some- times required to find journal articles as the basis for some writing assignments. In Psyc 3530, Advanced Research Design & Analysis, the first CTW course, students do read and dissect published psychology research articles for the purpose of understanding how research is reported in psychology. The vast ma- jority of disciplinary writing that undergraduates read is in the form of textbooks. This study shows that textbook writing in psychology is linguistically very different from student writing. The situation is very similar in chemistry. Students are not required to read published reports outside of one or two ad- vanced courses though both students and professors felt reading such articles was the most effective way of improving writing. Students usually read published writing as part of their research laboratory course, under the advisement of a lab mentor and lead professor. Again as with psychology, the primary sources of disciplinary writing input for students in chemistry are textbooks and laboratory manuals, which are very different from the student written laboratory reports. Since students are not given ex- plicit writing instruction early in their program in psychology or chemistry and the primary source of dis- ciplinary writing they are exposed to is textbooks, it is understandable that students would have some difficulty interpreting the discipline-specific writing expectations set by their instructors. It seems stu- dents would benefit from having a portion of course readings that are more reflective of the disciplinary style of writing they should be learning. Even reading parts of published reports could be quite helpful. For example, in psychology courses requiring summaries, the literature review sections of journal arti-
cles could be assigned as readings. In chemistry, students might benefit from reading the discussion sec- tions of published reports. These readings could also be used quite effectively in discipline oriented freshman writing courses.
A final, but important implication of this study is for teaching academic writing to matriculated or university bound English language learners. This study shows that undergraduate writing is reflective of the rhetorical style of the discipline in which it occurs. English language learners attending or planning to attend a US university would benefit from writing instruction that considers the students’ intended major. Understanding what students will be writing in their majors, how often, and when can help writ- ing teachers prioritize instruction to be of maximum benefit to the students. Based on the findings of the present study, even in a general (meaning not discipline-oriented) preparatory writing class there are skills that are likely to be useful in a variety of majors. The first is summarizing. This skill is required by a large number of psychology writing tasks and is a major component of laboratory report writing in chemistry. The second skill is critical thinking. This is the most cognitively demanding part of writing and seems to be a part of nearly every assignment in both psychology and chemistry. Considering the uni- versity wide critical thinking through writing initiative at the university where this study took place, it is likely that critical thinking is a part of writing in most majors at most universities. This is also the area that instructors cite as the most problematic for students. Critical thinking is culturally valued in the US in ways that it may not be in other countries, making this an essential skill for English language learners to understand and master (Althen & Bennett, 2011). Finally, students need to learn to decode writing prompts to clearly understand the task. Oftentimes, writing assignments require similar skills such as summarizing and critical analysis, but because the prompts are worded very differently, students may not realize what they need to do to fulfill the instructor’s expectations.