EXPLORING PURPOSE AND IDENTITY IN STUDENTS’ TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING.

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Generic Structures of a technical report and their purpose

Table 2.2 Moves and Their Rhetorical Functions in Technical Reports

Table 2.3 Example of technical report showing move structures, purpose and

Identity

Table 2.4 Typical moves in introduction section

Table 2.5 Typical moves of methods section

Table 2.6 Typical moves of results and discussion section

Table 2.7 Typical moves of conclusion section

Table 2.8 Types of Circumstances Found in the Students’ Technical Report

Table 4.1 Generic Structures of students’ technical report

Table 4.2 Moves in students’ introduction section

Table 4.3 Moves in students’ methods section

Table 4.4 Moves in students’ results and discussion section

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the general issues related to the present study. These include

the background of the study, research questions, purposes of the study, significance

of the study, scope of the study, clarification of key terms, and the organization of

the thesis.

1.1 Background of The Study

Learning to write for academic purposes often involves the process of creating a new

identity. The students are expected to represent their identities through a new

discipline they are engaging in (Fan Shen, 1988 as cited in Hyland, 2002b). Creating

such an identity, however, is generally very difficult for second language students.

This is partly because these identities can differ considerably from those they are

familiar with from their everyday lives, or previous learning experiences (Cadman,

1997 as cited in Hyland, 2002b).

In social view of language, identity is realised and demonstrated by means of

discourse choices in specific discourse communities with their particular purposes

are achieved through the use of particular genres (Hyland, 2002a). Demonstrating a

new identity may be less than easy for writers in a new field because they bring to it

multiple identities and, in their writing, draw on the various, sometimes competing,

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The discourse community is generally linked with the notion of genre to explain the

relationship between the text and the writer and how the writer achieves particular

rhetorical purposes and takes on and expresses social identities (Goodier, 2008). In

this study, then, purpose and identity are seen in the particular choices made by the

writer within the context of the discourse community. The exploration of the

purpose and identity is carried out by means of an analysis of the students’ discourse

choices in a written assignment in which they target a genre new to them but central

to the field of engineering, i.e. report writing.

Report writing is an essential skill for professionals in almost every field: engineers,

accountants, teachers, graphic designers, information scientists, and other

professional fields. Thus, the teaching of report writing at tertiary level education is

essential since it provides the students with the foundation skills in writing various

types of reports (Marshall, 1991). A good report communicates ideas, data and

conclusions efficiently and clearly (Beer & McMurrey, 1997; McKenna, 1997),

therefore, an understanding of report writing principles will benefit a student who

intends to go into any field of work.

In engineering field, report writing is a part of every engineer's career thus the major

focus of report writing is preparing the engineering students with the skills of writing

technical report. A good report writing is an indication of someone’s written work

where its purpose and identity can be revealed (Goodier, 2008). The purpose of a

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and manner of presentation (Marshall, 1991). The identity, on the other hand,

determines discourse choices of a specific text to show the writer’s professional

identity (Ivanic, 1998; Ivanic and Camps, 2001; Goodier, 2008). It means that by

using specific linguistic features and technical terms the writers can identify

themselves in a specific discourse community.

Several studies have examined students’ writing in terms of purpose and identity.

Some focus on the students’ conceptions of purpose in their writing (Anson, 1990;

Hart, 2000). Some other studies focus on exploring the students’ identity in writing

(Diani, 2008; Tessuto, 2008; Reid, 2009). They concern on the ways to improve the

writing skills of English for second language and foreign language students. They

investigate the identity of the student writers in different fields of study. Their

findings show that students can have many choices to reflect their identity in writing.

Other study which focuses on the relationships between purpose and identity in a

medical case report was conducted by Goodier (2008). The result shows that

knowing the realisation of purpose and identity in students’ writing can give valuable

implications for teaching and learning.

