This presentation reports a research project that used participatory action research to evolve and develop a learning community, with the objective of supporting international postgraduate students to identify their academic writing difficulties and to consider strategies to overcome them. The guiding research question was: How can international postgraduate students utilise peer support and develop agency to identify their academic writing difficulties and develop strategies to improve them?

Postgraduate students were chosen as participants because of the demand for quantity and complexity in their writing. Postgraduate studies are considered to be highly dependent on academic writing competence, and many students face writing difficulties that can negatively affect their academic goals. Various studies have reported postgraduate student’s difficulties with academic writing (Al Badi, I. A. H., 2015; Abdulkareem, 2013).

Odena and Burgess (2017) stated that improvement of academic writing is important for both research and future employment, and advocate the development of strategies to overcome writing difficulties. Chiappetta-Swanson and Watt (2011) identified weak and inappropriate development of thesis writing strategies as a reason why international students take longer to complete their degrees. Brunton (2009) emphasised that strategies for improving academic writing are also significant for university professors as they have to give written feedback to L2 learners, it would benefit them to know the types and methods of feedback that have more practical effects. Van Lier (2006) and Livingstone (2011) stated that if errors continue to occur, it would lead to students and supervisors frustration.

The study is based in New Zealand.  The policy of the country is in internationalising their universities and increasing the number of students (Greenwood et al., 2014). However, the problems identified by students and the processes of critical reflection and interactions that occurred will have resonances in Europe.

Agency involves the willingness and capability to identify problems and strategies to create change. Hon and Pereira (2018) stated that self-agency is the result of comparing the anticipated representation of a result and the real result that happens, resulting in being able to determine one’s own outcomes. The individual chooses an action and controls his or her own action. In general, individuals have a distinctive feeling of being in control of occurrences initiated by their own actions (Synofzik, Vosgerau, & Newen, 2008). Therefore, the sense of agency relates to the feeling of controlling, causing or generating one’s own actions and external happenings (Haggard & Chambon, 2012, Gallagher, 2000). Students exercise agency in taking responsibility for their own learning by mentioning their difficulties and the areas in which they need to get feedback. As postgraduate students in New Zealand do not attend classes that teach writing and help them improve (Smith, M. K., 2003), development of an attitude of agency is important to help them overcome their difficulties and make changes.

There has been many studies devoted to various aspects of students’ and teachers’ perceptions of literacy, but as Kern (1995) pointed out, not many have investigated how students’ and teachers’ perceptions of effective literacy lead to improved practice.

PAR, as explained by Kemmis and McTaggart (2005), is an approach that utilises collaborative research to make strategic change. The results gained from action research can be used both practically and theoretically (Zuber-Skerritt, 2011). Glassman, Erdem, and Bartholomew (2013) stated that action research acknowledges the importance of the group in working together towards the same goal. Yang and Williamson (2011) argued the need for learning communities to be studied through practical approaches. I selected action research for this study because it allowed the participants, facilitators and I to discuss and share ideas and difficulties, and critically reflect on them.

The study takes a qualitative approach to case study. Stake (2013) defined case study as a means to deeply study instances of a phenomenon. In the study, I invited international postgraduate students who wanted to better their writing skills to a writing group. The design of the project was an emergent design one, as flexibility and development during the study allowed participants to contribute and respond. The discussions with the group were the main source of data. In addition, I used my reflections and those of the group’s facilitators. I also interviewed each of the participants in the group. Approximately one-hour sessions were held every two weeks for nearly five months. In PAR all those actively involved in a project are participants and co-researchers of their practice (Brydon-Miller, Kral, Maguire, Noffke, & Sabhlok, 2011; Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005). The facilitators and I were participants and co-researchers within the learning community. My role as a formal researcher was to observe, interview, analyse and report, and be a participant. Kemmis and McTaggart (2005) emphasise the importance of the researcher willing to contribute as an equal participant. Further, I had the role of a co-facilitator who organised the study and informed the facilitators of the atmosphere. After each session, the facilitators and I held reflective debriefing sessions. Accordingly, we made plans in relation to the participants’ responses. The role of the facilitators and I was to evolve, shape and design the study while participants through their contribution shaped the direction. Bogdan and Biklen (2007) discuss that analysis of data begins at the same time as data is being collected. As Kemmis and McTaggart (2005) reflect, this is particularly evident in PAR as reflective analysis on one-stage leads to the direction of the next. As the group gradually built into a learning community the reactions and reflections of all the participants became important in ongoing analysis and interpretation. At the end of the project, I interviewed all participants and developed narratives from their accounts. In addition, I developed reports of critical episodes during the development of the learning community. In my thesis, I plan to present a woven collage of these narratives and the critical episodes.

The project identified a number of things that international students found difficult in their academic writing. More significantly, it revealed a range of strategies they used to overcome these difficulties and showed ways they exercised agency in improving their writing, and how collaboration within the learning community helped them. Greenwood et al. (2014) stated that reflective practice and PAR both aim at making changes in order of achieving goals. A considerable amount of studies have emphasised the relationship between beliefs in academic agency and academic performance (Yeperen, 2006). The cyclic nature of action research contributed to participant’s understanding of their own change and development. I as the researcher, by being involved and part of the learning community gained a deeper understanding of the participants’ issues and also of my own. The initial results signified that the major academic writing difficulties faced by postgraduate international students were not surface errors as I had presumed. Rather, their writing difficulties were mostly in regards to meaning and organisation. The study gave the participants the chance to learn about a learning community and its uses. Further, the learning community helped participants in identifying their academic writing difficulties, and improve their confidence. At the end of the project, participants made a number of suggestions about how the wider university could develop and use learning communities to help students. There were differing opinions about whether such communities should be homogenous, but it was generally agreed that learning community was useful and they wanted university agencies to initiate and facilitate them. It was also generally suggested that supervisors would have a better knowledge and understanding of errors make and of student needs. Universities and policy makers could also have a better understanding of postgraduates needs during their academic writing.

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