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立 政 治 大 學
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In brief, the advisors serve as guides, consultants, and reviewers, and the experts of statistics could be consultants in the advisees’ process of thesis writing. As guides, the advisors reminded the students of the conventions of conducting and writing down the research. By doing so, they led the students to accomplish the theses which were
acceptable in academy. Being consultants, the advisors provide suggestions to solve the advisees’ problems about research design and writing. When playing the role of reviewers, the advisors reviewed their students’ drafts of theses and then provide feedback at the linguistic level and the discourse level. In other words, they would check whether the words and sentences used were appropriate in academic writing and if the contents of each section corresponded to the rules of thesis writing. As to the experts of statistics, they could be the professors or doctoral students who were mastered in statistics but they all acted as consultants because they would tell the students how to solve the statistical problems explicitly.
4.4 Role of Peers
In addition to the experts, the students needed assistance from peers to deal with their writing difficulties. Since the teacher participants did not give detail information about how the peers helped the students overcome the obstacles encountered, this section only present students’ perception about where and how to choose peers and the role the peers played in their writing procedure. The obtained data uncovered that the students chose the classmates of the graduate school or the colleagues within the same workplace as peers based on the peers’ relationship with them. Among those peers who had close relation with the present students, the students had other criteria of selection: the peers’ (a) personality, (b) experiences of conducting and writing research,(c) English abilities, and(d) writing abilities. Then, these peers played the roles as (a) reviewers (b) facilitators of ideas in the students’ thesis writing process. The definition of the two roles together with
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立 政 治 大 學
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Na tiona
l Ch engchi University
95
the criteria of choosing these peers will be presented in the following paragraph.
As a reviewer, the peer would provide feedback after reading the students’ drafts of theses. That is, the students let the peers review their sentences or ideas in the drafts in order to attain suggestions and improve the theses. For example, in the excerpts below, Fiona mentioned some points her peer would focus on while reading her drafts of each section.
Fiona(F): We would show [the drafts] to each other after completing a specific chapter.
Researcher(R): What kind of suggestions would he give you?
F: For example, he would tell me that I didn’t state clearly, so he could not understand. Or reading my thesis as an outsider, that is, a person who doesn’t know[my research] , there may be some questions. He would raise some questions and let me think how to revise them.)
R: So, did he focus on the expression of sentences or whether the concepts were clear or not?
F: [Both. He also focused on concepts. Take the presentation of ideas for example. He might said, “will it be better when comparing this one and that one or discussing this one first? In this way, it will more likely correspond to the reading habits of common readers.”He would also say that. (S1IN-Fiona-P20)
The evidence revealed that Fiona’s peer would check whether the statements conveyed clear meanings and whether the required contents were all included in the drafts. Fiona
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立 政 治 大 學
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Na tiona
l Ch engchi University
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believed that her peer examined the drafts with the view of a reader and then made her thesis more reader-friendly.
What’s more, she illustrated why classmate X became her peer reviewer: “there were two reasons: first, his written assignments were always praised by the instructor of the Thesis Writing Course; second, I used to discuss with him in my graduate study. That is, she chose classmate X as her peer reviewer for X had better English writing skills and a close relationship with her.
In addition to enhance the clearness of the concepts to be expressed, the peer
reviewers could also help the students reduce the linguistic errors. As Helen said, “ when I was not sure if the words or the sentences used were right, I asked one of my colleagues who was the native speaker and who had the experience of writing thesis.” In Helen’s case, she resorted to the peer with higher levels of English proficiency and more experiences in academy to deal with her problems at the linguistic level.
The second role of the peers was the facilitator of ideas; namely, they could stimulate the students’ inspiration of writing (i.e., the suitable research design and the organization of the concepts in certain section) by discussion. Lynn, for example, said when she was blocked in data analysis, she discussed with one of her colleagues who had conducted quantitative research. Then she got the insights about how to deal with the change of the number of participants between the pre-test and the post-test.
The other example came from Sherry. “Facing the difficulties in research design and writing, I discussed with my peer and then I had better ideas about how to solve them,”
she said. From the writing difficulties showed in previous sections, we know that she had the problems about how to present the literature related to her study clearly and logically and the suitable way of data collection. Thus, she discussed with peers to attain more ideas to deal with these troubles. That is, for Sherry, her peer provided her the directions of thinking during the discussion. As to the reason of selecting specific peers to discuss
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立 政 治 大 學
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Na tiona
l Ch engchi University
97
with, Sherry said: “of course I would choose the person who was willing to share his ideas with others because some people tend to keep what they know in mind. I also discussed with the classmate who was close to me or conducted the similar study.” This expression disclosed that instead of choosing peers with higher ability like Fiona and Helen did, the selection for Sherry was based on the peer’s personality, relationship with the student, and knowledge of certain research topic.
4.4.1 Summary
From the students’ statements, the peers could serve as (a) reviewers and (b) facilitators of ideas in the students’ thesis writing process. The peers were reviewers for they reviewed the students’ theses drafts and provide suggestions for them to improve their theses. As facilitators of ideas, the peers shared their ideas with the students and then stimulate the students’ thinking. Moreover, the students found these peers who were also their close friends from their graduate school and workplace depending on the following criteria: the peers’ (a) personality, (b) experience of conducting and writing research, (c) English ability, and (d) writing ability.