Professors’ Perceptions of Student Writing in Four-Year Colleges

• In Event: Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: Issues in Writing Instruction in Secondary and College Classrooms

Abstract

This qualitative study examines professors’ perceptions of students’ writing skills at three four-year colleges. Interviews aim to better understand how professors from different departments perceive their students’ writing skills and how they respond to any perceived deficiencies. Initial study results suggest that professors perceive student writing as lacking in grammar usage, clarity, and an ability to write in the argumentative mode. Findings from this study have implications for recently renewed goals of bettering alignment between secondary and postsecondary education, offering an important perspective about specific writing skills incoming freshmen lack and should therefore be considered as important for reform efforts at the secondary level.

Author

• Elizabeth Hale Rozas, Harvard University