Research reveals that many students struggle in the meeting with academic writing conventions of higher education. It also shows that their teachers may lack the necessary competence in the teaching and supervision of writing. Teachers also often lack time to provide the writing instruction they want and discuss experiences with other colleagues.  This shows a need for an increased focus in this field of research.

The research group Students’ writing consists of members of faculty in the Department of Teacher Education, NTNU, who tie parts of their research to different forms of, and aspects relating to, student writing. We are primarily concerned with student teachers’ writing, but we also look to the more general scope of writing in higher education. Our aim is to strengthen the members’ methodological and theoretical competence within this field of research, and expand their knowledge of empirical studies on writing in higher education. This is done through regular meetings and seminars. The research group is also part of the interdisciplinary research community Fagleg literacy i skule og lærarutdanning at Department of Teacher Education, NTNU.

The group’s primary focus is on student teachers’ writing – and the processes that lead to their texts. Attention is directed towards academic writing in general, and more subject-specific writing conventions in particular. This can be, for instance, studies of term papers, research and development papers, master’s theses, article annotations, logs – what is often called “academic literacy.” Student texts of other media formats and genres may also serve as relevant data for analytical purposes – for instance digital storytelling and blog notes, and other genres that are relevant for the teaching profession. The research perspective may also be directed towards the use of writing in learning processes.

The research group comprises a venue where the members can: 

• Find collaborative partners for smaller projects 
• Help each other in developing teaching- or development projects into a research project 
• Share experiences and materials – and conduct analysis seminars relating to parts of data sets 
• Put forward project proposals, share drafts for conference contributions or research articles – and receive feedback 
• Share  subject literature and discuss research articles 
• Share information about conferences and possibly travel together 

The themes and research focus of this research group are relevant across disciplines in teacher education, and colleagues from all subjects are therefore welcome to join.