Smarthinking: An action research study measuring the effect of Smarthinking.com on graduate student writing.

摘要

The research study site is a private, coeducational university located in the Midwest on a small but growing campus that has successfully transitioned from traditional seated students to a mixture of seated and online students from around the world. Two categories of interest to the university are graduate students' writing skills and the improvement of graduate student writing -- particularly in the online cohorts, with the use of Smarthinking.com. The level of graduate student writing in the university's online graduate program is of concern to university officials. The university wants to determine if graduate academic writing will improve with use of the Smarthinking.com writing assistance service. The purpose of this quantitative study is to address poor writing skills of graduate students in the online programs at the university. The results of this study provide information for higher education administrators to identify gaps in graduate academic writing and the use of Smarthinking.com. The results also inform graduate students on the effectiveness of the many uses of Smarthinking.com as it relates to potential improvements to writing skills. This study is beneficial to graduate students who aspire to further their education through scholarly writing. Recommendations for research on academic writing, practice and education are provided.