Academic Literacy Levels Research Articles

A pan-university open online course approach to EOL academic literacy for tertiary students

Canada and the academic world have changed dramatically since the Bilingualism and Biculturalism Reports and the implementation of French immersion programs in Canada a half century ago. From the original theme of bilingualism, equality and the balancing of French and English in Canada, globalization and immigration have produced a different model of bilingualism in a multilingual and multicultural Canada situated in a global English dominant academic network. This paper addresses the academic world dominance of English and the necessity of the majority of the world’s English speakers, who are not native speakers of English but speak English as an “other” language (EOL), as well as the minority of English speakers for whom English is their dominant language, to attain higher levels of academic literacy for the globalized world of academia. All of the approaches for EOL online immersion instruction proposed here can also be exploited to raise the French academic literacy of French immersion students and faculty for tertiary education.

Constitutive and regulative conditions for the assessment of academic literacy

If we characterise language tests as applied linguistic instruments, we may argue that they therefore need to conform to the conditions that apply to the development of responsible applied linguistic designs. Conventionally, language tests are required to possess both validity and reliability; these are necessary conditions for such tests, and so is their theoretical defensibility (‘construct validity’). The new orthodoxy, however, is that test designers must also seek consequential validity for their instruments, in that they have to consider test impact. Using an emerging framework for a theory of applied linguistics, this paper outlines how a number of constitutive or necessary conditions for test design (their instrumental power, their consistency and theoretical justification) relate to other current concepts. These recently articulated notions include the ideas of test acceptability, utility, and alignment with both the instruction that follows and with the real or perceived language needs of students; as well as their transparency, accountability and care for those taking them. The latter set of ideas may be defined as regulative or sufficient conditions for language tests. These concepts will be illustrated with reference to the design of a test of academic literacy levels that is widely used in South African universities.

On being reflective practitioners: the evaluation of a writing module for first-year students in the Health Sciences

Low levels of academic literacy (the ability to successfully engage in the academic discourse, whether it is through reading, writing, listening or speaking) in the language of teaching and learning are widely seen as one of the main reasons for the lack of academic success among South African undergraduate students with high academic potential. To address this problem, and in an attempt to simultaneously increase the overall throughput rates of first-year students, Stellenbosch University introduced the gradual implementation of compulsory academic literacy courses as part of the first-year-curriculum in 2005—a trend observed not only in South Africa, but also internationally. This article reports on research that is aimed at determining the impact of an academic literacy intervention for first-year students in the Health Sciences. For this intervention, the focus was on the development of students' writing skills, with content-specific material and authentic tasks being used as far as possible. Student writing was assessed before, during and after the intervention, and preliminary conclusions in terms of the impact of the course were drawn as first iteration towards a longitudinal study to measure the effectiveness of this academic literacy intervention.

Measures of improvement in academic literacy

This article considers the analysis of the results of a re-administration of a test of academic literacy, specifically with a view to determining whether this analysis yields insight into the improvement of levels of academic literacy over time. The article postulates that, if improvement occurs, the level of improvement will be uneven across different categories of ability, and across different levels of academic literacy as measured by various sub-tests. An attempt is made to offer explanations for the kinds of improvement that are evident, as well as to identify factors that may play a role in such improvement, such as the time of being exposed to a compulsory academic literacy development intervention, the mother tongue of the testee, and the initial level of academic literacy.

Student experience and tertiary expectations: factors predicting academic literacy amongst first‐year pharmacy students

Enhancing student performance in the first year and increasing retention rates have become important priorities for universities, resulting in a focus on support, especially for students deemed ‘at risk’. Research suggests the importance of entry pathways into university and academic literacy for successful progression. However, there is little research on the relationship between academic literacy levels and students' self‐evaluation of their written communication skills. The current study, using a first‐year cohort in undergraduate pharmacy, investigated the relationship between students' academic literacy skills, their previous writing experiences and their self‐evaluations of their own literacy. As well as confirming the relationship between entry pathways and literacy performance, this study found length of text written before students entered the University of Sydney to be a salient variable. Students also were more realistic when evaluating specific literacy skills than when providing a more general evaluation of their written communication skills, which has implications for their preparedness to access available support.

Points of focus and position: Intertextual reference in PhD theses

This paper investigates the nature of texts produced for assessment at the highest level of advanced academic literacy: PhD theses. Eight theses from within a single department (Agricultural Botany) at a British university are the subject of study, and the contexts in which these texts were written are investigated through interviews with the supervisors. The notion of a genre of the PhD thesis is problematized and it is argued that a genre-analytic approach can be highly generative. Finally, the ways that the writers manipulate focus and position within their texts is explored through an investigation of citation practices in the theses.

Sociolinguistic Challenges to Minority Collegiate Success: Entering the Discourse Community of the College

A significant body of research has examined the reasons behind high minority collegiate attrition. All of this work has contributed to our understanding of the unique challenges minority and first generation college students face in the difficult transition to the often new culture that is the college experience. One area that has gone virtually ignored in the literature, however, is the relationship of language, discourse, and literacy to collegiate success. Because the university comprises its own “discourse community”—with its own “ways with words”—those wishing to help minority students in their transition to college should not ignore students' levels of academic literacy. Rather, differences in language use contribute to many students' feelings of alienation from the academic and social culture of the academy. Fortunately, results from this study support the thesis that students lacking academic literacy may be able to learn it—and have a better chance at academic success—through the efforts of college-preparatory programs, college-level student academic services programs, pre-collegiate “bridge” programs, and college mentoring programs.

Switching constructs: on the selection of an appropriate blueprint for academic literacy assessment

Tests of language ability are based on a certain construct that defines this ability, and this blueprint determines what it is that will be measured. The University of Pretoria has, since 2000, annually administered a test of academic language proficiency to more than 6000 first-time students. The intention of this test is to identify those who are at risk academically as a result of too low a level of academic language proficiency. If their academic literacy levels are too low, students are required to enrol for a set of four courses in order to minimise their risk of failure. The Unit for Language Skills Development at the University of Pretoria has now embarked on a project to design an alternative test to the one used initially, specifically with a view to basing it on a new construct. The reason is that the construct of the current test has become contested over the last decade as a result of its dependence on an outdated concept of language, which equates language ability with knowledge of sound, vocabulary, form, and meaning. Present-day concepts emphasise a much richer view of language competence, and their focus has, moreover, shifted from discrete language skills to the attainment of academic literacy. In this paper the abilities encompassed by this view will be discussed in order to compare the construct of the current test with the proposed construct. Key Words: language testing; academic literacy; test constructs; accountability Journal for Language Teaching Vol.38(1) 2004: 1-13