Evaluating the Skills for Writing Referencing Styles in the Assignments of Aesthetic Studies Undergraduates: Case Study at Eastern University, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Writing appropriate Referencing style is identified as a skill among the academic researchers in the higher education society. It plays a significant role in assignments process. If research or assignment used appropriate referencing style that particular document becomes high-quality document. In this context this paper analyses the skill for writing-different referencing styles in aesthetic Studies Undergraduate assignments. The study used the survey research design through the stratified random sampling method, 75 out of 164 undergraduates were selected as sample. Referencing skill was evaluated through three categories (referencing style the format of Books, periodicals and Non-print source). This study was carried out by pretest and posttest. Before the one month of post-test, two days seminar was conducted about referencing style. According to the pre-test result, the overall level for the undergraduates' performance of writing referencing style in their assignments is 28.33%. However, due to the two days' workshop knowledge about the usage of referencing style was increasing all categories. The referencing style for books were increased from 43.33% to 51.66%, for periodicals were increased from 26.6% to 33.33%, for non-print sources were increased from 15% to 18.33%, and the overall performance was 34.44%, but level is not in satisfactory level.