Writing from multiple sources and digital competences in blended learning environments:
Tutors’ beliefs and perceptions of students’ abilities
Abstract
This article presents the findings of an investigation into tutors’ beliefs regarding academic writing, and their perceptions of students’ digital competences and abilities to write from multiple sources. The theoretical framework is a multidimensional approach to writing from sources focusing on content, discourse, sentence, process, response dimensions, and digital skills. The methodology includes the following data collection instruments: a written survey administered to the tutors of English Language I, and a protocol used to interview the Heads of the Chair. The data analysis procedures consist in qualitative methods used to analyse open-ended questions and quantitative methods used for close-ended questions. Besides, an ethnographic approach was adopted to investigate the context of text production and tutors’ points of view. We report the results of the analysis of surveys administered to the course tutors to obtain information about their beliefs regarding academic writing, attitudes to strategies to write from sources and their teaching. We also provide conclusions derived from analysing their opinions of students’ abilities and digital literacy. Similarly, we report on the interviews administered to the Heads of the Chair. We discuss the pedagogical implications of the study and future lines of research. These results will enable us to derive guidelines for the design of materials to apply the multidimensional approach and develop digital capabilities in blended learning environments, make curricular recommendations to promote autonomy in academic literacy, and enhance the process of writing in the context of this study.
