Conditional knowledge-based coherence strategy choice : engaging supervisory on-script corrective feedback in research writing

Research writing has been traditionally considered a challenging task for international Chinese Higher-Degree-by-Research (HDR) students, particularly at their novice stage as a writer. To help them conquer the challenges, supervisory on-script focused corrective feedback is a pedagogical method for providing models of conditional knowledge and helping produce coherent research writing. This supervisory pedagogy has been researched (Aitchison et al., 2012; Can & Walker, 2014). However, the pedagogical use of schemas and conditional knowledge as a facilitator for successful research writing are under researched with respect to international Chinese HDR students. This lack of knowledge limits the pedagogical possibilities for building international Chinese HDR students’ capacity for creating coherent research writing. Investigating the possibilities for improving their conditional knowledge and schemas can help address this challenge. This warrants a new approach to developing pedagogies that improve HDR students’ research writing, one that captures a dynamic view of the development of their conditional knowledge and schemas in a coherent hierarchy. In this doctoral study, the investigation focuses on the construction of conditional knowledge for creating micro-level coherence in research writing engaged by supervisory on-script corrective feedback. To this end, the potential for engaging conditional knowledge and schemas involves analysing evidence of international Chinese HDR students’ coherence strategy choices and their supervisor’s corresponding on-script corrective feedback. This study points to the need for pedagogies that accommodate text-based and reader-based coherence in HDR students’ research writing. The primary aims of the research reported in this thesis were to investigate the interrelationships among (a) international Chinese HDR students’ conditional knowledge used in creating the micro-level coherence; (b) their choices of the coherence strategies used; and (c) their supervisor’s modelling of appropriate choices of coherence strategies via on-script focused corrective feedback on these students’ draft research texts. The case study used interrelated approaches to address these aims. First, this study explored the appropriateness or otherwise of these HDR students’ use of coherence strategies through collecting and analysing evidence of the conditional knowledge they used in creating the micro-level coherence in their research writing. Second, a key pedagogy used to enhance their conditional knowledge for creating coherence, supervisory on-script focused corrective feedback, was developed. Through mapping, categorising and conceptualising the conditional knowledge required for creating the micro-level coherence in HDR students’ research writing, this study connects text-based and reader-based coherence. This study thereby develops a new supervision pedagogy which recognises and mobilises supervisor’s modelling of conditional knowledge for enhancing HDR students’ conditional knowledge in order to build HDR students’ capabilities for producing coherent research writing