Although many previous studies as mentioned above have investigated the purpose

and the identity of students’ writing, little research has explored the generic structure

and linguistic features of a technical report to realise purpose and identity. There is a

need to increase a research-based knowledge of realising purpose and identity in

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researcher has found that the major problem faced by students in the research site in

writing a technical report is related to the logical structure of the report and language

especially in the realisation of the purpose and identity. It is in line with Cheung &

Lai (1997) stating that students often do not structure available information before

they begin their writing. As a consequence, the students are not only unable to write

grarnmar-free reports but they do have structural problems in organising their reports

at both the macro (text structure) and micro (language features) levels to realise

purpose and identity.

Thus, the present study aims to investigate the realisation of purpose and identity in

students’ technical reports. This study has been conducted in a polytechnic in

Bandung. This study attempts to identify the realisation of purpose and identity in

students’ technical reports in terms of generic structure, and the linguistic features

used in their technical reports to show purpose and identity.

1.2 Research Questions

This study attempts to answer the research questions formulated as follows:

1. In terms of generic structure, how do students realise purpose and identity in their

technical reports?

2. What linguistic features are used by the students in their technical reports to show

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1.3 Purposes of The Study

The purposes of the study are as follows:

1. Revealing the realisation of purpose and identity in the students’ technical

report in terms of generic structure.

2. Exploring the linguistic features used by the students in their technical reports to

show purpose and identity.

1.4 Significance of the Study

Theoretically, this study will provide a reference for the engineering students in

understanding the purpose and identity in technical report writing. Furthermore, this

study will be preliminary inputs for other researchers to further study in the similar

area of research with different interest.

Practically, the results of the study are expected to provide a practical guide for the

readers in general and engineering students in particular to write a technical report.

Professionally, this study will be beneficial for engineering students and English

lecturers in engineering studies.

For students, the results provide information to understand how they organize a

technical report and to see how generic structures and linguistic features used in their

writing can realise their purpose and identity.

For lecturers, the results can be used to help them understand the students’ purpose

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their students, and can provide the students with the appropriate analytic tools to be

used in teaching technical report writing.

1.5. Scope of the study

This study is a case study of exploring purpose and identity as realised in students’

technical report writing in a polytechnic in Bandung. It uses text analysis and semi

structured interview. The analysis focuses on the generic structure and linguistic

features of a technical report in engineering studies. The analysis attempts to reveal

the realisation of purpose and identity in students’ technical report writing in terms of

generic structure, and to explore the linguistic features used by the students in their

technical reports to show purpose and identity.

1.6 Clarifications of Key Terms

For the sake of clarity, key terms in this study are defined and specified as follows:

Students: The sixth-semester students of Manufacturing Engineering department in a

polytechnic in Bandung.

Purpose and Identity: The identification of particular choices made by the writer

within the context of the discourse community (Bhatia, 1993).

Technical Report: A type of writing as communicating technical information for

specific purpose that is geared to the needs of specific audience and occurs in a

specific workplace situation (Beer & McMurrey, 1997).

Generic Structures: The elements and move structures of a technical report (Swales,

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Linguistic Features: Forms and structures used by students to achieve a particular

communicative and rhetorical purpose, and identity in technical report writing

(Swales, 1990).

Genre Analysis: A study of a particular type of a written discourse made distinctive

by its purpose and the discourse community for which it is intended. Examples of

genre are abstract, laboratory reports, grant proposal, poems, letters, etc (Swales,

1990). Particular genre to be analyzed in the present study is technical report in

engineering studies (to follow Swales, 1990; Marshall, 1991; Cheung and Lai, 1997;

McKenna, 1997; Hyland, 2004 among others).

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL): Halliday’s model of text analysis as a point

of reference and theoretical framework for the analysis of students’ writing in terms

of linguistic features based on the Transitivity system (developed by Halliday, 1985,

1994; Martin and Rose, 2003, 2007; Eggins, 1994,2004 among others).

