A discourse analysis of the abstracts of undergraduate students’ research: an interdisciplinary study

Abstract

Research on academic genres like research articles, abstracts, and dissertations has benefited greatly from genre analysis, a text analysis method that emerged in the 1980s. Despite this increasing genre-based research, much research has not been done on undergraduate theses, especially in Ghana. In particular, little is known about the schematic structure and linguistic properties of abstracts of undergraduate theses. In response to this research gap, the present study examined the similarities and differences in theses abstracts written by undergraduates in the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Allied Health Sciences of the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in Ho, Ghana. Relying on a qualitative research approach backed by the pragmatist research paradigm, this study considered one hundred and 150 abstracts, 50 from each department, focusing on the moves and steps in the abstracts, as well as the transitivity choices made by the writers in each move. In terms of similarities, generally, the dissertation abstracts across the three departments had five moves: Introduction, Purpose, Method, Product, and Conclusion. Relatedly, the Introduction move of the abstracts in all three departments had three steps: the Background, Problem, and Focus. Moreover, the Purpose move was not divided into steps across all departments. The study also found that the Conclusion move had two steps in all three departments: Summary and Recommendations. Concerning differences in the rhetorical structure, the study found that in Nursing, the Method move had eight steps, while in Allied Health and Medicine, the steps were nine and ten, respectively. The study found that the most frequent moves in the Nursing dissertation abstracts were the Introduction, Purpose, and Methods. In Allied Health, the most frequent moves in the analysed data were the Introduction, Purpose, Methods, and Product. In Medicine abstracts, the Introduction, Purpose, and Methods moves were obligatory, with the Product and Conclusion moves to be core. Other differences and similarities emerged regarding the sequence and textual space of moves. In terms of the transitivity choices made, the study found that in the Introduction move, across the three disciplines, material processes were the most used process types, followed by relational processes, mental processes, existential processes, and verbal processes. Across the three disciplines, material and mental processes dominated the Purpose move. In the Method, Product and Conclusion moves, material processes dominated. By adopting an eclectic theoretical standpoint, this study has contributed to the genre theory by extending its application to theses abstracts written by Ghanaian undergraduates. Pedagogically, the study’s findings can serve as a starting point for developing teaching materials for academic writing courses targeting the writing of abstracts of undergraduate theses. In addition, the study serves as a starting point for further research into theses abstracts of other disciplines, adopting different theoretical and methodological orientations.