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Running Head: Prospectus
EXPLORING STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THE WRITING PEDAGOGY AS
SIGNIFICANT LEARNING EXPERIENCE:
A PRAGMATIC QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACH
by
SARAH ELIZABETH MOREMAN EILAND
CLAIRE HOWELL MAJOR, DISSERTATION COMMITTEE CHAIR
DAVID HARDYKARRI HOLLEY
ERIN NAUGHER GILCHRISTALAN L. WEBB
A DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Education in the
Department of Higher Education Administration In the Graduate School of The University of Alabama
TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA
31 August 2014
Dissertation Prospectus
Prospectus
ABSTRACT
This pragmatic qualitative research study explores first- year students’ perceptions on writing
pedagogy as significant learning experience to determine their readiness for writing college
papers. Over the course of Spring and Fall 2015 terms and totaling four different one-hour
Orientation 101 courses, the data collected from one instructor’s students’ writing exercises and
other faculty’s analysis of these writing exercises, along with the faculty’s concurrence to the
final cohesive analysis are sifted through an autoethnographic analysis with the instructor-
researcher’s own perceptions to serve as crystallization of data (rather than the more familiar
qualitative term: triangulation).
Keywords: writing, writing pedagogy, Fink’s taxonomy on significant learning,
orientation, first year students, first year experience, writing development, student perceptions,
faculty perceptions, writing self-efficacy, student-centered learning, pragmatism, pragmatic
qualitative research
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CHAPTER I:
INTRODUCTION
At first I couldn’t understand why I needed to take orientation, but now I do. This class
has helped me in writing papers in English class. It has showed me how to pull
information and put it on paper. I have to submit an assignment for my music
appreciation class and without the course I wouldn’t know how to do so. Writing is
necessary for anything you do in life. This is a short class, but in this short time I have
learned a lot. I appreciate you helping me. (D. Moore, personal communication, October
2, 2012)
I believe the writing exercises have helped because they require you to think on your feet.
In college you have many different papers and I believe that by doing these writing
exercises I will be able to finish papers in a timely manner. (H. Reaves, personal
communication, October 23, 2012)
I think writing is actually fun for me now, not slow torture like how I remembered in high
school. I think the writing exercises helped to summarize up what we learned a little
better, they covered the main points of the class every day, and they helped to make sure
we were paying attention. (S. Wiggins, personal communication, October 23, 2012)
Derived from the amalgamation of written responses to prompts and discussion postings
from students in my orientation classes before I started my pragmatic qualitative research study,
these three block quotes describe the benefits of incorporating writing exercises for “significant
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learning” (Fink, 2013). Students’ writing development is a continual practice that supports
significant learning, and the writing exercises reveal the need for students to have opportunities
to hone their writing skills (Angelo & Cross, 1993; Creswell, 2009; Harrington, Malencyzk,
Peckham, Rhodes, & Yancey, 2001; Hudd, Smart, & Delohery, 2011; Saavedra & Saavedra,
2011; Sommers & Saltz, 2004; Todd & Hudson, 2008). At Gadsden State Community College,
Orientation 101 (ORI 101) is the one mandatory course all students are to take (ORI 101 & ORT
100: Orientation to College Student Workbook, 2014). In other words, there is no other course
offered at this institution that requires all students to take. Therefore, the orientation course is the
one foundational opportunity for students to learn how to learn before continuing in their college
education (Bain, 2004; Charlton, 2011; Downs & Wardle, 2007; Fink, 2013; Jones, 2008;
Martinez, Kock, & Cass, 2011; Sommers & Saltz, 2004; Sullivan, 2012; Williams & Takaku,
2011). The environment and purpose of the orientation class to be conducive for first year
students’ adjustment during the transitional phase of being in college help ensure student
satisfaction and success—enhancing the significant learning experience (Astin, 1993; Evans,
1996; Fink, 2013; Kuh, 2007; Kuh & Whitt, 1988; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Tinto, 2005).
