Project description

According to numerous studies graduate students face difficulties in finishing their dissertations. Among the factors that make it difficult to produce the preliminary or final work are the difficulties encountered by students in reading and writing practices, and dealing with the task on their own, generally performed in isolation and without didactic support. In this project, the use of digital technologies in the preparation of dissertations will be examined in this context.

Over the last few years, the use of digital technologies in the dissertation process has become more frequent. A situation which has intensified due to the COVID pandemic. Previous studies tell us how students use digital technologies in graduate research or how they manage a particular social network in relation to research writing. However, none of them focuses on the uses of digital technologies in the production of dissertation.

Within the New Literacies Studies, this project aims to enable insight into how students engage with digital technologies in reading and writing practices associated with the dissertation process.

An exploratory qualitative study is proposed that seeks to gain access to the students' first-hand experiences. We will work with a diverse or maximum variation sample of graduate students in Social and Human Sciences enrolled at Argentine universities. This sample allows us to explore different experiences of the relationship between reading and writing practices, dissertation process, and digital technologies.

Cooperation

• Dr. Prof. Guadalupe Alvarez (CONICET, UNGS, Argentina)