1.7 Organization of The Thesis

This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter One presents the general description

of the introduction to the topic of the research. Chapter Two elaborates the theories

that support the study. Chapter Three discusses the research methodology. Chapter

Four shows data analysis and discussion. Chapter Five presents the conclusions and

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CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents an overview of the methodology of the study. It describes the

research design, research site and participants, data collecting techniques, data

analysis, and validity of the study.

3.1 Research Design

Corresponding to the research questions and purposes of the study mentioned in

Chapter One, this study employed a case study design for at least three reasons. First,

it is concerned with “a small scale, a single case” and focused on one particular

instance of educational experience or practice (Stake, 1995; Freebody, 2003 in

Emilia, 2005). A single case of this study referred to the exploration of purpose and

identity in students technical report writing in one polytechnic in Bandung. Second,

it used multiple data collection techniques and analytic procedures to increase the

validity of the study, i.e the documentation of students’ tecnical report writing and

interview (Cohen and Manion, 1994). Third, it used text analysis which is also

another characteristic of case study design (Travers, 2001).

As mentioned in Chapter Two, the genre analysis used in this study followed the ESP

approach (to follow Swales, 1990; Hyland, 2004; Bhatia, 1993, among others) and

SFL (to follow Haliday, 1985, 1994; Martin and Rose, 2003, 2007; Eggins, 1994,

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they focus on similar things; similar aspects in analyzing text. Both approaches

concern with the generic structure and linguistic features of the text.

3.2 Research Site and Participants

This study was carried out at the undergraduate manufacturing engineering study

program at one polytechnic in Bandung. The research site has been chosen since as a

member of the teaching staff with more than five years teaching experience, the

researcher expected to get easy access to the research site, and hence, increases the

feasibility of the study (Bogdan and Biklen, 1998:54).

The participants of the study were nine students of Technical Report Writing subject.

The nine students were selected for two reasons. First, the students involved in this

study were accessible for the researcher to get the data since they were active at the

sixth-semester students. Second, their English scores represent the low achiever (C),

mid achiever (B), and high achiever (A).

All participants were between 20-21 years of age. They were all originally from the

Sundanese ethnic group in Indonesia, having Bahasa Sunda as their mother tounge.

Bahasa Indonesia is their second language and English is thus their foreign language.

The class had no female students, which is common in engineering classess in all

engineering departments in the university. It is a limitation of the study, as the class

was not heterogenous, to see the comparison between male and female students in

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To gain the data, the nine students’ technical report were documented and analyzed.

After the process of text analysis was completed and the participants were asked for

their willingness to be interviewed, all the participants were voluntarily involved in

the interview.

3.3 Data Collection Techniques

This study employed two data collection techniques, namely: the documentation of

students’ technical reports and interview

3.3.1 Documentation of Students’ Technical Report

The first method of data collection was the selection of the students’ technical report

texts. It has been carried out by choosing nine students’ technical writing from

twenty four students to represent different levels of achievement – high (technical

report texts 1,2,3 with English score A), mid (technical report texts 4,5,6 with

English score B) and low (technical report texts 7,8,9 with English score C). The

technical report texts were then analyzed in terms of generic structures and linguistic

features to answer the research questions , i.e to reveal the realisation of purpose and

identity in the students’ technical report writing in terms of generic structure and to

explore the linguistic features used by students to show purpose and identity in their

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3.3.2 Interview

The second source of data was the interview with all participants of the study. It was

carried out after the process of the students’ technical reports analysis had been

completed. It was used to obtain more comprehensive data on the students’

perspective about the realisation of purpose and identity in their writing. In this case,

individual semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions (Cohen and

Manion, 2004:273) were preferred to enable the researcher to get information

required while at the same time permitted the participants’ freedom of responses and

description to illustrate the concept (Field and Morse in Emilia, 2005). The content

and procedures of the interviews were organized in advance based on the data gained

from the text analysis. Each student was given questions based on their knowledge

and experiences during the process of writing the technical report to find out the

realisation of purpose and identity in their technical reports in terms of generic

structure, and how the linguistic features used can show the purpose and identity in

their technical reports. (see the interview guide in Appendix 3).

