Instructional Strategies to Improve College Students' APA Style Writing

The purpose of this study was to identify areas of APA formatting that college instructors view as most problematic in student writing. Using a Likert-style survey, the greatest areas of reported concern were problems with documentation, specifically, citations, references, and quoting; of lesser co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of teaching and learning in higher education Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 407 - 412
Main Authors Mandernach, B. Jean, Zafonte, Maria, Taylor, Caroline
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published International Society for Exploring Teaching and Learning 2016
Subjects
Citations (References)
College Faculty
College Students
Educational Strategies
Error Patterns
Feedback (Response)
Grammar
Higher Education
Psychology
Scoring Rubrics
Surveys
Teaching Methods
Undergraduate Study
Writing (Composition)
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Summary:The purpose of this study was to identify areas of APA formatting that college instructors view as most problematic in student writing. Using a Likert-style survey, the greatest areas of reported concern were problems with documentation, specifically, citations, references, and quoting; of lesser concern were various style and formatting errors in student work. Respondents included 135 primarily undergraduate faculty members at institutions where APA style is the required documentation style across disciplines. While the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the definitive source, there are a number of tools, resources, and strategies that may facilitate students' mastery of APA style guidelines. In addition to identifying instructors' concerns, we offer a number of instructional aids (i.e., teaching strategies, support resources, feedback bank, and a sample rubric) to help faculty address the main areas of concern.
ISSN:1812-9129
1812-9129