Overview
National reports indicate that the level of college and employment readiness are low
among the majority of high school graduates, specifically in areas of writing skills, reading
comprehension, and math (Kuh, 2007; Rothman, 2012; Spellings, 2006). This national trend
substantiates the need to providing provide the an optimal learning experience for first year
students by helping them hone their writing skills to write college-level papers. To know how to
motivate these students is to understand their perceptions on pedagogical methods. Writing
pedagogy is one method being used for significant learning. Whether higher education
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institutions contribute to or mitigate the college readiness problem, there are some who do not
place an importance on writing instruction, which begs the following question: Why do higher
education institutions not emphasize or support the importance of writing instruction, when
writing skills are the indicator of the student’s quality education? (Bartlett, 2003). For higher
education institutions and their faculty not willing to invest the time in guiding students in their
writing development, students do not get to experience the writing-fueled benefits of learning
that include gaining critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, better communication skills,
and understanding (Bean, 2011; Jones, 2008; Sommers & Saltz, 2004; Sullivan, 2011). Some
students need guidance due to their writing anxiety. Writing anxiety can come in variable forms
such as procrastination, compulsive rewriting, or not write at all (Martinez, Kock, & Cass, 2011).
Faculty has a role in alleviating students’ writing anxiety by providing relevant writing
assignments designed to help students perceive writing as beneficial and not something to fear.
Yet there are faculty concerns about incorporating writing assignments, which include increased
grading load, decreased lecturing of content, subjective grading, and not necessary for some
academic disciplines (Bean, 2011; Libarkin & Ording, 2012; O’Connell & Dyment, 2006).
Importance of First Year Experience and Orientation Programs
The development of first- year experience/orientation programs in higher education has
begunbegan with the role of the parent disappearing when faculty acted in loco parentis by
helping students adjust transitionally to college. It was not until the first world war when the in
loco parentis role shifted again, this time student affairs personnel.
Since then, there were ups and downs regarding the relevance of orientation programs;
the purpose of these programs seesawed between catering students’ college adjustment and
formally introducing students to academic disciplines. University of South Carolina, led by John
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Gardner, fostered the first year experience movement during 1970s. Debates on the length of first
year orientation programs, whether they should be one hour or a whole year, raged until 1980s
saw rampant development of semester-long courses, two-thirds of which took place at four-year
institutions by 1990.
First year experience and orientation programs, whether they are workshops, pre-college
camps, or courses, are now established to provide opportunities for freshmen,
nontraditional/returning students, and transfer students to acclimate to the institution and its
mission, traditions, campus life, and academics. Students learn college survival skills,
educational and personal development, and anything else relatable to being a college student;
based on these learning opportunities, those who participate or enroll in a first year
experience/orientation course fare better than those who do not. (Overland & Rentz, 2004)
The first year is a critical time to ensure student satisfaction and success academically
and socially. Students are feeling out of place, and they need guidance. They need to know
where to go and what to do. Consequently, advising is strongly advocated to maintain student
retention, along with the institution providing an environment welcoming and freshman-friendly.
Students need the assurance of knowing what and how they do matter to the institution. The first
year experience and orientation programs are designed to offer that assurance. (Kuh & Whitt,
1988; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Schlossberg, 1989; Spellings, 2006; Tinto, 2005).
Regarding college readiness, Kuh (2007) has cross-examined several national student
engagement statistics to determine college readiness among high school seniors. His findings
show how the levels of college readiness such as seeing the guidance counselor, study habits,
tutoring, or career exploration are significantly low. Students, if they have not taken the first year
experience/orientation course, voice their displeasure in their “academic and social expectations”
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not being met by the institution (Kuh, 2007, p. 6). On the other hand, those who do take or
already have taken the introductory course are satisfied due to their learning how to get support
from the institution to fulfill their academic and campus life expectations.
