Dialogism as Remediation: Building Self-Efficacy of Underprepared Writing Students

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Developmental Education and Academic Skill Building

Abstract

Colleges struggle to assist underprepared students admitted with inadequate writing skills. Not ready for the writing demands of college, they are assigned to developmental courses, sometimes based on a single test score. They have yet to master the language, discourse patterns, and critical analysis typical of the academic domain. Underprepared students may come from backgrounds where dialogical interactions, the foundation of academic thinking and writing, have not been emphasized at home or in school.
This mixed-methods study explored the experiences of novice writers in a developmental class in which dialogical interactions were the core of student activities.
Results suggest that students’ confidence for academic writing and sophistication of some dimensions of epistemic belief improved after experiencing dialogical processes.

Author

• Gurupreet K. Khalsa, University of South Alabama