Being and becoming a student: an investigation into how a pedagogic approach built on collaborative participation in academic literacy practices supports students' academic practice, knowlege and identity

Tapp, Jane (2013) Being and becoming a student: an investigation into how a pedagogic approach built on collaborative participation in academic literacy practices supports students' academic practice, knowlege and identity. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

Set in the context of a Post-92 university college Education Studies department, this thesis investigates how new undergraduates might be supported in the transition to Higher Education. It describes an intervention informed by research into Academic Literacies that was undertaken in a first year, first semester module. The intervention aimed to scaffold participation in academic practice, and in particular academic literacy practice, in collaborative workshops within the context of the module content. The methodological approach combines action research with aspects of ethnography to produce ‘ethnographic action research’. Drawing on the work of Lave & Wenger, students working in groups are conceptualised as academic student communities of practice, and audio recordings of students engaged in collaborative activities provide evidence of their lived experience of the module in three domains: what they do; what they know; and how they position themselves in relation to academic practice.

The findings show how talk about practice, within the context of participation in practice, is instrumental to change in all three domains: the negotiation of distinctly ‘academic’ ways of working in groups; the construction of meaning in the relationship between what is known about academic practice and what is done; and, the construction of the self as academic. I conclude that Higher Education pedagogical arrangements need to build communities that talk about practice and consider how such an approach responds to future challenges.

Item Type: Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors: McLean, M.
Keywords: Undergraduates, books and reading, group work in education, academic achievement
Subjects: L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher education
Faculties/Schools: UK Campuses > Faculty of Social Sciences, Law and Education > School of Education
Item ID: 13007
Depositing User: EP, Services
Date Deposited: 25 Sep 2013 07:13
Last Modified: 15 Dec 2017 05:52
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/13007

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