Exploring differentiated and genre-based conference abstract writing instruction to PhD students from diverse disciplines

Purpose Due to the typically low student enrolment in doctoral programmes, doctoral students from diverse disciplines who need academic literacy development in second-language writing are supported on an ad-hoc basis or in multi-disciplinary academic literacy classrooms. However, their discipline-specific academic writing is often not well supported. Meanwhile, the affected doctoral students face difficulties with disciplinary writing. This study explored the innovative combination of differentiated instruction and genre pedagogies to develop doctoral students’ specialised conference abstract writing in a multi-disciplinary classroom.Method This mixed-methods study conducted a qualitative analysis of the sample genre materials and the delivery of differentiated instruction to doctoral students (N = 81) from multiple disciplines. Pearson correlation, multiple regression, and t-tests were used to determine the impact and students’ success.Findings The analysis evidenced different disciplinary conference abstract genre sample texts, diversity in the writing activities, varied classroom learning environment, and diversity in the composed drafts. A significant positive relationship was found between differentiated writing with genre pedagogies and the doctoral students’ discipline-specific conference abstracts. The t-test also revealed success in specialised conference abstract writing.Originality/Value The study examined an innovative integration of differentiated instruction and genre-based pedagogies to understand the learning of disciplinary writing. The integration advances a framework for addressing the long-standing challenges of unviable classroom sizes per discipline and the marginalisation of learners needing specialised and formal academic writing literacy.