Abstract
Academic writing is a challenging task. Expert writers apply various writing skills as they anticipate the reader’s view of their text while paying attention to structure and content. Research in the high school setting shows that the acquisition of writing skills can be supported by single-strategy training. However, research in higher education is scarce. We tested whether the development of academic writing skills can also be effectively supported by training single strategies or even combined strategies. As metacognition is an important skill for advanced and adult learners, we focused in this study on the benefit of combined cognitive strategies with and without a metacognitive strategy. An experiment including three conditions was conducted (N = 60 German-speaking psychology undergraduates, M = 22.8, SD = 4.4), which lasted for three hours. Each group received a modeling intervention of a basic cognitive strategy on the application of text structure knowledge. Two groups received an additional modeling intervention with either a cognitive strategy treatment on text summarization or a metacognitive strategy treatment on self-monitoring the writing process. One group received no further strategy treatment. Prior knowledge and learning outcomes were measured with a specially developed test on academic writing skills. In addition, all participants wrote an abstract of an empirical article. We found that learners who received the additional self-monitoring strategy intervention benefited significantly more in terms of acquisition of academic writing skills and the quality of their texts than learners who did not receive this intervention. Thus, the results underline the importance of self-monitoring strategies in academic writing. Implications and further research opportunities are discussed.
Highlights
We propose that the additional training of the self-monitoring strategy will provide benefit in terms of the acquisition of academic writing skills and abstract writing
The short scales used in the pretest revealed no significant differences between conditions. This was the case for reproduction of text structure knowledge, F(2,57) = 0.56, p > 0.05, reduction of text content, F(2,57) = 1.20, p > 0.05, and application of text structure knowledge, F(2,57) = 1.03, p > 0.05
With respect to the subscales of the pretest, the average scores ranged from 10.0 to 20.0% for reproduction of text structure knowledge, 18.0 to 28.0% for application of text structure knowledge, and 63.0 to 75.0% for reduction of text content with respect to correctness and completeness. These results indicate that the participants had only sparse knowledge about text structure and its application, but quite good knowledge regarding text summarization
Summary
It can be used both as a tool for learning and as a tool to convince others of the writer’s argument (Graham et al, 2013). It is a prerequisite for academic life with respect to preparing and publishing research. Writing research has shown that the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies can strongly influence writing quality. Cognitive strategies, such as planning, translating and reviewing, Combined Strategy Training in Academic Writing are directly related to the writing process; metacognitive strategies facilitate monitoring the writing process and deciding how to align cognitive strategies in order to reach the intended writing product (Hayes and Flower, 1980; Flavell, 1987; Hayes, 2012)
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