Towards an enhanced view of doctoral writing environments: Learning alliances to reconceptualise practice

Abstract

As doctoral enrolments have soared in many countries around the world, considerable attention has been devoted to how an increasingly diverse candidature can succeed in thesis writing. Along with supervisory guidance during the student’s research project, various publications have emerged to help students with thesis writing requirements. However, neither necessarily helps students become expert writers as supervisors tend to focus on content discussions, and self-help books attend to the more surface or mechanical features of writing. Along the way to a finished thesis, students can become mired in uncertainty about what they are discovering – intellectually stuck – and then lose confidence in their ability to express themselves within an academically accepted writing style. Indecision hampers student progress as they struggle with appropriate ways to reveal the insights they are gaining during research. Yet, generic, group-oriented, doctoral writing programmes can provide a powerful means for students to appreciate key features of the doctoral writing genre and overcome intellectual hurdles. This paper explores how an understanding of threshold concepts and the use of cultural, social and linguistic tools can mediate students’ emerging knowledge of how to become proficient and successful thesis writers.

How international doctoral students’ fields of study, proficiency in English and gender interact with their sense of making progress in English academic writing abilities

“…Scholarly writing at the doctoral level was described as a "grueling" experience [38]. "Along the way to a finished thesis, students can become mired in uncertainty about what they are discovering-intellectually stuck-and then lose confidence in their ability to express themselves within an academically accepted writing style" [39] (p.140). Insufficient knowledge about academic writing conventions tends to be an issue for uncompletion of doctoral dissertations [40].…”

Supporting Doctoral Students in Crisis

“…Academic challenges, though are firmly in the realm of the supervisory team, at least initially. One key responsibility of the supervisor is to be aware of the complementary sources of support available to the student [27,75], such as academic writing centres, libraries, research training courses, etc. [47,[76][77][78], and also pathways to accessing greater support-or sometimes challenge-when academic progress is not developing as it should [78].…”

“…For example, doctoral 'writing groups' are typically collaborative learning communities that serve also to offer pastoral support [99] in an extended understanding of the wider university's roles in a doctoral learning alliance [27]. Other university structures, such as writing centres, libraries, etc., also have important roles to play [75]. However, there remains a fundamental interaction between isolation, wellbeing, identity and academic development [99].…”