Transferring Writing Strategies Across Disciplines and Levels: Results from a Longitudinal Study of Writing

Resumen / Resumo Whether an educational system has a dedicated writing course, or students learn to write within discipline-specific courses, or if they are tutored in writing centers, writing teachers seldom know if students subsequently use the strategies they are taught. We report here the results from a three-year, longitudinal study of student writing that examined whether students transfer writing strategies they learn in a first-year writing class (FYW) at a U.S. research university to other genres in subsequent classes. Students’ cumulative first-year writing portfolios were coded for evidence of the course’s learning outcome strategies (SLOs). These results were then compared to written work completed in subsequent university courses and to brief questions students answered about the assignments as well as transcripts of participant focus groups. Findings suggest that students do transfer FYW SLOs to other genres, but also raised interesting questions about future research as well as about methodology in longitudinal studies. Ya sea que un sistema educativo implemente cursos de composición, cursos de escritura en las disciplinas, o tutorías en centros de escritura, siempre es difícil determinar si los estudiantes usan las estrategias que les han enseñado. Reportamos los resultados de un estudio longitudinal de tres años en una universidad de investigación en EEUU en el que examinamos si los estudiantes transfieren las estrategias que aprenden en un curso de primer año (FYW) a géneros y cursos posteriores. Los portafolios de escritura de los estudiantes se codificaron en términos de evidencia de los objetivos de aprendizaje del curso