The value of interactional metadiscourse in university level writing: Differences between high and low performing undergraduate business students

Abstract

This study investigates the use of interactional metadiscourse within a third-year Human Resources course at a large North American university. Analysing final individual writing assignments, higher-performing (grades 80 and above) and lower-performing (grades 74 and below) students were compared in terms of how they differ in their use of interactional metadiscourse. The Authorial Voice Analyzer (Yoon, 2017) was employed to extract interactional metadiscourse features, including hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers. Intergroup differences were then assessed using Cohen's d. Key findings include higher-performing students employing a greater variety of hedge types and using self-mentions more frequently, while lower-performing students relied more heavily on reader engagement markers, particularly by way of reader pronouns. These results suggest that higher-graded students in business courses may be more adept at managing interactional metadiscourse to present an appropriate authorial stance, while lower-graded students tend to over-engage with the reader. Pedagogical implications include the need for writing instructors to focus on teaching students how to strategically employ hedges and self-mentions to improve the quality and authority of their writing in business-related disciplines. These insights can help shape targeted writing interventions aimed at improving student performance in content-focused courses, such as Human Resources.