The Writing Process of a PhD student a shift from concern over language to the concern over the mind

Transcription

1 The Writing Process of a PhD student a shift from concern over language to the concern over the mind Professor Kirsti Lonka University of Wiredminds.fi

2 Writing shapes thinking Our ways of writing influence our thinking. Our ways of thinking influence our writing. The key to successful writing is the awareness of different genres, conventions, and academic discourses. Successful writers do not only follow conventions, but they also create new ways of expression. P.Tynjälä, L. Mason, & K. Lonka (Eds.) Writing as a Learning Tool: Integrating theory and practice. Studies in Writing, Vol. 7. Dordrecth, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers

3 THINKING TASK Think about instances, when you 1) Enjoyed academic writing 2) Experienced writing as difficult

4 My academic writing Enjoyable When you know, what you want to say Difficulties? Very short space, having to express complex things When you have time to do it Feedback when you are not When I write I enjoy, but ready to take it thinking about what I should Theoretical framework trying to do is painful write somebody else s ideas The moment when it clicks Trying to fight the anxiety Seeing that something was Not having time, focus of research written Self criticism Finding key sources Starting writing

5 Maladaptive Thoughts of Writing (Boice, 1993) Blocks - the feeling that I am not able to write Negative Thoughts - writing is not enjoyable, I do not feel good about it Procrastination - I cannot get started! Perfectionism - I cannot stop revising!

6 Adaptive Thoughts of Writing Productivity - the feeling that I am able to produce Positive Thoughts - writing is enjoyable, I feel good about it! Creativity - I see writing as an act of creation (Boice, 1993) Knowledge transforming (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987)

7 HOW TO CURE BLOCKS? Boice, 1990 Automatization - getting rid of the internal critics, setting the threshold lower for writing Regimen - constant writing regardless of mood, time, space Social support - peer groups etc. Adaptive cognitions about writing - useful beliefs about oneself and writing

8 METHOD The PhD Student Survey The PhD. student survey was conducted in The participants were 652 medical-, educational-, teacher education, arts-, and psychology doctoral candidates who filled in a questionnaire The survey consisted of both open ended questions and Likerttype statements. The themes of the survey were: 1. PhD. student's view of the thesis process and how they saw themselves as a part of the scientific community 2. The student supervisor interaction 3. Stress, anxiety, lack of interest, and exhaustion 4. Perceptions of the learning environment 5. The Writing Process Questionnaire

9 Lonka et al. (2014) JOWR The Writing Process Questionnaire This study aimed to measure PhD students ideas concerning writing and how they saw themselves as writers. The purpose was to create an instrument in order to analyse what factors may either promote or prevent the process of academic writing. The version developed for PhD Students was based on an instrument, created by Lonka (1996), which has been widely used in Finland and internationally A six-factor solution was assumed: Blocks, Procrastination, Perfectionism, Knowledge transformation, (Writing as) Innate ability, and Productivity. These constructs were measured by 26 Likert-type statements on the scale

10 The modified MED NORD questionnaire measured emotional problems (Lonka et al., 2008) with 10 items on scale 1-5 Stress (Elo et al, 2003): Stress means a situation in which a person feels tense, restless, nervous, or anxious or is unable to sleep because his/her mind is troubled all the time. Do you feel this kind of stress these days? Exhaustion Lonka et al. (2008): I feel exhausted, My workload is often too high, Doctoral studies are too stressful for me, I worry about the thesis in my free time Anxiety, based on IGSO (Mäkinen et al.2004): I often fear that I will fail in my doctoral studies, I am stressed out by the workload, deadlines and competition in doctoral studies, I often have to force myself to work for my thesis Lack of interest (IGSO) It is difficult for me to find meaning in my doctoral studies, I am not motivated by the content of my studies

11 Procedures Scales for measuring the six writing scales that were created by forming sum variables of 26 questions. Cronbachs Alphas were calculated to measure their internal consistency Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used, since it allows researchers to specify the relationship between variables and latent factors so as to construct measurement models for confirming or disproving hypothesized latent variable structures (Byrne, 1998) In addition, four scales measuring emotional problems were correlated with the writing scales in order to measure criterion validity

12 Blocks The Writer s Block basically means that people sometimes fail in written productivity, although there is nothing wrong with their literary skills or intellectual capacity (Rose, 1984/2009). Even experienced and skilful writers may suffer from blocks in their writing process. Boice's (1993) review addressed the most often mentioned reasons for writing blocks: internal censors, fears of failure, perfectionism, early negative experiences, procrastination, and poor mental health. He concluded that blocking seldom has a single cause, and that many different maladaptive thoughts may be related

