Using corpus data in a MOODLE-based self-learning course : teaching education students to 'cite like an academic'

Abstract

Citation, an essential feature of academic writing, is a challenging area for second language (L2) student writers due to its linguistic and functional complexities. In an effort to address this challenge, I report the development and evaluation of a MOODLE-based self-access workshop on citation learning, Cite Like an Academic (CLA).

CLA aims to enhance the understanding of citation use among postgraduate students in education. It employs a design-based research approach characterized by three iterative phases involving needs analysis, pedagogical design, and evaluation of an online learning artefact for increased understanding to guide further improvements (Phillips, McNaught, & Kennedy, 2012).

For the first-phase needs analysis research, I investigated the rhetorical functions of citations across various research article (RA) sections and their linguistic features. To this end, genre and corpus approaches were integrated to compare an expert corpus of research articles (the RAC) and a student corpus of master’s in education (MEd) dissertations (the MDC). The findings indicate that (1) all the RA Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion (IMRD) sections contained citations fulfilling a wide range of rhetorical functions, and (2) RAC writers differed from MDC writers in their preference for citation types across sections, citation density across sections, reporting verb (RV) categories, RV lexico-grammatical patterns, and RV rhetorical functions. Alongside this investigation on citation use, I interviewed postgraduate students and communicated via email with supervisors to understand the needs of potential workshop participants.

The second phase, the CLA pedagogy design, was guided by the adapted critical pragmatic approach (Harwood & Hadley, 2004) with adaption. Following the pragmatic approach, instruction materials were informed by the needs analysis research findings. The critical approach involved the participants in trying out genre analysis and corpus analysis of RAs they selected for citation learning.

The third phase was the evaluation of the workshop through a user walk-through trial and three rounds of implementations. Various types of data were collected from 41 participants, including personal communications, MOODLE records of forum discussions and log reports, participants’ writing, interviews, and pre-CLA and post-CLA questionnaires.

I report the findings on the effects of genre-based materials on thesis revision, as well as students’ gains and difficulties in carrying out genre analysis and building and using their I-Corpus for citation learning. The findings indicate that content familiarity and peer interaction contributed to learners’ in-depth genre analysis; however, Move interpretation needed attention in students’ learning of genre analysis. Genre familiarity and completed writing ready for revision facilitated learners’ direct use of genre-based materials in writing, and building an individual corpus of RA part genres raised learners’ awareness of the variations in RA macro-structures. In addition, the findings demonstrate that students needed training on formulating search terms for citation searches and using corpus analytic software for corpus data observation and interpretation. In particular, students should be reminded of the disciplinary context and textual context when reusing language data from a corpus in writing revision. Finally, I provide suggestions for how to improve and adapt the workshop to support students’ citation learning and accommodate their different learning needs.