RVN Webinar Series - Measuring transfer from first-year communication skills courses

-Note: This talk has not gone through a process of peer review, and
findings should therefore be treated as preliminary and subject to change.
-How to cite: Karani, Michael and Evans-Tokaryk, Tyler. 2023. Measuring transfer from first-year communication skills courses: A longitudinal mixed-methods study at the University of Dar es Salaam. Talk Given at Rift Valley Webinar Series 12/07/2023.
-DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8152267
-Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate the skills and knowledge that students transfer from the university-wide communication skills courses offered to first-year students at UDSM. Specifically, the study seeks to identify the skills that students need and practice in non-communication courses at UDSM, their perception of the skills and knowledge that they acquire in communication skills courses offered at UDSM, and how they apply them in completing assignments and tests in other courses and in the workforce after graduation. To date, no research has been conducted on writing transfer at any English-medium university in Africa. Our research addresses this gap by adapting writing transfer theory and methods developed for the study of American writing programs to a comprehensive longitudinal study of over 6,000 students from different fields of study at UDSM. Data collection techniques include a pre-survey, post-surveys, students’ assignments and annual interviews for a few selected students from each course. CL course instructors and content course instructors will also be interviewed. In this talk, we present preliminary findings from the interviews and survey data on communication skills for engineering students, CL 111, (one among the three courses under study) in which we focus on measuring transfer more accurately, identifying obstacles to transfer more effectively, identifying potential challenges to (and opportunities for) transfer in later years, and establishing pedagogical strategies to improve the likelihood of transfer. The student survey data collected in 2022 suggest that this particular group of students are more likely to attend private, English-medium secondary schools than other UDSM students, while interviews with instructors strongly suggest that the students do not transfer their skills and knowledge to other contexts. These findings need to be confirmed by other sources of data. In addition, some instructors think that transfer is not an issue at all in a situation where students do not master the language of instruction. This early stage of the study suggests that engineering students likely need a different kind of writing support and instruction than other students. Further, more work needs to be done to assess all incoming students’ writing skills to allow for differentiated and targeted instruction. We expect similar findings from subsequent stages of this longitudinal research project.
-For more, visit Michael's page at: https://scholar.google.com/citations?...
and Tyler's page at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/...