13 Procrastination Procrastination means that sometimes people postpone or fail starting such tasks that would be important in terms of their success. Such behavior is often counterproductive, and it is extremely prevalent in academic work Writing may be especially likely to lend itself to procrastination, since it seldom offers short-term rewards (Boice, 1990) Procrastination is described either as adaptive or maladaptive. The former means that procrastinators aim at improved time management and efficiency in addition to consciously inducing a state of flow by fighting to meet the deadline. The maladaptive version occurs e.g. when students fear failure, are anxious, or simply lazy

14 Perfectionism Perfectionism in academic writing means that one keeps reworking material until it seems absolutely perfect (Boice, 1990). Such behavior is often related to fear of failure, avoiding criticism or attempts to impress others. This makes it difficult to share drafts, receiving feedback, and often leads to writing problems. Neumeister (2004) presented two variants of perfectionism where self-oriented perfectionists set themselves mastery goals and work hard and procrastinate less. In contrast, socially prescribed perfectionists rather avoid failure. This they do either by making no effort at all, i.e. procrastinating, or working even harder to avoid failure at all costs

15 Knowledge transformation Expert writers usually have learned to understand academic writing primarily as a process of knowledge transformation, rather than repetition (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987) Seeing writing as a creative and collaborative act, not just writing down things that are already known. Conception of knowledge transformation may help to establish a dialogue with others, write multiple drafts, be open for receiving feedback and revise one s work on the basis of comments. Expert writing calls taking into account the point of view of both the potential reader and the disciplinary genre, which often remain tacit (Olson, 1994)

16 International comparisons with Spanish-speaking populations

17 Innate ability Sawyer (2009) pointed out it may be misleading to think that writers mainly work alone and they have a special, innate gift to communicate their valuable message. Writing itself appears to be a solitary activity, but it may be harmful to believe that it is simply a result of a predetermined readiness. A strong epistemological belief in innate ability (Schommer, 1993) might be contradictory to seeing writing as a creative and collaborative act of knowledge transformation

18 Productivity We claim that optimism and self-efficacy beliefs in writing are essential in order for PhD students to become productive authors (Boice, 1990; 1993) Seeing oneself as a productive and active agent in the scholarly community is an important part of this process Bandura (1977) suggested that all psychological activities alter the level and strength of self-efficacy. Beliefs and expectations of personal efficacy determine how much effort will be expended in carrying out a certain task, and how long it will be sustained, even when facing obstacles and aversive experiences

19 THE MAIN RESULT A confirmatory factor analysis conducted with LISREL confirmed the above presented six-factor structure of the writing scale (RMESA= 0.065, CFI=0.92, NNFI=0.91). Lonka, K., Chow, A. Keskinen, J., Hakkarainen, K. Sandström, N.. & Pyhältö, K. (2014). How to measure PhD students conceptions of academic writing and are they related to wellbeing? Journal of Writing Research, 5(3),

20 The six factor model had better fit than just problems/adaptive

21 Correlations with emotional problems Bloc Proc Perf KnTr Innate Prod Stress.22**.28**.23** ** Lack of interest.23**.25**..15** -.16**.16** -.30** Anxiety.33**.45**.33** ** Exhaustion.30**..23**.26** * * p < 0.05 ** p <

22 Conclusions The Writing Process Questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring PhD students ideas concerning writing The experienced emotional problems correlated positively with blocks, procrastination and perfectionism, and in contrast, negatively with productivity Ideas concerning writing do matter, and it is worthwile to monitor these ideas! The Writing Conceptions Questionnaire may be used as a tool for self-reflection about one s own writing (Lonka, 2003)

23 Writing and epistemic cognition?

24 Epistemological stances towards writing (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; McLeod, 1997; Dweck & Elliot, 1983; Dweck, 2006) Knowledge transforming Growth mindset (Increment theory) Errors as useful Feedback as resource Focus on process Maximize learning Emhasize effort Personal, long-term, flexible standards Instrinsic value, focusing on activity and progress Knowledge telling Fixed mindset (Entity theory) Errors as failures Feedback as a threat Focus on outcome Maximize looking smart Emphasize innate ability Normative, immediate, rigid standards Extrinsic value, judgemental

25 Aims The main aim was to profile doctoral candidates regarding different aspects of writing (i.e. blocks, procrastination, perfectionism, innate ability, knowledge transforming, and productivity) to employ a person-centered approach to the investigation of individual differences to examine the differences between profiles in terms of experienced well-being and perceptions of the learning environment

26 Research questions 1. What kind of writing profiles can be identified among doctoral candidates? 2. How doctoral candidates with different writing profiles differ in terms of experienced well-being (i.e. stress, exhaustion, anxiety, and lack of interest)? perceptions of the learning environment (i.e. feedback, workload, satisfaction, poor ambience, and worry)?

