Resumen

GOVENDER, Vaneshree; OPARINDE, Kunle  y  THUNGO, Sithabile. Perceptions of writing development among postgraduate students: The role of academic writing retreats at the Durban University of Technology. Journal of Education [online]. 2025, n.101, pp.150-167. ISSN 2520-9868.  https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i101a08.

In this article we explore the potency of academic writing retreats in strengthening the writing abilities of postgraduate students, particularly at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), South Africa. Since research outputs have become central to the affairs of institutions of higher learning, universities have continued to deploy strategies and devise systems to increase the number of research publications. An approach that has become popular is the adoption of writing retreats to assist in offering support and the improvement of academic writing, especially by building the capacities of postgraduate students. At DUT, academic writing retreats have emerged as an important strategy to enhance academic writing development in postgraduate students. Drawing from the experiences of such students who attended three writing retreat sessions between October 2022 and November 2023, we appraise the organisation of these retreats and explore their perceptions of how these retreats influenced their confidence and engagement in academic writing. We conducted an in-depth exploration of the planning, implementation, and outcomes of these retreats vis-à-vis how they contribute to building academic writing development at DUT. The results from the study revealed that postgraduate students perceived the writing retreat sessions to have been extremely helpful in building their writing confidence and enhancing their research engagement, while offering recommendations on how to improve on the delivery of such sessions especially by focusing on individual strengths.

Palabras clave : capacity-building; postgraduate students; academic writing; writing retreats.

        · texto en Inglés     · Inglés ( pdf )