THE (DOUBLE) TRANSITION BECOMING A (PERIPHERAL) MEMBER OF THE ACADEMIC AND THE

PROFESSIONAL DISCOURSE COMMUNITY?

Vibeke Ankersborg & Karl-Heinz Pogner

Copenhagen Business School EARLI 2015, Limassol (Cypris), August 25, 2015

MASTER’S THESIS STUDENTS’ APPROACHES TO WRITING AT COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL

THE FRAMEWORK TEXT PRODUCTION & THINKING /KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION /”ACTING” CONTRIBUTION TO RESEARCH AS “CONVERSATION” IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES TEXT PRODUCTION & (PERIPHERAL) PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITIES GENRE AND DISCOURSE: PREFORM OF SCIENTIFIC WRITING AND LEARNING (UNIVERSITY WRITING) DAS: ”DISCOURSE & ACTION SPACE” * ACADEMIC TEXT PRODUCTION AS ANOTHER SECOND / FOREIGN LANGUAGE TO LEARN (LX) CBS: TWO ”MASTERS”: ACADEMIA & BUSINESS/SOCIETY (RIGOR & RELEVANCE) A PILOT STUDY APPLIED NETWORK ANALYSIS PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS: CHALLENGES: KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION // TEXT PRODUCTION

*KNORR, DAGMAR / POGNER, KARL-HEINZ (2015): VOM SCHREIBEN ZUM „TEXTEN“. AKADEMISCHE TEXTPRODUKTION

UNTER DEN BEDINGUNGEN VON MEHRSPRACHIGKEIT. IN: FREMDSPRACHEN LEHREN UND LERNEN 44,1.

Embedded notion of

text production

Academic approach

Peripheral membership Zone of prox. Development Exploring & Scaffolding

Teaching Learning “as if- membership” ”as if -Participation”

Seminars Workshops ”Research Project” Supervision

Academic Literacies [Business, Society]

Communities: Epistemological Interpretative Discourse (DC) Practice (CoP) -> genre -> intertextuality -> argumentation -> structure ->methodology

Writing <->

Thinking <->

investigating

Institutional power: Course descriptions Learning objectives

Knowledge production

Framework: Text production as social interaction

Text Pedagogy

Business University Relevance & Rigor

Text production

Thesis Writing

Research Project

Institutional power: Evaluating Grading

???? Ownership Voice Identity

double binds? ”Scientist” and ”Learner”

Students’ Contribution

Idea generation, mind mapping: Group discussions (recordings), maps, diagrams, lists negotiations of academic and ”professional”

roles and identities Semi-structured interviews (basis: text produced and process so far Students’ challenges and choices Knowledge production, problem solving, text

production

Pilot study 6 students 4 theses Thesis start February/March 2014 4 semi-structured qualitative interviews June/July 2014 Focus: Thesis process and approach to writing

Analysis inspired by Attride-Stirling (2001): Thematic networks and Guest et al. (2012): Applied thematic analysis

4 theses 4 research

designs 4 approaches

to writing

Approaches to writing

• Brainstorm • Keywords • Pieces of texts • Put it together • Edit later

• Rought texts while reading

• Finalizes a section

• Adds corrections • First draft has

manuscript quality

• Discuss every word • Spend days on writing a

few sentences • Write paragraphs in

reading order • Aim at first draft has

manuscript quality

• Lyng write what springs to mind

• Louise adds and corrects • Rearrange pararaphs • Discuss it – again • Present draft is 10th

version

Iben: Case study

Christina: Deductive with empirical test

Julie & Julie: Literature review – purely theoretical

Lyng & Louise: Inductive, ethnographic

Hypothesis: There is correlation between research design and approach to writing and personality.

Writing helps the students progress, but 5 of

them don´t realize it

Writing facilitates knowledge (- But only write fairly little!)

Writing leads to deleting and adding paragraphs

Writing helps stay disciplined

Concepts are choosen in part as a consequense of writing

Semi-loose writing about a new theory deepened insight into that theory

Writing changed the structure

Writing the introduction early created clarity and helps stay on track

Writing and drawing while reading, helps select the literature

Tentative research question: How can we enhance students’ awareness of the role of writing?

challenge: Reading and

writing develop the structure,

but a chosen stucture

facilitates writing

Structure seems to be the name of the game

Fixation on structure prevents writing

Adjust structure wile writing

Lack of structure at chapter level prevented writing

Chose the classic structure for master’s theses and simply started to write

Deeper insight into theories changed the structure – which makes writing about them easier

Lack of knowledge about the role of thesis structure prevented writing

Methodological approach dictates the structure of that chapter – then they could write

Structure creates control – then she can write in all directions

Lack of knowledge

is a key, but no clear

pattern

Factors that block writing

Unsure about choice of literature on methodology

Unsure about the correlation between research design and thesis structure

Captured by data ollection

”Must be there” praragraphs are borring to write

Lack of understanding of the role of parts of methodology

Data collection before the summer vacation – a time factor

Lack of understanding of theoretical perspective

Inspiration

Practical issues

Methodology

Lack of access to literature – the library

Things of interests are easy to write

Needs to read more

Pairs lead to more discussion than writing

Thesis activities influence students’

thesis proces

Traces of learning

Inductive approach chosen based on methodology class

Literature review style thesis chosen based on thesis seminar

Controlled approach to ”unfounded grounds”

Too old to change habits on writing style at sentence level

Slides provide structure and a lens for reading literature about methodology

Methodology classes provided an overview

Tools to shape the topic

Ideas from other students

Tools directly applied in the students’ writing process

New knowledge on types of theses A more

refleksive approach

We could probably

utilize influential

factors more

Other influential factors (and social information processing (Sitkin et al.)

Methodology class led to the choice of research approach before anything else

Internship led to identifying the topic

Supervisors’ suggestions led to additional choices of theory

Academic focus at bachelor level led to choice of reverse research approach

Student job led to identifying the topic 2 years ago

A former student inspired choice of theory

Core subject course led to choice of theory

Academic focus at bachelor level led to choice of analytical approach

Academic background

Classes

People around the students

Factors outside CBS

Case company

Regardless of approach, students could utilize writing

more and universities could

utilize our means of influence more

Conclusions: Knowledge production vs. / and text production

4 theses 4 research

designs 4 approaches

to writing

Writing

helps the

students progress, but 5 of

them don´t

realize it

Challenge: Reading and

writing develop the

structure, but a chosen stucture

facilitates writing

Lack of knowledge is a

key, but no clear pattern

We could probably utilize

influential factors more

Thesis activities

(seminars, workshops)

influence students’

thesis process