27 Context of the study Finnish doctoral studies are highly embedded in conducting the thesis research Students must apply for acceptance to a doctoral education Either a monograph or as a series of articles including a summary Target duration for full-time studies is 4 years The most usual funding forms for doctoral students are personal grants, project funding, or wages from work out-side the university

28 Participants 3 faculties from the University of Helsinki: Arts, Medicine, and Behavioural sciences altogether 669 doctoral candidates (496 female; 168 male; mean age 39; median 35) response rate was 38.4% all had either MA s or licentiate degrees half of the students reported working full-time and the other half part-time on their thesis

29 Measures The Writing Process Questionnaire: blocks (5), knowledge transforming (6), productivity (4), procrastination (4), perfectionism(4), and innate ability (2) Experienced well-being: stress (1), exhaustion (4), anxiety (3), and lack of interest (2) Perceptions of the learning environment: feedback (3), workload (2), satisfaction (3), poor ambience (3), and worry (2) Background variables

30 Data Analyses Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) already done in Lonka et al (variable-centered approach) Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) One-way ANOVA with pairwise comparisons Cross tabulation with chi-square test

31 Latent Profile Analysis Person-centered approach The goal is to group individuals into categories, each one of which contains individuals who are similar to each other and different from individuals in other categories LPA is a probabilistic or model-based variant of traditional cluster analysis and seeks to identify the smallest number of latent classes (groups) that adequately describe the associations among observed continuous variables

32 Latent Profile Analysis Variables with strongest correlations (based on Lonka et al. 2014) were allowed to correlate within latent groups (i.e. blocks with procrastination, perfectionism, and productivity; and procrastination with perfectionism and productivity) variances and covariances were assumed to be equal across classes usefulness and interpretativeness of the latent classes as well as the reasonableness of the solutions in relation to theory and previous research were also considered to be criteria for choosing the best fitting model We carried out a series of latent profile analyses classes are added stepwise until the model optimally fits the data

33 Latent Profile Analyses N of classes BIC p VLMR p LMR Entropy Table 2. Information criteria values for different class solutions. BIC = Bayesian Information Criterion; p VLMR = Vuong-Lo-Mendell-Rubin likelihood ratio test; p LMR = Lo-Mendell-Rubin adjusted likelihood ratio test

34 Writing profiles 5 4 Profile

35 Writing profiles 5 Profile 1 4 Profile

36 Writing profiles 5 4 Profile 1 Profile 2 Profile

37 Profiles were labelled as Growth-Transforming (profile 1, N = 338, 51%) represented a typical doctoral candidate in the sample with highest perfectionism, knowledge transformation, and productivity, and least blocks and believing in innate ability Fixed-Blocking (profile 3, N = 60, 9%) expressed the opposite: they had lowest scores on knowledge transformation and productivity and most blocks and believing in innate ability Ambivalent-Dissonant (profile 2, N = 266, 40%) stayed in between: they expressed less perfectionism, knowledge transformation, and productivity and more blocks and believing in innate ability than the Growth-Transforming profile. However, they reported more knowledge transformation and less blocks than Fixed-Blocking profile

38 Other remarks Knowledge transformation was clearly the most discriminating variable between profiles (η 2 =.85) Concerning blocks, perfectionism, innate ability, and productivity the differences between profiling variables were not as decisive although statistically significant pairwise differences were found Procrastination did not differentiate profiles In line with correlational results productivity and knowledge transformation were positively related to each other also within profiles and negatively related to blocks and innate ability Unlike in correlational results, perfectionism seemed to be related to higher productivity and fewer blocks within profiles (Growth-Transforming profile)

39 Mean differences in grouping variables Table 3 Mean differences in grouping variables between profiles. Variable Profile 1 Profile 2 Profile 3 N = 338 N = 266 N = 60 M SD M SD M SD F (2, 661) p η 2 Blocks Procrastination a a a Perfectionism 2.79 a b ab Innate Ability a a Knowledge Transformat Productivity a a Means within a row sharing the same subscripts are not significantly different at the p <.05 level (with Bonferroni correction, 1 with Games-Howell correction)

40 Differences between profiles in experienced well-being Lack of interest differed significantly as a function of writing profile The pairwise comparisons revealed that, the participants in Fixed-Blocking profile experienced more lack of interest than the participants in Growth- Transforming or Ambivalent-Dissonant profiles Concerning the other well-being variables, no statistically significant differences were found between the profiles

