Teaching management students to write research papers: A case of a Russian English-Medium instruction university

New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development. 2020. Vol. 32. No. 1. P. 28–46.

Plakhotnik M. S., Gionti L. A., Rocco T. S., Pashkina M. V.

Global competition in higher education has facilitated the growth of English-medium instruction universities in countries where English is not a national language. In Europe, for example, the number of such programs at the bachelor’s level has grown from only 55 in 2009 to 2900 in 2017. Colleges of business and management at these universities take a leading role in providing English-taught programs and courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. A number of management education faculty and administrators encounter challenges related to teaching and course development in English as a second language. One of these challenges is teaching research paper writing. The purpose of this study was to explore how an approach to a research writing course used at a university in an English-speaking country could be implemented at an English-medium instruction university. The course involved 153 undergraduate students majoring in management and included seven sessions. To the students and the instructor English was a second language. Data were collected using qualitative and quantitative tools. Overall, the results indicate that a carefully designed course on writing a research paper can increase student writing self-efficacy in just seven class sessions. We provide implications for instructors and administrators at English-medium instruction universities and areas for future research.

Keywords: academic writing, self-efficacy, teaching management students