Supplementary materials for PhD thesis “Student writing in social work education”

This dataset comprises the files contained on a CD-ROM which was attached to the thesis when it was submitted in 2008. It was uploaded to ORDO in 2024 for preservation purposes. For more information, please refer to the thesis “Student writing in social work education” via ORO.AbstractThis thesis explores the experiences of a group of social work students undertaking assessed academic writing as part of their professional training through distance learning in the UK in 2001. Drawing upon the concept of 'academic literacies' and informed by a psychosocial approach, this thesis explores the nature of students' writing within the context of the experiences of students and tutors.Writing in social work requires students to include reflections on personal experience and values. Due to this personal aspect of writing in social work, I have taken a particular interest in the relationship between identity and writing. In doing so I draw upon current research based upon sociological perspectives on writer identity but also critically examine the potential contribution of concepts from what I will generally be referring to as a 'psychosocial' approach, which incorporates elements of psychology and psychoanalysis alongside a sociological world view. In particular I explore the ways in which a psychosocial approach to writer identity can inform our understanding of writing practices surrounding the creation of student texts in higher education.My central argument is that academic writing in social work poses a particular challenge to student writers and their tutors due to its lack of transparency and the degree of self-disclosure required of authors. This thesis shows that, in common with higher education more generally writing conventions in social work are frequently implicit and contradictory. Additionally, the integration of personal experiences and values with theoretical discussion poses significant difficulties for students and tutors. Such 'self-disclosure' has implications which become evident when applying a psychosocial perspective to writer identity. I draw together these implications in relation to three features of writing practices, namely emotion, circularity, and human interaction. Emotion in this context refers to the emotion both experienced by students whilst writing texts and responding to feedback on them. This involves a circular process based upon not only the students' actions but also their interaction with others, primarily the tutor. I conclude by offering some pedagogical implications and suggesting some future research arising from this thesis.

本数据集包含于2008年提交的论文中所附CD-ROM上的文件。为保存目的，该数据集于2024年上传至ORDO。欲获取更多信息，请参阅通过ORO的摘要获取的论文《社会工作教育中的学生写作》。该论文探讨了一组社会工作学生在2001年通过英国远程学习进行专业培训时进行评估性学术写作的经历。论文借鉴了“学术素养”的概念，并受心理社会方法论的启发，探讨了学生在教师和学生经历的背景下的写作性质。社会工作中的写作要求学生包括对个人经验和价值观的反思。由于社会工作写作的个人性质，我对身份与写作之间的关系产生了特别的兴趣。在此过程中，我参考了基于社会学视角的作者身份研究，并批判性地审视了所谓的“心理社会”方法概念的可能贡献，该方法融合了心理学和心理学分析以及社会学世界观。特别是，我探讨了心理社会方法对作者身份的理解如何增进我们对高等教育中围绕学生文本创作的写作实践的认识。我的核心论点是，社会工作中的学术写作由于其缺乏透明度和对作者所要求的自我披露程度，对学生的写作和导师构成了特别的挑战。本论文表明，与高等教育的一般情况相似，社会工作中的写作惯例通常是隐晦且矛盾的。此外，将个人经验和价值观与理论讨论相结合对师生双方都构成了重大的困难。这种‘自我披露’的影响在将心理社会视角应用于作者身份时变得显而易见。我将这些影响与写作实践的三种特征联系起来，即情感、循环性和人际互动。在此语境中，情感指的是学生在撰写文本和回应反馈时所体验到的情感。这涉及一个基于学生行为及其与他人的互动（主要是导师）的循环过程。我最后提出了一些教学启示，并建议了一些由本论文引发的未来研究方向。