Experiences and voices of student teachers when reviewing an essay of their own authorship

Abstract

In recent decades, the number of students who access higher education in Chile has increased and diversified (Bernasconi & Celis, 2017). This growth has presented new challenges to the system, requiring the implementation of measures to reduce inequalities in higher education. Aware that university life requires support processes, universities have implemented a series of mechanisms, especially at the beginning of the undergraduate programs. These strategies are frequently expressed in transversal subjects, electives, regular courses, and university preparation programs, among others.

All these initiatives undoubtedly offer spaces for the development of students entering higher education; however, a persistent and complex obstacle is related to the deficit discourse. Deficit thinking theory attributes responsibility to students for their reading and writing difficulties, disregarding their discursive practices as authors and evaluators of their own texts. In response to this, this study aims to understand the self-regulation processes employed by freshmen students when revising and rewriting their own argumentative academic essays. The research study uses a qualitative approach and a descriptive design. Sixty students of Pedagogy in Spanish Language and Communication from two regional universities in Chile participated. The primary technique used was the Think Aloud Protocol (TAPP), which allows for the collection of participants' verbal reports while they perform a demanding task, to infer cognitive processes and decisions during the revision and rewriting of an essay. The analysis was carried out using the constructivist constant comparison methodology (Charmaz, 2006) with open, emergent, and focused coding. Five steps proposed by Cho et al. (2018) were followed to process the information: 1) verbalization of the revision and rewriting, 2) software-assisted transcription, 3) open and emergent coding linked to the research question, 4) focused coding and categorization using ATLAS.ti 25, and 5) an audit process among the researchers to ensure analytical consistency and trustworthiness.

The results allowed for the identification of three writer profiles: strategic, developing, and emerging. These profiles are shaped by the experiences and discursive practices expressed by the participants during the essay revision process. The research shows that self-regulation actions are related both to students' writing skills and linguistic knowledge, as well as to the influence of their prior writing practices in vernacular and school contexts. Furthermore, students with a strategic profile tend to monitor and justify their decisions more consciously, while the developing and emerging profiles show less alignment between their revision criteria and the demands of the argumentative genre.

In conclusion, this study suggests the design of writing tasks that explicitly integrate self-regulation strategies and recognize students' vernacular practices as a resource for strengthening their academic performance. Incorporating these elements into the planning and teaching of writing could foster more robust learning pathways and a more situated understanding of revision and rewriting processes in higher education.