Part 1
Concerned about the subpar performance of bright students on generic exercises involving correct citations of works consulted, we took to studying the root of their performance to find out what exactly was responsible for the performance. To sum it all up, we were interested in the influence of cognitive confusion, decreased mental imaging, drive, personal preferences, too little practice, or an aggregate of each of these aspects in the errors made in the citation in APA style. Our findings led us to decipher the school of thought of students in their handling of simple APA tasks, the errors they made, their understanding of their thinking modes (metacognition), and their choice of the electronic over printed resources in their research endeavors.
Part 2
Concerned about the subpar performance of bright students on generic exercises involving the correct citation of works consulted, we took to studying the root of their performance to find out what exactly was responsible for the performance (Van Note Chism & Weerakoon, 2012). This seemed to be a growing problem among most of the students and was consistent across the majority of students. The point of greatest concern is that even the brightest students were found to have great challenges in tackling of simple citations in APA style. There was need to find out the causes of these challenges in order to address them and improve the performance of the students when it comes to these exercises. This was the overarching driver of this study and would be the point of focus of the research.
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To be more specific, we were interested in the influence of cognitive confusion, decreased mental imaging, drive, personal preferences, too little practice, or an aggregate of each of these aspects in the errors made in the citation in APA style (Van Note Chism & Weerakoon, 2012). These were among the most probable reasons that could be directly linked to these challenges. Cognitive confusion and decreased mental imaging could be directly attributed to the different citation styles and the stark similarities between them. Drive, personal preferences, and too little practice could be directly pointed out from the type of temperament students might have towards the exercises. The study would be dwelling on these key influences and the hand they might have in the challenges the students were having in the mastering of citations in the APA styles.
At the conclusion of the study, our findings led us to decipher the school of thought of students in their handling of simple APA tasks, the errors they made, their understanding of their thinking modes (metacognition), and their choice of the electronic over printed resources in their research endeavors (Van Note Chism & Weerakoon, 2012). Finally, the exact reasons for the numerous errors could be pin pointed. The thought process of the students turned out to be the most influential in their tackling of citations in APA style. The second reason for these challenges were the student’s metacognition during the process of handling the assignments on the APA citation. The final reason for their facing of difficulties was their preferences for online references as opposed to print versions of credible resources which led to their finding of different and confusing methods of citation. With these findings, instructors could then improve their teaching methods while guiding students on their thought process, metacognition and finding of credible sources in order to learn the most appropriate methods of citation.
References
Arneson, B.K. (May 2014). Breaking Down the MEAL Plan: Wrapping Up with Lead Out Sentences . Retrieved from < http://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.co.ke/2014/05/breaking-down-meal-plan-wrapping-up.html >
Oyler, B. (April 2014). Breaking Down the MEAL Plan: Beginning with the Main Idea . Retrieved from < http://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.co.ke/2014/04/developing-paragraphs-with-meal-plan.html >
Skarbakka, K. (Jan 2013). Steer Your Reader Right with Effective Transitions . Retrieved from < http://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.co.ke/2013/01/steer-your-reader-right-with-effective.html >
Van Note Chism, N., & Weerakoon, S. (2012). APA, Meet Google: Graduate Students' Approaches to Learning Citation Style. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning , Vol 12, Issue 2, pp. 27-38.
