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立 政 治 大 學
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l Ch engchi University
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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.0 Introduction
The introduction section provides an overview of the present study, including the background of the study, the purpose of conducting the study, and four emerging research questions.
1.1 Background and Rationale of the Study
Large amounts of studies have examined the L2 graduate students’ research writing processes for two reasons (Bitchener & Basturkmen, 2005; Buckingham, 2008; Cho, 2009; Dong, 1998; Gosden, 1996; Lee, 2008; Yeh, 2010). First, these studies assume that equipping the skill of thesis writing is a prerequisite for graduate students because the goal of graduate education is to cultivate independent researchers and competent research writers (Mullen, 2001). Second, English is a dominant language in research fields (Johns
&Swales, 2002). To present one’s research for people around the world, the researchers have to write their articles or theses in English.
According to previous studies, writing theses in both ESL and EFL settings may pose difficulties about conducting and writing research for the L2 graduate students (Bitchener & Basturkmen, 2005; Buckingham, 2005; Dong, 1998; Lee, 2008; O’Connor, Greene& Anderson, 2006; Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2006; Reeves, Herrington& Oliver, 2005). For the students conducting their research in ESL environments, they have challenges about designing research (i.e., finding a feasible context to conduct the study, selecting the analytical procedure, etc.), analyzing the obtained data, writing by using correct words and sentences, and writing to meet the academic conventions (Bitchener &
Basturkmen, 2005;Dong, 1998; O’Connor, Greene & Anderson, 2006; Onwuegbuzie &
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Leech, 2006; Reeves, Herrington, & Oliver, 2005). Likewise, the studies conducted in EFL contexts revealed that the L2 students may face the difficulties about handling the obtained data in data analysis, and choosing appropriate words/ sentence patterns and meeting the rhetorical structure of each section of a thesis in writing (Buckingham, 2005;
Lee, 2008).
Though prior studies have shown that the graduate students in both ESL and EFL settings may encounter similar difficulties before and during the thesis writing process, literature suggested that the sources available for the students to cope with the difficulties may differ in different contexts. For example, the material sources (e.g., relevant articles, books and theses) adopted to deal with the above difficulties are more accessible for the students in ESL environments (Lee, 2008). The reason is that most academic publications are published in ESL countries. What’s more, the students in ESL settings have more native peers and thus have more opportunities to ask for those native peers’ help to solve the linguistic obstacles in thesis writing (Dong, 1998). As for the students in EFL settings, though with limited resources, they still utilize the sources at hand to cope with the difficulties they encounter in the writing process, including reading academic texts and discussing with peers and experts (Buckingham, 2008; Ferenz, 2005; Lee, 2008; Yeh, 2010).
In addition to the resources available for the students who write in ESL or EFL settings, whether the writers are full-time students may influence their coping strategies of the challenges faced in thesis writing (Buckingham,2008; Ferenz, 2005). For the students who have other jobs, the sources available for them to deal with the writing problems are not only from their graduate school, but also their working place. According to previous studies, those students’ colleagues can also be the peer reviewers who provide suggestions for the students to cope with the writing difficulties (Buckingham, 2008;
Ferenz, 2005). Thus, the L2 students’ writing contexts need to be taken into consideration
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when we explore how the students overcome the obstacles encountered in thesis writing.
Since prior studies have shown that it is inevitable for the L2 graduate students to interact with others to overcome the obstacles in thesis writing (Buckingham, 2008; Dong, 1998; Ferenz, 2005), it is necessary to investigate how the students write a
conventionalized thesis with the assistance of the people who involved in the students’
thesis writing processes with expanded ZPD, the theory related to social cultural perspective of learning (van Leir, 2004). According to Vygotsky (1978), learning takes place when learners interact with other people within the same learning context, even when receiving scaffolding from more capable others. However, learners not only learn from experts, but also people with equal or lower ability, and self (van Leir, 2004). Thus, the acquisition of the knowledge of thesis writing, including the academic writing
conventions and skills, should be explored by investigating the roles of all the people involving in the graduate students’ writing process.
Despite the prevalence of research on the challenges faced by the L2 students writing theses in ESL and EFL contexts and relevant coping strategies (Bitchener &
Basturkmen, 2005; Casanave & Hubbard,1992; Cho, 2009; Dong, 1998; Buckingham, 2008; Ferenz, 2005; Lee, 2008; Yeh, 2010), few studies have investigated students’
difficulties in writing each section of a thesis respectively. From the limited research on the problems the L2 research writers may face in writing specific sections of a thesis, the findings reveal that students have different rhetoric troubles when writing different sections for the rhetorical structures and conventions differ among sections (Bitchener &
Basturkmen, 2005; Hsu & Kuo,2006; Lee, 2008). Hence, more research is required to explore the challenging parts of each section for the L2 graduate students.
In addition, since the prior studies employing quantitative or mixed methods fail to provide detailed information about what difficulties the students may have in writing each sections of their theses and how they solve these problems (e.g., Bitchener & Basturkmen,
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2005; Dong, 1998), this study adopted a qualitative inquiry. By doing so, more in-depth understanding about how the L2 students complete their theses can be attained through exploring both the students’ and the advisors’ perspectives about thesis writing.