In his synthesizing of the research, Conley (2008) juxtaposes among first year students
their high school performance and effort with college performance and effort. He discusses how
college readiness depends on pre-college experiences and education without need for
remediation. Students are ready for college when they are well-versed in reading comprehension
and math and also possess the ability to analyze and formulate own understanding through
writing.
Additionally, Astin (1993) simplifies the research findings of over two hundred higher
education institutions being studied by breaking down into sections to measure students’
improvement since the first year in areas of “general knowledge,” student development, and
writing development. Faculty is also observed for its role in student development. According to
Astin (1993), Conley (2008), Kuh (2007), and Rothman (2012), the amount of reading and
papers written alone necessitates any college-bound student to be proficient in reading, writing,
and critical thinking skills in order to do well in college. The previously mentioned statistics
about high school graduates not prepared for the real world, either academically, workwise, or
both, prove the need to incorporate writing activity designed to bolster student development and
learning.
Background
At Gadsden State Community College, a rural Northeastern Alabama two-year public
college enrolling approximately several thousand students, the instructions for any Orientation
101 instructor base on making sure students complete the assignments and submit them through
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the Blackboard, a learning management systems used by the institution for faculty-student virtual
interaction through assignments and online communications such as email-type messages, video
lectures, chat rooms, and discussion postings. The Orientation 101 handbook, uploaded onto
Blackboard, focuses on assignments, information about the college, advice for independent
living and study skills, and career preparation. Some orientation courses are offered as face-to-
face traditional format, and others online, or even both in hybrid format.
Problem Statement
As an orientation instructor at Gadsden State Community College, I assign writing as a
means to help students help me coach them in their learning how to establish the foundation for
their collegial success. After having read these students’ writings over past several years, I find
myself questioning their preparedness in writing college-level papers. I do not see how these
students are quite ready for college when it comes to learning and writing. Therefore, I decide to
use a pragmatic qualitative research approach to explore the student perceptions on the writing
pedagogy as significant learning experience. Whatever the outcomes from this study may be,
significant learning needs to be clarified before making a correlation between first year students’
perceptions and writing pedagogy that serves to provide the learning experience. The
background of this study is described as the local community college where I teach Orientation
101. The national trends and what I have observed so far in my classroom are the focal points for
the problem statement, along with the purpose and significance of the study.
Purpose of Study
Purpose Statement. The purpose of this pragmatic qualitative study is to explore the
student perceptions on writing pedagogy as significant learning experience.
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Significance of Study
One main incentive for students to attend college is to gain knowledge and skills for
whatever career path they choose. To achieve the employable knowledge and skills, the higher
education institution is to provide the education the student anticipates. One particular skill that a
graduate of any higher education institution is expected to master in order to efficiently
communicate as an employee is writing (Rothman, 2012). Students need training and
opportunities to build upon whatever writing skills they do have. Not only do they get to practice
their writing skills, the composing of ideas is a mental exercise, which in turns helps develop
critical thinking, creative thinking, and practical thinking skills (Sternberg, 1989) essential for
problem-solving and creativity that employers look for in a prospective employee.
Writing is a discipline that constantly needs sharpening, which can only be possible
through practice. One or two first year composition classes may help set the foundation, but
writing requires more in terms of content and communication (Downs & Wardle, 2007).
Accordingly, students learn how writing is not static but dynamic in its process, improving upon
content and organization impinged by experience and knowledge the writer gains between
writings. The fitting environment for students to develop and practice their writing is to have the
instructor at hand to encourage them to see how their writing helps them learn.
Thus, the significance of this study on student perceptions on writing pedagogy will
benefit administrators how significant learning is defined and also for orientation/first year
experience instructors seeking effective, productive pedagogical methods to engage their
respective students to learn how to become better prepared for college, for the workplace, and for
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life. To reiterate, higher education as whole will benefit from learning about these student
perceptions on writing pedagogy as significant learning experience.
