“That’s the way I did it”: A mixed methods study of the intertextual practices of first-year undergraduate Health Sciences students

Abstract

Beginning students face significant challenges when they make the transition to undergraduate university study. Understanding and adapting to the requirements of academic writing is central to their successful transition. ‘Intertextual practices’, those practices writers use to create meaning by drawing on source texts (Ivanic, 2004), are an integral part of academic writing, and one students often find particularly challenging. This thesis investigates the intertextual practices of a group of Australian first-year undergraduate health sciences students in responding to an authentic written assessment task involving writing from sources. The student writers who participated in the study were enrolled in a core first-year unit of study for both the nursing and physiotherapy degree courses in the Faculty of Health Sciences. These writers represent a diverse cohort, including monolingual and multilingual writers, Australian citizens, permanent residents and students studying on international student visas. The study comprises two strands. The first is a text-focussed multidimensional mixed methods investigation of the citation practices in students’ written academic texts (n = 171) incorporating both quantitative and qualitative data and analysis. The second is a writer-focussed qualitative investigation of a smaller subgroup of these students' (n = 6) understandings of their practices. In this second strand, the talk around text method is used, in which the researcher and participant writers engage in conversations about the writer’s life and their experiences with learning and writing, leading to discussions around the texts produced by the participant (Lillis, 2009). These conversations provide insights into issues around writer identity and opportunities to explore how writers are present in their texts and how their identities influence their perceptions and practices. In the first strand, the quantitative findings of the textual analysis indicate that, in many respects, the student writers who participated in this study employed the broad brushstrokes of intertextual practices in expected ways within their discipline, in what was one of their earliest attempts at producing academic texts within their degrees, and there was consistency across language groups and degree courses. This was borne out by the qualitative textual analysis, in that patterns of strengths were found in the writing of students from all groups, as were weaknesses. These student writers recognised the need to use sources in their academic writing, but they were uncertain about how to employ and cite information from their source texts once they moved beyond the familiar tasks of defining terms and providing facts. The talk around text strand findings deepen the insights from the textual analysis and ensure that student voices inform the understandings of first-year writing developed in this study. Three stances toward intertextual practices emerged from the talk around text analysis: embracing intertextual practices; resisting intertextual practices; and adapting to intertextual practices. This thesis aims to shifts the research lens away from the problems and perceived deficits of beginning academic writers, identifying not just the challenges they face but also their capabilities and strengths. This research questions the deficit approach often taken towards beginning writers by those responsible for institutional policy and assessment. An underlying premise of this research is that students bring to university study experiences that inform their intertextual practices. These prior experiences not only influence their ongoing development as writers, but they should also influence the practices of institutions, teachers and academic literacy specialists, facilitating positive engagement with novice students and their texts.