In addition, in determining the interview language, bahasa Indonesia as the

participants’ native language has been chosen to be used to make the participants

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3.4 Data Analysis

The data were analyzed through qualitative data analysis on the basis of the research

questions. As discussed in data collection section, there were two sources of data in

this study, namely the students’ technical reports and interview. The followings are

the steps of data analysis for each source of data.

3.4.1 The Students’ Technical Report Texts

As pointed out by Travers (2001), the procedures of text analysis in case study

follows the procedures laid out in the related theory. For this purpose, this study used

the theory of genre analysis in ESP and SFL to analyze the students’ technical

reports. The analysis was in terms of the generic structure and linguistic features the

students employed in each section of their technical report texts to realise the

purpose and identity.

There were five steps of text analysis applied in this study (Swales, 1990; Hyland,

2004, among others).

First, the technical report texts were grouped into one of three categories (high

achiever, mid achiever, and low achiever) and analyzed as a whole to see its generic

structure or major elements (see Appendix 1 for the list of students’ technical

reports).

Second, each section of the technical report, i.e introduction, methods, results and

discussion, and conclusion, was analyzed to see the generic structures and structural

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Third, the analysis of the generic structure and the structural moves of each section

of the technical reports and linguistic features used were carried out to compare and

contrast to those proposed by theorists mentioned in Chapter Two. It has shown the

realisation of purpose and identity in students’ technical reports. As a result, it has

answered the research questions, i.e to reveal the realisation of purpose and identity

in the students’ technical report in terms of generic structure, and to explore the

linguistic features used by students in their technical reports to show purpose and

identity.

Fourth, each students’ realisation of purpose and identity was categorized in the

following form (see the results of the analysis in Appendix 2).

Students ... (1-9)

(i) The generic structureof the technical report (ii) The moves and linguistic features of each section

Purpose and Identity Purpose and Identity

Introduction Methods Results and

Discussion

Conclusion Introduction Methods Results and

Discussion

Conclusion

Moves Linguistic

Features

Fifth, the results of the analysis of all students’ technical reports were described and

discussed in two major points (i) the generic structures in the technical reports, (ii)

the moves and linguistic features of each section to reveal the realisation of the

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3.4.2.Interview

The data from interview were analyzed in four steps. First, the interviews were

transcribed or converted in written forms. Second, the transcripts were given back to

the respondents to check whether it has reflected what they meant to provide data for

analysis (Cohen and Manion, 1994). Third, the transcripts were condensed into

briefer statements in which the main sense of what is said is rephrased in a few

words (Kvale, 1996: 192). Finally, the data were coded and categorized by using

thematic data analysis with regard to the research questions, i.e to reveal the

realisation of purpose and identity in the students’ technical report in terms of

generic structure, and to explore the linguistic features used by students to show

purpose and identity in their technical reports (Kvale, 1996). The results of the

interview can be seen in Appendix 4.

3.5 Validity

To ensure the validity of the data, triangulation was then conducted. The

triangulation was done through triangulation of data, triangulation of theories, and

member checks. To increase the validity of the data, two data gatherings were used

in this study which include the documentation of students’ technical reports and

interview (Cohen and Manion, 2004; Nunan, 2009). Another way to increase the

validity of he data was through triangulation of theories which in this study refer to

three main theories, i.e., the theory of purpose and identity, the theory of genre

analysis in ESP and the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistic (Nunan, 2009). The

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context, the transcripts were “sent back” (Kvale, 1996) to the participant who had

been interviewed to make sure that the results were appropriate with the responses

given by them.

3.6 Conclusion

This chapter has reviewed a concise account of the methodology in the present study.

It includes the research design, research site and participants, data collection

techniques, and data analysis. The next chapter will present data presentation and

discussion based on the results of the analysis of each source of data, i.e the students’

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter presents the conclusions of the present study related to the research

questions presented in Chapter One. This chapter also gives recommendations for

further researchers and practitioners.