Main Research Question and Sub-questions
To create a question that centers the entire research study is difficult to think on the spot
without having some expectations or even some previous knowledge. Thankfully after several
years of teaching Orientation 101 already, I am interested to know what students are really
thinking when it comes to my using writing pedagogy to create a significant learning experience
for them in a class that has the presupposed reputation of being an “easy A” course. The
overarching question for this study is: how do students taking Orientation 101 perceive writing
pedagogy as significant to their learning experience? The following five supporting questions
serve to explore the overarching question that any first year student may ask:
1) What perceptions will first year students initially share about writing pedagogy
serving as significant learning experience in Orientation 101?
2) How will the writing help first year students with the foundational knowledge not
just in Orientation 101 but also in any other class?
3) In what ways will the writing help intrinsically and extrinsically motivate first
year students to learn how to learn?
4) In what ways will the students perceive writing as a useful learning technique to
apply and integrate in other classes, in the workplace, and in life?
5) What perceptions will first year students share about writing pedagogy serving as
significant learning experience before finishing Orientation 101?
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CHAPTER II:
LITERATURE REVIEW
By adopting the pragmatic qualitative research approach to identify with first year
students, I seek to understand their perceptions on writing pedagogy as a significant learning
experience (Fink, 2013). Therefore, conducting a literature review helps provide multiple angles
of the phenomenon of the processes (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013), which is the writing
pedagogy. Beginning with discussing the establishment of first year experience and orientation
programs, the inquiry of how the paradigmatic shift in higher education to student-centered
learning helps support the quest to incorporate writing into the orientation course from assessing
students’ writing skills as college-ready or not, changing the curriculum to include intensive
writing, faculty’s role in motivating students to write to learn, student engagement, student
perceptions, and writing pedagogy.
College Readiness: First Year Experience/Orientation
Overland and Rentz (2004) provide a historical overview on how first year experience
and orientation programs have started. Beginning with the shift of parent to faculty as in loco
parentis, then to student affairs practitioners, the orientation program has undergone evolutionary
changes regarding its role, the length of its program, and services to offer. Presently, the
orientation program serves students by helping them acclimate to college life, both in academics
and campus involvement. The first year of college is a rite of passage, a transitional time, an
experimentation of autonomy (Astin, 1993; Evans, 1996; Kuh & Whitt, 1988; Pascarella &
Terenzini, 2005). Students need to know what to do and where to start (Tinto, 2005). The first
year experience and orientation programs are designed to help the freshmen, transfer students,
nontraditional and returning students transition to college (ORI 101 & ORT 100: Orientation to
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College Student Workbook, 2014). According to Chickering’s seven vectors of student
development, students learn to adjust through various stages of adjustment such as self-identity
and independence (Evans, 1996). Astin (1993), Moore (1989), Pascarella and Terenzini (2005),
and Tinto (2005) advocate faculty-student and peer interactions because students thrive on
relationships convenient to help them survive college in forms of feedback, conferences, and
campus involvement.
Yet when it comes to taking the orientation course, students do not understand its
significance for their college experience (Conley, 2008; Kuh, 2007; Rothman, 2012; Tinto,
2005). The statistics report that the majority of first year students are not ready for college in
areas of reading comprehension, writing ability, and math (Kuh, 2007; Rothman, 2012;
Spellings, 2006; Tinto, 2005). These authors discuss reasons for lack of college readiness being
technology and high schools’ failure in preparing students for post-graduation futures. The
purpose of the orientation program is to abide by the institution’s mission and goals in preparing
students academically and socially (Orientation Workbook, 2014).
