Browsing by Person "McGrath, Lisa"

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Embedding students’ academic writing development in early-career disciplinary lecturers’ practice
(2023) McGrath, Lisa; Donaghue, Helen; Negretti, Rafaella
This study proposes a theoretically grounded and resource-efficient triadic model with the aim of supporting early-career subject lecturers in learning how to understand discipline-specific academic writing and teach it to their students. The model constitutes a ‘bottom-up’ collaboration process among a subject lecturer, an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) lecturer, and an academic developer. Adopting a case study approach, qualitative data were collected at multiple points in the process and were analysed using both thematic and linguistic analysis. Results indicate that the collaboration's genre-based, dialogic and egalitarian nature enabled the subject lecturer to grow her understanding of students’ writing development. She acquired some metalanguage to conceptualise and articulate her expectations in terms of her students’ assignments and was able to co-create learning tasks. Our study contributes novel insights into debates around where and how students’ academic writing development should be delivered, and, importantly, early-career lecturers’ role in that delivery. Finally, we propose an extension of the EAP lecturers’ remit to encompass working with early-career subject lecturers in a developmental role.
The evolution of the EAP lecturer...staff developers of the future? [Oral Presentation]
(BALEAP, 2022-04-02) McGrath, Lisa; Donaghue, Helen; Negretti, Raffaella
Fostering subject lecturers’ commitment and capacity to engage with students’ academic literacies development [Oral Presentation]
(HEIR Network, 2021-09-21) McGrath, Lisa; Donaghue, Helen
The academic literacies students require for success are specific to their disciplinary contexts. This means that subject specialists are best placed to induct students into the specific genres and discourses of their communities. Yet students’ literacy development is often ‘outsourced’ to generic skills centre or English for Academic Purposes (EAP) provision, with subject lecturers remaining chiefly preoccupied with content knowledge development. Academic literacies specialists have long argued for a collaborative approach, yet university structures impede such collaboration; some subject lecturers are unaware of their value in this process; for some, academic literacies knowledge is tacit, meaning they struggle to articulate their expectations; and others lack the pedagogical tools. To address these issues, we draw on an adaptive process advocated by Benzie et al. (2017), instigating a collaboration between an EAP specialist, an academic developer and subject lecturers with the aim of supporting the subject lecturers to reach an understanding of the academic literacies required by their discipline and to plan how these can be taught and developed in a contextualised way that suits them and their students. Through analysis of interviews and planning meetings with the subject lecturers, teaching materials they developed, and their reflections on the process, we provide insights into subject lecturers' conceptualisations of academic literacies, their teaching practices in relation to academic literacies and their experiences of the collaboration. The project thereby illuminates subject lecturers' relationship to students' academic literacies development and makes recommendations for future collaborations.
Tacit Knowledge and a Mysterious Code: Articulating Academic Writing Expectations in Disciplinary Grading Criteria
(2025-07-04) McGrath, Lisa; Donaghue, Helen
Academic writing is integral to student achievement in higher education. Despite a move towards enhanced transparency in assessment, little is known about how writing is represented in the grading criteria of the various university disciplines. This qualitative study analyses criteria to uncover how writing expectations are presented within them. First, we reveal what facets of writing are included in the criteria. Second, we identify three issues: a mismatch between the level of challenge and the grade awarded; inconsistencies within criteria in terms of what is being graded; and ambiguities in terms of the language used. We interpret these findings through the conceptual lenses of non-formal learning and tacit knowledge and argue that professional development activities for lecturers need to be designed to render tacit knowledge of academic writing explicit. Our paper is a catalyst for university departmental discussion as to what constitutes quality writing for a specific assignment, and how those expectations might be better conveyed through rubrics.