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Academic Writing in Higher Education Programs in Ecuador: Representations Among Students

Abstract:

Studies on academic writing have highlighted the need to learn when, what, and how students write in the various university settings and disciplines, so that educational interventions that help them master this skill can be developed. This exploratory study aims to get to know the representations that pre-service student teachers have of writing in their academic settings. To do that, we have adapted the European Writing Survey and applied it on 942 students from 7 universities across Ecuador. The results suggest notorious differences in how students understand academic writing at different universities. Also, we noted that women are more aware of the difficulty of writing at university and the differences with respect to previous educational stages. Across all universities, it is evident the use of writing as a tool to evaluate students’ knowledge, butthe opportunity is missed to use feedback to learn writing itself. Women see the need to take more courses to learn writing, to get more help in their courses, more tutoring with professionals and more on-line support. These results set the guidelines for future actions that should be carried out within the framework of the Ecuadorian university.