ACADEMIC WRITING CHALLENGES: AN INTERACTIONAL ANALYSIS OF TUTOR–STUDENT TUTORIALS IN SELECTED UNIVERSITIES IN KENYA

Brenda M. Wambua, Geoffrey Maroko, Larry Ndivo

Abstract


Academic writing is central to university learning, yet students’ difficulties with academic writing extend beyond grammatical accuracy to conceptual, rhetorical, organisational, procedural, linguistic and source-use practices. While previous research in Kenya has documented students’ academic writing challenges, limited attention has been given to the challenges students present and articulate during writing centre tutorial sessions. This study examines the writing challenges presented by first-year university students during writing centre tutorials in four selected Kenyan universities. Data were drawn from 12 audio-recorded tutorials involving 12 student writers and 11 tutors and supplemented by post-tutorial student interviews. The study employed a qualitative descriptive design and inductive thematic analysis. Descriptive frequency counts were used to make patterns in the qualitative data visible. The analysis identified 11 categories of writing challenges, with 76 coded occurrences across the tutorial corpus. APA citation, referencing and formatting was the most frequently occurring category (20 occurrences, 26.3%), followed by thesis statements and argumentation (12, 15.8%) and essay structure (8, 10.5%). The key finding was the interconnectedness of individual challenges. Topic narrowing was closely related to thesis development and organisation; textual engagement was linked to summary, paraphrase and source integration; and language concerns intersected with academic voice and argumentation. The study was anchored in Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory and Gass and Mackey’s interactional perspective. The findings demonstrate that tutorial session interactions make students’ writing challenges visible as they negotiate writing decisions. The study contributes context-specific evidence from Kenyan university writing centres.

Keywords


academic writing; writing challenges; writing centres; tutorial session; interaction; first-year students; academic literacy; Kenya

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejals.v9i3.750

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