Using research workshop to assist senior members develop competence in academic writing in a Public University

Abstract

Academics are expected to have good academic writing expertise since writing scholarly articles and getting them published in scholarly journals is a core activity in the career of an academic. The paper reports an intervention to assist senior members (SMs) who have limited experience in academic writing to improve upon their academic writing expertise. The main intervention was the use of a five-day research workshop. Fifteen SMs of the College of Technology Education, Kumasi of the University of Education, Winneba in Ghana participated in the workshop. Interviews and structured questionnaire were used to collect data on perceived improvement in respondents‟ academic writing expertise after their participation in the workshop. The results showed that, through the workshop, there was significant improvement in participants‟ motivation for academic writing and their ability to write effectively, the main sections of a research paper (e.g., Introduction and the problem statement, literature review and hypotheses, data analysis, methodology, discussion and implications, and conclusion). Implications and recommendations for management have been discussed and limitations have been noted. The study contributes to the literature in the area of faculty development in higher education.