This study sought to examine the development of paragraph writing skills of 116 English as a second language university students over the course of 12 weeks and the relationship between the linguistic features of students' written texts as measured by Coh-Metrix--a computational system for estimating textual features such as cohesion and…

Concern about student retention and success remains paramount in universities both in Australia and overseas, especially in the light of the ongoing massification of higher education, yet current strategies are not necessarily dealing successfully with the changing demographics of student populations. This is particularly so in the realm of…

While the Internet has been described as fundamental to higher education students, social and leisure internet tools are also increasingly being used by these students to generate and maintain their social and professional networks and interactions. Rapid technological advancements have enabled greater and faster access to information for learning…

The number of international ESL students completing their degree programs in Australia has risen dramatically in the past decade. One factor that may be motivating students to undertake tertiary studies in Australia is the expectation that this form of immersion will lead to improved English language skills. However, existing research, such as…

Focused freewriting, broadly defined as writing without stopping and editing about a specific topic, has been viewed and used as a powerful tool for developing student writing in a wide spectrum of educational contexts. This study aimed to further explore the use of focused freewriting in the context of promoting students' academic skills…