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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background
It is generally recognized that many postgraduate students, in china havedifficulties with academic research activities. Wang Xuemei (2010) states that someof these difficulties are postgraduates not knowing the standards of academic writing,not familiar with the research focuses, not applying correct research methods. Besides,there is little effective training system for postgraduate’s academic competence inChina. In current postgraduate education, lecturing is used as the main teachingmethod to foster students’ research competence. During lecture classes, students listenand write notes. Sun Yuhua (2008) points out that the problems of postgraduatetraining system include lower level of training effect, single mode for academiccompetence training, the incomplete knowledge structure of curriculum, rigidteaching mode, out-of-date textbook, which make the education system did not appearto foster students’ academic competence to the level desired. And postgraduatestudents still lack of practice and creativity. However, due to the dramatic change inpostgraduate education reform and the economic development in China, Englishpostgraduate students are supposed to be proficient English user, problem solvers, andcritical thinkers. Thus, it is necessary to educators to find an effective method toprompt the development of students’ academic competence, such as professionalknowledge, problem-solving ability and critical thinking.
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1.2 Significance of the Study
This study is of both practical and theoretical value. Practically, understanding ofthe effect of small group discussion on English postgraduate students’ academiccompetence and of how it contributes to academic competence will provide valuableinformation on postgraduate educational system reform and postgraduate students willknow how to improve their academic competence inspiring their research enthusiasm.Theoretically, the study contributes to the literature on small group discussion and thedevelopment of academic competence. The contributions are as follows:Firstly, as for the research contents, the former researches mainly focuses on theeffect of small group discussion on development of critical thinking, self-directedlearning and English competency, especially speaking and writing, while this studyfocuses on postgraduate students’ academic competence including professionalknowledge, problem-solving ability and critical thinking. Besides, in the formerstudies, the small group discussion refers to a teaching activity in classroom teachingwhereas small group discussion in this study refers to the long-term discussion groupto discuss the academic readings once a week.Secondly, little researchers discover how small group discussion affects thedevelopment of academic competence in quantitative research method. However, thisstudy not only reveals the effects of small group discussion on academic competencebut also tend to investigate how small group discussion affects the development ofacademic competence.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1.1 Academic Competence
As for the definition of the term “academic competence”, there are schools ofthought. However, there is probably no common definition on it. For example,DiPerna (1997) states that academic competence, is defined as a multidimensionalconstruct compose本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。