ERIC Number: EJ1392006
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9266
EISSN: EISSN-2157-6009
Lost in 'Translation'? A Set of Writing Workshops Improves Molecular Medicine Honours Students' Perceptions of Their Scientific Report Writing Skills
Owen, Gavin R.; Whalley, Natalie; Brenner, Elisabeth
Journal of Biological Education, v57 n3 p647-667 2023
Undergraduate science degrees in South Africa seldom offer explicit courses focussing on improving the disciplinary writing skills required for effectively communicating scientific research. Similarly, most students entering the 'Honours' degree in Molecular Medicine at a South African university have not commonly been afforded opportunities to develop appropriate scientific writing and thinking skills. Aspiring to improve writing abilities, in 2017 we introduced a set of writing workshops involving iterative writing activities of scientific report sections with dialogic feedback from the facilitator. This study aimed to interrogate whether the workshops achieved the intended outcomes by conducting a post-course survey to ascertain the perceptions of the Molecular Medicine students. We also compared the grades awarded for the scientific reports in years before and since the implementation of the workshops. Students highlighted numerous ways that the workshops had improved their ability to write sections of a scientific report, while the average grade for the scientific report also increased significantly since the introduction of the workshops. These results reveal that the structure and activities of our workshops can teach scientific writing skills to early-postgraduate level bioscience students with relatively little disruption to the existing curriculum and help inform the format of future writing workshops.
Descriptors: Writing Workshops, Honors Curriculum, Student Attitudes, Reports, Writing Skills, Technical Writing, Medicine, Undergraduate Students, Foreign Countries, Biological Sciences, Writing Assignments, Writing Improvement
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: South Africa
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A