I’ve recently completed a stint at UCT, lecturing a course in Digital Marketing to a group of second and third year students. While I found their responses in class to be enlightening, their written work left much to be desired. My experience, I think, points to a problem in the schooling system that provides students to universities that struggle to write argumentatively. 

The students’ backgrounds were mostly in accounting and economics and some had done marketing before. The course was a great experience for me in both preparing and delivering learning content – something I’ve never had to do from scratch. The course covered the use of the internet and cell phones as media for marketing: reaching the market through digital communication, selling online via e-commerce etc. 

This week I’ve been marking their final essays and, I must say, I’m rather shocked at the level of written work from them. The group were highly responsive and we had some good back and forth debates in class. It was obvious from these sessions that this was a bright group who could think around the topic. 

The problem seems to have come in putting these thoughts to paper. I asked them, as their final assignment, to first conduct a market analysis and then create and motivate for a digital marketing strategy for a South African company. The majority of students answered the two parts to the question as they might a survey or short answer question – in complete isolation. The analyses of the market had little to no bearing on the final recommendations – the students merely “filled in the blanks” when it came to using analytical tools such as SWOT and PESTLE without any concept as to why they were writing what they were writing. Many analysed aspects that were completely irrelevant. 

The analysis of problems in isolation was evidenced further by the fact that they submitted multiple small assignments in the lead-up to the final essay, each of which covered a topic that would have been relevant to the essay. Yet very few included any of this prior learning at all. 

On the point of writing skills in general, there were numerous issues. Very few students wrote a lead into each section of the report, sections just started with no indication to the reader as to why they were reading the section. Then there were some students who handed in reports completely in bullet form, not written in an essay format at all. I could go on… 

So what’s going on? I surmise that the schooling system is at least partly to blame. Make note, this isn’t a language issue I’m talking about here – the inability to communicate in the written medium isn’t limited to students who do not speak English as a first language – the problem is across the board. 

From their work it is evident that the students have little experience in writing to make a point. They are used to short answer questions, regurgitating facts and generally not having to think too hard about a problem. Ask them to build up an argument and they fall over.  

The practice of wrote learning at school limits the ability of the student to think outside the box. They are taught what they need to do to pass like a formula: “answer these questions like this”, “when you see this say that”. There’s a complete lack of understanding of causation. Without this understanding how can we hope students at university (or more importantly recent graduates now in the workplace) to be able to build up an argument? 

This could have ramifications for their ability to push for a budget, promote their ideas or bargain for a better salary. 

In reading these essays I’ve had the distinct feeling that the student are unable to disassociate, look at the problem from the outside and think from someone else’s perspective. Most of the content lacks any kind of substance, anything more than: “The target market is people between the ages of 14 and 40 and very attractive to the company”.  

In speaking to others in my position who have been lecturing for longer than I have, it seems the problem is getting worse, not better.  

So what to do? It’s been a long time since I was last in school, so I’ve limited my advice to universities. Here are some of my views:

• Start early

From the perspective of the universities I would recommend more effort be placed on training students in their first university years to write more creatively and argumentatively – have dedicated subjects for this. I don’t think it is sufficient to rely on existing courses such as economics or marketing to do this since they assess according to very different criteria. If necessary, move the subjects that perpetuate isolated thought into later years.

• Give loads of feedback.

I know from first-hand experience that there is a yawning gap when it comes to feedback to students. They are not presented their final papers wherein the majority of testing around this matter is done. Rather set bigger assignments during the terms and give feedback individually on issues.

• Make more of the support structures

Like any large organisation, universities are terrible at cross-departmental functioning. There are often numerous support entities of which students (and lecturers) are completely unaware.

• Create common assessment criteria

If all course lecturers marked first on independent and well reasoned thought and second on regurgitated facts, things would quickly change.

• Fail people

It’s so tough to get tough when it’s a student’s future on the line. But at the end of the day, if you don’t cut it you shouldn’t pass. This is a contentious issue given that many blame the education system and not the student for the shortcomings. If the right support is offered and students receive their feedback but don’t take it to heart, the system can no longer be blamed.  

If you have views on this subject I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment.