|
|
|
Christine Bauer-Ramazani |
|
Mahmoud T.
Arani |
|
Saint Michael’s College |
|
TESOL ‘97 |
|
|
|
|
To capture the expectations that business
professors at US colleges & universities have of international
students’ writing performance; |
|
To
investigate the criteria used by these professors for assessing performance
on written assignments; |
|
To investigate the relative importance of those
criteria. |
|
|
|
|
Business professors assess business writing in
accordance with criteria emphasized in writing in general and in ESL
writing courses for academic purposes in particular. |
|
|
|
|
Survey Instrument: survey sent to 182 colleges
and universities nationwide |
|
Subjects: business professors who regularly have
international students in their classes AND assign a fair amount of writing |
|
Sample size for analysis: 70 surveys |
|
|
|
|
To what extent do business professors expect the
use of generally accepted features of written discourse in their students’
writing, i.e. audience awareness, purpose, rhetorical organization,
discourse type/function, coherence, topic development, grammatical
accuracy, lexicon, mechanics? |
|
What importance do business professors attribute
to those criteria? |
|
Do business professors use the same criteria for
native and non-native speakers? |
|
How does knowledge of subject matter compare in
importance to the criteria of written discourse? |
|
|
|
|
1:
Coherence (88.4%) |
|
2:
Subject matter (87%) |
|
3:
Logical argument
(82.6%) |
|
4:
Support of thesis (75.3%) |
|
5: Use
of bus. concepts & terms (73.9%) |
|
6:
Agreement (71%) |
|
7:
Thesis (68.1%) |
|
7:
Appropriate division (68.1%) |
|
9:
Punctuation (66.6%) |
|
10: Word
deletions/ additions (63.8%) |
|
Lowest rankings: |
|
25:
Register (39.1%) |
|
26: Use
of topic sentences (37.6%) |
|
|
|
|
1:
Coherence (88.4%) |
|
2:
Subject matter (87%) |
|
3:
Logical argument
(82.6%) |
|
4:
Support of thesis (75.3%) |
|
5: Use
of bus. concepts & terms (73.9%) |
|
6:
Thesis (68.1%) |
|
7/8:
Appropriate division (68.1%) |
|
9: Focus: Maintaining topic & purpose
(62.3%) |
|
10: Organizational patterns (56.5 % |
|
11:
Format of discourse type (56.5%) |
|
12: Use of transitions (49.2%) ** |
|
13: Register (39.1%) |
|
14: Use of topic sentences (37.6%)** |
|
|
|
|
1:
Agreement (71%) |
|
2:
Punctuation (66.6%) |
|
3: Word
deletions/ additions (63.8%) |
|
4:
Capitalization (62.3%) |
|
5: Verb
forms (59.4%) |
|
6:
Appropriate word/idiom usage (58%) |
|
7:
Citation format (58%) |
|
8: Other
sentence-level grammar control (57.9%) |
|
9:
Sentence construction (52.2%) |
|
|
|
|
Use of SPSS
for cross-correlational analyses (cross-tabs) |
|
Non-parametric
distribution |
|
Pearson
Chi-Square correlation at the .05 level of significance |
|
|
|
|
Which
of the 26 criteria (in Q. 15) influence the writing process and product (Q.
6)? |
|
significant:
coherence, use of topic sentences, length/brevity, use of transitions (= Top-down
discourse features) |
|
not
significant: Bottom-up features |
|
|
|
|
To what
extent is the #1 ranked criterion (coherence) influenced by
language-related (bottom-up) features (Q. 15)? |
|
highly
significant: word deletions/additions, other sentence-level grammar (prep,
art, wo, conj) ** |
|
significant:
sentence construction, capitalization**, verb forms and usage**,
appropriate word/idiom usage** |
|
not
significant: punctuation**, agreement of grammatical structures** |
|
**Contradictions
with rankings among the top 10 |
|
|
|
|
|
Which of
the top 10 criteria correlate(s) more highly with “knowledge of subject
matter?” |
|
Use of
business concepts and terminology (p = .00001) |
|
Use of
research analysis ( p = .00001) |
|
Agreement
of grammatical structures (p =
.00209) |
|
Logical
argument and substance of argument (p = .02020) |
|
Word
deletions/unnecessary additions (p = .02633) |
|
No significance: Coherence, thesis, support of thesis, appropriate division of
writing, use of transitions |
|
|
|
|
Which
of the 26 criteria are business professors more concerned with in
evaluating the writing of international students (Q. 13 & Q. 15)? |
|
no
statistical significance in any of the correlational analyses |
|
confirms
professors’ “same” treatment of international and American students |
|
|
|
|
What
kinds of problems do international students encounter regarding writing (Q.
18 and 15)? |
|
significant:
thesis, focus |
|
|
|
|
Which of
the 26 evaluation criteria correlate with the number of assignments
exceeding 250 words (Q. 15 & Q. 10)? |
|
significant:
sentence construction, use of topic
sentences, knowledge of subject matter |
|
|
|
|
It seemss that coherence, use of topic
sentences, length/brevity, and use of transitions significantly influence
the writing process and product. |
|
It appears that use of business concepts and
terminology, use of research analysis, agreement of grammatical
structures, logical argument,
and word deletions correlate highly
with the knowledge of the subject matter. |
|
The majority of business professors seem to
treat both international students and native speakers in the same way. |
|
It seems that business professors give more
weight to top-down features than to bottom-up features. |
|
Business professors do not seem to emphasize the same top-down features
that ESL teachers emphasize and not in the same order. |
|
It seems that good knowledge of sentence -level
grammar, familiarity with topic sentence, and knowledge of the subject
matter significantly contribute to the length of essays written. |
|
The majority of business professors seem to
think that topic sentence is not as
important as other features; however, they seem to think that thesis and focus
are importsnt features in writing. |
|
Data support/interpretation and cause/effect are
the most common forms of rhetorical organization in academic business
writing. |
|
|
|
|
|
Practice with rhetorical modes for data
support/interpretation--graphs, tables, figures--and cause-effect |
|
Use/develop an assessment scale/rubric that
emphasizes |
|
coherence and comprehensibility of subject matter |
|
top-down features |
|
feedback on bottom-up errors |
|
Notes