Academic literacy in higher education: the case of State University of Sonora

Abstract

This paper explores and analyzes the academic writing practices of a group of students from the State University of Sonora (Mexico), mediated by the digital resources available to them at the time of writing their academic texts. One of the variables considered was the support for the construction of texts provided by their professors throughout their university courses. An online questionnaire of eleven multiple-choice and nine open-ended questions was applied to the subjects, whose participation was voluntary. The data were analyzed with the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) program. Among our results we found that the students have deficiencies in their writing skills, which together with deficiencies in the proper management of digital resources and little support from teachers make for poor academic literacy not in accordance with the requirements and level that students who have completed at least half of their university studies should have.