Report on students` writing progress (group A-2)

Graph 1. Writing Questionnaire (Faculty of Humanities, A-2 group)

On the 21st March 2013, a survey was conducted among 11 students of the Faculty of Humanities (A-2 group) at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”. The purpose of the survey was to discover the progress in Academic writing.

The survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire given to the students to complete. There were 5 questions–part of them was open questions and the other–closed one. The first one was divided into three parts and was related to whether the course was useful or not, and what the improvements were made, or what the reasons why they were not made. The second question was about the difficulties that the students still have with academic writing. These two questions were open and required multiple answers. The third one–how relevant and useful the book was in general for preparing to the course. The fourth question asked the kind of writing practice that was the most useful and again was open. And the last question was for comments and advice from the students.

As can be seen from the Graph 1, all 11 students of A-2 group (Faculty of Humanities) consider that they improved their writing in English during Academic writing course. Although, their improvements were in various fields of writing: 72% improved structuring their papers, at the same time 63% learned to organize their thoughts, 27% improved their spelling, punctuation and vocabulary, 18% have other improvements like familiarization with different techniques and styles of documentation. Still, there are some difficulties students have with academic writing. Grammar is a problem of 45%, as much as vocabulary, 36% finds difficulties in punctuation, 27% cannot cope with structuring their papers, and 9% have some problems in all kinds of language practice mentioned above. Answering how relevant and useful was the book of R.R.Jordan Academic Writing Course, 54,5% consider that it was useful only just, but on the other hand, 45,5% finds it reasonably useful. At last, 45% think that writing practice of research papers was the most useful, at the same time 36% consider that it was essays writing. Bibliographies, motivation letters, and surveys considered to be the most useful by 9% each. None of the students added any comments about their own writing or advice to improve the book or course.

Group A2 (Participants)

Olha Belopolskaia

Olha Vynohradova

Maria Pozniakova

Iryna Nikolaychuk

Daria Lytoshenko

Ivanna Voitsekhovych

Kateryna Oliinyk

Alisa Demina

Marta Pasyuk

Arsenij Fedosiuk

Dmytro Stasiuk