41 Mean differences in experienced well-being Table 4 Mean differences in experienced well-being between writing profiles. Variable Profile 1 Profile 2 Profile 3 M SD M SD M SD F (2, 661) p η 2 Stress 2.74 a a a Exhaustion 2.68 a a a Anxiety a a a Lack of Interest a a Means within a row sharing the same subscripts are not significantly different at the p <.05 level (with Bonferroni correction, 1 with Games-Howell correction)

42 Differences in perceptions of the learning environment Feedback and satisfaction differed significantly as a function of writing profile Participants in Fixed-Blocking profile experienced receiving less supportive feedback than the participants in Growth-Transforming profile Doctoral candidates in Growth-Transforming profile were the most satisfied, and in Fixed-Blocking profile the least satisfied with their studies Concerning the other learning environment variables, no statistically significant differences were found between the profiles

43 Mean differences in perceptions of the learning environment Table 5 Mean differences in perceptions of the learning environment between writing profiles. Variable Profile 1 Profile 2 Profile 3 M SD M SD M SD F (2, 661) p η 2 Feedback 3.36 a ab b Workload a a a Satisfaction Poor ambience 2.42 a a a Worry 2.88 a a a Means within a row sharing the same subscripts are not significantly different at the p <.05 level (with Bonferroni correction, 1 with Games-Howell correction)

44 Gender differences Gender differed significantly as a function of writing profile (p =.019) In Growth-Transforming profile women were overrepresended and men underrepresented

45 Epistemic beliefs matter in writing! Knowledge transformation was clearly the most discriminating variable between the three profiles, indicating that it made a strong contribution to the results. Concerning blocks, perfectionism, innate ability and productivity, the differences between profiles were not as decisive, although statistically significant pairwise differences were found. The construct of knowledge transformation theoretically binds together the epistemic and practical aspects of research writing. From the epistemic point of view, trying to formulate and justify one s research is the key element of academic work (Bråten, Stromso, & Samuelstuen, 2008). It also reflects the adoption of a more constructivist epistemology (Hofer, 2016; Lonka & Lindblom-Ylänne, 1996)

46 Growth-Transforming epistemic profile related to effort put on writing Students belonging to the Growth-transforming profile were the most satisfied with their doctoral studies and also experienced that they received feedback the most often. This may be due to their more open sense of themselves as writers (Neely, 2014) or to their being most able to make use of feedback and recognize it as useful. They may also have the most experience in receiving such feedback. This profile was negatively related to writers block, which was in line with prior findings by Lonka et al., (2014) and Cerrato-Lara (2014). Interestingly, doctoral students in this profile reported the highest perfectionism. This may be due to their willingness to further develop their texts

47 Innate ability fixed mindset? Fixed-blocking profile holders were the least satisfied with their studies, most often expressed writers blocks and lack of interest in the contents of their studies, and reported getting feedback the least often. This profile may reflect a fixed mindset (Dweck, 2006) among doctoral students who strongly believe that writing is an innate ability. Since beliefs in the research community are often socially shared, this may also reflect the culture of their scholarly community, rather than merely individual beliefs

48 Educational implications All good means of promoting occupational health (e.g. Bakker et al., 2008; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004) should be put into practice in graduate schools. Improvements in communication, collaboration and support are cost-effective ways of helping doctoral students flourish. One of the key elements here is understanding the nature of the academic writing process, including its rhetoric dimension, and helping our students transform their ideas into brilliant texts!

49 Any questions?

50 OUR WORK ON THE TOPIC Cerrato-Lara, M., Castelló, M., García-Velázquez, R., & Lonka, K. (2017). Validation of the Writing Process Questionnaire in Two Hispanic Populations: Spain and Mexico. Journal of Writing Research, 9(2), Lonka, K. (2003). Helping doctoral students to finish their theses. In L. Björk, G. Bräuer, L. Rienecker, G. Ruhmann, & P. Stray Jørgensen (Eds.), Teaching academic writing across Europe (pp ). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer University Press. doi: / _9 Lonka, K., Chow, A. Keskinen, J., Hakkarainen, K. Sandström, N., & Pyhältö, K. (2014). How to measure PhD students conceptions of academic writing and are they related to well-being?journal of Writing Research, 5(3), doi: /jowr Lonka, K,, Ketonen, E., Vekkaila, J. Cerrato Lara, M. & Pyhältö, M. (submitted) Doctoral students epistemic beliefs about writing, experienced well-being, and perceptions of their academic environment. Tynjälä, P., Mason, L., & Lonka, K. (2001). Writing as a learning tool: An Introduction. In G.Rijlaarsdam & P. Tynjälä, L. Mason & K. Lonka (Eds.) Writing as a Learning Tool: Integrating theory and practice (pp. 7-22). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. doi: / _