Writing at the graduate level: Resources used by international students and their effect on students' satisfaction (Escritura a nivel de posgrado: Recursos usados por los estudiantes internacionales y su efecto en niveles de satisfacción académica)

LAURA MARINA COLOMBO

Baltimore

Conferencia; 32nd Graduate Research Conference University of Maryland Baltimore County (32 Conferencia Anual de estudiantes de posgrado Universidad de Maryland Baltimore County); 2010

Graduate Student Association University of Maryland Baltimore County

 NOTA: En el programa aparece mi seudónimo "Violeta" Colombo. Puedo proporcionar información extra para corroborar que fui la presentadora.The purpose of this study is to investigate whether international students find support to cope with the writing requirements of their courses and to determine whether this support has an effect on their academic satisfaction levels. Informed in the situated learning and social capital frameworks, this study focuses on the resources that international graduate students draw upon when producing texts for their courses and its relationship with students' academic satisfaction. Three dimensions of writing resources will be analyzed: awareness, use, and evaluation. This ex-post facto study uses a mixed methods approach. The descriptive and inferential research questions that this study attempts to answer are the following: 1) What writing resources do international students access to meet the writing demands of their courses?; 2) Are there any differences in international students' resource-access across program type and nationality?; 3) What impact do resource-access have on international students' academic satisfaction?; 4) How do English ability, program writing demands, and social relations of international students interact with international students' resource-access to affect their academic satisfaction? The research questions will be answered by using content and document analysis as well as descriptive and inferential statistics.