Through Reflective Lenses: Enhancing Students’ Perceptions of Their Media Writing Skills

Abstract

Many national reports have documented students’ writing deficiencies and the need to develop rigorous writing curricula that moves the needle forward in training young professionals to write. The quasi-experimental study described herein explains the effect reflection had on journalistic writing students’ media writing self-perception scores. We found that students who participated in metacognitive reflection exercises after each major journalistic writing assignment scored significantly higher on the writing self-efficacy construct and the overall media writing self-perceptions scale. Reflection was one way the students in the study began to perceive themselves as media writers and transform from novices to professionals.

Measuring the correlation between digital media usage and students’ perceived writing ability: Are they related?

“…Students' average MWSP scores may indicate that they have low MWSPs, which is a critical reality but not different from previous studies (Leggette, Redwine, and Busick 2019;Meier, McCarthy, and Schmeck 1984). Therefore, college faculty, especially those who teach discipline-specific communications and writing courses, should consider integrating curriculum into their courses that focuses on increasing students' perceived and actual writing abilities.…”

What Skills and Experiences Get Agricultural Communications Students Hired: An Industry Perspective

“…In addition to course content and assignments, faculty could use exercises that allow HIRING STUDENTS: COMMUNICATION INDUSTRY VIEW students to reflect on the communication and decisionmaking skills they used to complete the assignment and on how they could improve their application of such skills. Leggette et al (2020), in their quasi-experiment study, found that students who participated in metacognitive reflection exercises after each major writing assignment had higher writing self-efficacy scores and overall higher media writing self-perception scores. Thus, reflection was one way the students in the Leggette et al (2020) study transformed into career-ready professionals.…”

“…Leggette et al (2020), in their quasi-experiment study, found that students who participated in metacognitive reflection exercises after each major writing assignment had higher writing self-efficacy scores and overall higher media writing self-perception scores. Thus, reflection was one way the students in the Leggette et al (2020) study transformed into career-ready professionals.…”

“…To create real-world experiences for students, Whitaker and Leggette (2016) sought to understand the digital media concepts that professionals used daily in their careers. The concepts would then be delivered using evidence-based andragogy practices (e.g., reflection exercises; Leggette et al, 2020) to provide students with real-world skills that they could apply as industry professionals. As a result, they designed a social media course based on industry feedback related to course content, exercises, and assignments to prepare students for the advanced positions they will start after graduation while delivering the content using teaching methods that transform students' understanding of digital media.…”

Grounded Literacies in a Transnational WAC/WID Ecology: A Korean-American Study

“…As scholarship on English education in Korea demonstrates, many students graduating from domestic secondary schools likely encounter substantial shifts upon entering U.S.-style introductory writing courses. My anecdotal familiarity with the communication major's newswriting course (at least at the U.S.-based campus) and my knowledge of scholarship on mass communication pedagogy (see, e.g., Leggette et al, 2020;Massé & Popovich, 1998;Panici & McKee, 1996) prompted me to believe that students would have to shift twice-from narrative and even explicitly creative writing to the argumentative and expository writing featured in the university's general first-year writing courses, and then once again to the specific generic and style exigencies of AP-formatted news reporting. When I expressed that concern to U.S.-native Professor W (interview, May 2016), he concurred briefly but then related that he had contacted several students he knew would be enrolling in his introductory newswriting course the following semester.…”