engleski

GENERAL ATTITUDES AND THE APPROACH TOWARDS ACADEMIC WRITING ASSIGNMENTS OF STUDENTS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AT THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN RIJEKA

The aim of this research was to explore the general attitudes and the approach towards academic writing assignments of students of English language and literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka. The purpose of this research was to discover how students generally feel about academic writing, and how they feel about it regarding their writing skills. Moreover, this research aimed to find out how students approach their academic assignments in terms of steps they undertake in the process of writing. In order to set a valid base for this assessment, a summary of the main writing stages and underlying processes has been made. In this thesis, the writing process has been divided into four main stages: prewriting, planning, writing and postwriting, with the underlying steps of writing. This summary of the process is based on an analysis of available academic writing guidebooks and official instruction manuals of some higher education institutions. Based on the analysis of the writing process, a semi- structured, pen and paper questionnaire was designed. It consisted of four main parts including information about the students, general questions on academic writing and statements related to students’ attitudes and approach to writing. The research involved students of all five years of the English language and literature study programme, with a total of 84 participants. The data were collected at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka, and analyzed with the IBM SPSS programme for statistical analysis. The data revealed positive general students’ attitudes towards academic writing. However, they generally lack motivation and interest for their academic writing assignments. Apart from positive remarks they made about writing, students still express having some serious trouble when it comes to writing, and express the need for academic writing instruction. Furthermore, it has been revealed that students invest quite a low number of hours into their writing process, and neglect some crucial steps of the writing process which, if implemented, would help to improve their writing skills as well as the quality of their written papers. Having in mind students’ troubles, feelings, needs and actions, this thesis suggests an introduction of an academic writing course in the first semester of the study programme in order to teach students about academic writing style and improve their writing skills by helping them implement some important steps in their writing process.

academic writing, attitudes, writing process

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