Diagnostic testing for individualised academic writing support

Abstract

The presentation explored how diagnostic testing can be used to provide individualised academic writing support to large student cohorts. Academic writing is a key part of most university courses, yet many students lack confidence with written expression (Busby and Malone, 2023). Both international and home students often struggle with basic aspects of written English, such as grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure (Jefferies et al., 2018).

Diagnostic testing has been widely used across higher education. In most cases, however, diagnostic assessments of writing are made by manually marking student submissions (Palmer et al., 2014; Xie, 2017; Shahsavar and Asil, 2019), which is too workload-intensive for a large cohort (Farrell and Leung, 2004).

The ‘Writing for Success’ diagnostic tool, developed at the University of Dundee, provides students in the School of Health Sciences with personalised support through a self-marking diagnostic quiz. Students answer questions concerning basic writing skills, receive feedback on their strengths and weaknesses across eight competencies, then develop their skills through eight self-directed online modules.

This presentation drew upon data from surveys and focus groups with both students and staff to evaluate the extent to which the diagnostic tool impacts students’ writing abilities and academic confidence. It included practical suggestions for writing clear diagnostic questions and administering the diagnostic to a large cohort. The presentation also discussed the importance of academic involvement from inception to evaluation. Throughout, the presentation offered ‘lessons learnt’ to support learning developers considering adopting a diagnostic approach.