5.1 Conclusions

The study aims to investigate the realisation of purpose and identity in students’

technical report in terms of generic structure, and the linguistic features used by

students in their technical reports to show purpose and identity. The discussion of the

previous chapter suggests that from the text analysis, it was found that some students

have been able to realise purpose and identity. Regarding the generic structure, some

students have the ability in the discourse semantic level to achieve the

communicative purpose and identity of each move in a technical report i.e

introduction, methods, results and discussion, and conclusion. Regarding the

linguistic features, some students have been able to use the specific lexical choices,

the relational processes, the material processes, the passive verbs to show purpose

and identity in the discourse community, i.e. a mechanic maintenance.

However, some other students still face some problems in realising purpose and

identity in their technical reports both in terms of generic structure and the linguistic

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identity in EFL contexts like those conducted by Ivanic and Camps (2001), Reid

(2009), and Goodier (2008) as mentioned in Chapter Two.

The findings gained from the interview revealed that the students were able to

mention the purpose and identity of the technical report correctly. However, most of

them have not been familiar yet with the concept of the genre particularly in terms of

generic stucture and linguistic features. This confirms the finding of the text analysis

which most of their texts were less coherence and explicit suggesting that they need

to be taught the genre (text type) explicitly. In terms of purpose and identity, it is

found that students have basically shown a clear understanding on the concepts of

purpose and identity although in the text its verbalization is less sophisticated and

explicit due to their limited knowledge. All these suggest that purpose and identity

should explicitly be taught to the students as will be elaborated in the following

section.

5.2 Recommendations

In line with the topic under discussion, there are two recommendations for further

researchers to enhance the richness of aspects related to the realisation of purpose

and identity in writing a technical report. First, as the scope of the text analysis in

this study was limited to the generic structure and linguistic features applied by

students in their technical reports, further researchers are expected to deal with more

comprehensive analysis and explore other important factors which were not

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students; the comparison of male and females students in terms of purpose and

identity; the study on other text types such as argumentative text; and the process of

teaching and learning of the subjets related to research and academic writing.

Second, further researchers are expectedly to deal with a bigger number of

participants to get richer, more comprehensive, and reliable data.

Furthermore, based on the findings, it is recommended that the teacher should teach

the genre explicitly to the students, e.g., the generic structure, purpose of the genre,

linguistic features, etc, as suggested by Hyland (1999). In addition, scaffolding to

help the students use the typical language properly should be given to students.

Regarding teaching writing as a process (Gibbon, 2002) and “direct telling”

(Callaghan & Rothery, 1989 in Emilia, 2009) of linguistic features more than once

for the students, given that there are so many aspects that need improvement. Finally,

it is also recommended that the teaching of writing be integrated with other macro

skills e.g., reading, speaking, and listening. This way, students can be introduced

with various texts and aspects of language that enable them to use language for

different purposes and contexts especially in their writing.

Moreover, concerning the results of the study, it is also recommended to the

practitioners that all the subjects related to writing in this site and other non

English-major programs should allow students to have the capacity needed in research and

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EXPLORING PURPOSE AND IDENTITY IN STUDENTS’ TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPROVAL PAGE ... I

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 100

LIST OF TABLES

CHAPTER I

1.1 Background of The Study

technical report. A good report writing is an indication of someone’s written work

1.2 Research Questions

1.3 Purposes of The Study

1.5. Scope of the study

1.6 Clarifications of Key Terms

1.7 Organization of The Thesis

CHAPTER III

3.1 Research Design

3.2 Research Site and Participants

3.3 Data Collection Techniques

3.3.2 Interview

3.4 Data Analysis

3.4.1 The Students’ Technical Report Texts

purpose and identity.

3.4.2.Interview

3.5 Validity

3.6 Conclusion

CHAPTER V

5.1 Conclusions

5.2 Recommendations

BIBLIOGRAPHY