Student Perceptions of College Writing

• In Event: Writing in Undergraduate and Graduate Education

Abstract

The present study contributes to the topic of college readiness and academic literacy by way of an investigation of the preparedness of incoming students. Accordingly, we describe how a cohort of recent high school graduates (n=109) perceived college writing prior to their matriculation at four-year institutions. This area of inquiry – conspicuously vacant in the literature – is theoretically valuable to improving the preparation of writers for college-level work since the perspective of learners is a key ingredient in determining what students need to know, and how teachers should frame learning. Implicit beliefs about academic writing necessarily influence the ways in which students not only perceive their own literacy strengths and weaknesses, but also engage with the task of writing improvement.

Authors

• Stefani Robin Relles, University of Southern California

• William G. Tierney, University of Southern California