Chapter 4 Lauer

The Texas study by Witte, Meyer, Miller and Faigley seems like an appropriate study to evaluate. Even though its 1981 date makes it dated, it offers a good example of the role of basic statistics in writing research. They aimed to collect descriptive data on university writing programs, guided by broad research questions that were related to program evaluation. In other words, this was no small task! The subjects were 550 writing program directors, (originally) though 259 agreed to complete the survey and 127 did. The small response rate, though, is typical of surveys, though I would have expected a commitment to complete one (especially by a writing director) to carry some weight. The questionnaire related to various aspects of the writing program. Theory guided the context of the work, since the work related to previous researchers and their studies. In this study, data collection seemed rather straight forward, though perhaps a bit ambitious since a writing program has many facets, all of which cannot be adequately covered by even the most promising survey.

One of the pitfalls was the lack of a central source of writing programs in the United States. The survey, therefore, did not include a representative sample to the degree the researchers would have liked. Correction factors were not needed in the final data analysis, as sample size was not close to the population size. The data collected aimed at in-depth responses, as opposed to all multiple choice. That, however, meant the response rate was low since the survey was taxing. Even though the survey compensated for this weakness by considering separate strata as populations, compensation is not as good as a strong response rate to begin with.

Learning about writing programs is also probably not something that is best handled by consulting writing directors. Certainly they would have a lot to say about the program, but a more balanced approach would yield more (perhaps relevant) information. A potential problem, though, would be information overload.

I was surprised the researchers did not have access to a central database of programs, though given computer limitations in 1981, that fact is perhaps not as surprising. Without easily accessible spreadsheets or data compilations, the era before computers surely involved a lot of work that today is not wasted on hunting down such information. Now, the problem is too much information!

Chapter 3 Lauer

I'll discuss Flori and Clark's ethnography since I find writing at the elementary school level fascinating. Their research question involved asking why children's enjoyment and sense of competence declined, even though their writing improved, according to the National Assessment of Education progress in 1981. The subjects included second and third-grade students, all in a Midwestern city at a land grant university. This was an open classroom, and the economic status of the children varied. Regarding context, the researchers chose this site because they believed it would be an ideal place to study attitudes towards writing. Student backgrounds, the role of writing in building community, and the options provided by the room set up helped Florio and Clark identify four functions of writing. They include the following: participating in the community, knowing oneself and others, occupying free time, and demonstrating academic competence. To collect their data, they used ethnography, and the final report even included samples of students' writing. A lot of "thick description" was used in the data section as well. They determined that social context of the classroom helps or hinders the writing process, a conclusion that seems completely obvious. Because the open classroom was an atypical setup, I question just how we might generalize (if we do so) to a larger population. Also, the classroom seems rather progressive, and being on university grounds might mean these students are exposed to a writing program stronger than many other programs in the nation. Typically, I have found that schools connected with universities do quite well.

I'm also not convinced that the research question was exactly what needed to be studied. It seems that educators can usually raise scores or "quality" of work, but this would, I expect, often come at the expense of a student's enjoyment of the subject. Surely the massive testing common in today's elementary schools causes students to like certain subjects less, though I'm also sure their test scores go up when they are drilled on information. It seems like this study really could have touched more upon what educators might do (or do already) to help retain or create a student's sense of enjoyment and perceived competence in a subject.

Chapter Two Lauer

For chapter 2 of Lauer and Asher, I'll pick the Emig study on twelfth graders since it's a classic case study, and I should be more familiar with the details. The main research question that guided Emig's work involved asking how the composing process differed for reflexive and extensive writing. Her subjects included 8 twelfth graders from the Chicago region, and there were five girls and three boys. This case study's context meant that Emig, familiar with writing processes, was involved with the students on a rather personal level, as opposed to mere observation. She already had a theory on writing as a process, along with various hypotheses. One, for example, was that the two modes of context would produce writing of different lengths. Her initial questions led to easier coding later in the research process. Regarding data collection, she conducted interviews listened to tape recordings of composing aloud, observed the composing process, and collected writing samples and school records. Her analysis included many variables, such as the context of composing, the nature of the stimulus, prewriting, planning, starting, composing aloud, reformulating, stopping, contemplation of the product and teacher influence.
This study, while dated, remains a classic. I notice it is constantly on reading lists for rhetoric programs. Emig helped pioneer case studies, and while this is a strength for rhetoric's future, there are bound to be problems with her study. It was clearly limited. How do we know these 8 students are representative of twelfth graders? They were not a random sample. Given that her research was highly qualitative (interviews and such), we cannot generalize to the extent that we wish. Of course, the coding is able to produce quantitative data, but I still question just how accurate her findings are. I do think that since she used various methods of data collection that her findings have some merit. Surely a typical twelfth grader will write differently for reflexive versus extensive writing. We might, however, want to know about various ages. Do 7th, 10th, and college students do this as well? Emig's case study leaves some unanswered questions, though more than that it opens the door for more research (which certainly happened). If only today in 2007 something like a case study were considered novel! I question if there are new research methods out there remaining to be discovered.