Composition Skills
Before learning how to incorporate writing into an orientation course, it is imperative to
understand how student writing development can be fostered through writing instruction and
motivation. Composition skills are essential for students’ communication and interpersonal
skills, along with educational endeavors and employability (Bartlett, 2003; Reither, 1985). Yet
elite institutions such as Princeton are not instilling strong writing skills in their students due to
writing instruction having deteriorated from neglect (Bartlett, 2003). In response to the paradigm
shift from lecture and exams to student-centered learning, instructors cater their writing
instruction to ensure students’ composition skills are well-developed (Brownlee, Walker,
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Lennox, Exley, & Pearce, 2009; Charlton, 2011; Downs & Wardle, 2007). Instructors look for
innovative ways in getting students to practice writing, putting down onto paper thoughts and
ideas. Charlton (2011) urges his students to take advantage of the first year in college by
capturing the adventurous spirit into words on paper and write in any form. Downs and Wardle
(2007) share the results from their respective case studies how developing composition skills has
led the participants to self-actualization, from which they had observed how they organized their
thoughts onto paper and then worked on revising those thoughts to flow better. Writing self-
efficacy stems from having self-confidence and certainty with one’s skill to write (Jones, 2008),
and students need to have writing self-efficacy to better develop their composition skills.
Curricular Change. After understanding how to incorporate writing in the orientation
class with writing instruction and motivation, there is the need to take the time to critically
evaluate the orientation curriculum to determine more productive writing opportunities. The
current orientation curriculum may need to be transformed to adopt these opportunities.
Therefore to embrace the paradigm shift from static, content-laden lecture format to dynamic,
student-focused learning, changes to the curriculum are necessary (Barr & Tagg, 1995; Freire,
1993; Paulsen & Feldman, 2007). Writing across the curriculum has already enforced some
curricular changes for writing to be incorporated across academic disciplines. Fishman and Reiff
(2011) have collaboratively worked with the English department at University of Tennessee at
Knoxville to revamp the English 101 and 102 courses in order to concentrate more on writing. In
English 101, students read and analyze the rhetoric, meaning that they are to investigate the
author’s intention for writing the piece they have just read. In the next English course, students
are more empowered to apply rhetoric by devising research-driven expositions to explain own
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arguments. Fishman and Reiff’s (2011) efforts in revamping the English 101 and 102 courses
have proved successful due to their continuance to this day.
Other curricular efforts do not necessarily mean to overhaul the entire curriculum or even
a course. A curricular change may only occur when the instructor decides to change pedagogical
methods. Fallahi, Wood, Austad, and Fallahi (2006) have responded to the issue of psychology
students not having learned applicable writing skills. They comment how the composition
classes have not been instrumental in teaching students to write in other academic disciplines.
Consequently, Fallahi et al. (2006) incorporated writing instruction to help psychology students
do better on their writing assignments.
Landscape of Fostered Recursive Writing: Writing Centers, Writing Across the
Curriculum, Peer Assessment, and Research. By taking a step back to absorb how the
influence that the paradigmatic shift in higher education of student-centered learning has on
incorporating intensive writing assignments that the faculty is willing to assign in order to
improve student writing development, the landscape of fostered recursive writing composed of
writing across the curriculum, research, library, writing center, and peer assessment is to be
studied for various ways of getting first year students comfortable with writing. Recursive
writing, meaning writing in multiple drafts and revisions, is no longer restricted to the
composition classes. Still, writing instruction is the starting place. According to National Council
of Teachers of English (2012), the writing instruction is to be of high standard. The instructor,
whether being full-time, adjunct, or graduate assistant, is required to demonstrate both writing
excellence and competent teaching of composition. Additionally, the Council of Writing
Program Administrators (WPA) Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition, drafted with
collaborative effort, serves to outline the outcomes expected for the writing across the curriculum
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discipline (Harrington, Malencyzk, Peckham, Rhodes, & Yancey, 2001). Both national formal
statements demand writing excellence, quality writing instruction, sufficient quantity of writing
practice, and utilize writing as critical thinking development.
Writing across the curriculum (WAC) has been debated for its productivity in teaching
students the discipline of writing and how it helps develop critical thinking skills. A focus group
has convened to discuss the benefits and drawbacks between traditional lecture and exam format
and WAC; the majority favors WAC for the learning outcomes (Todd & Hudson, 2008). No
longer does writing need to be viewed as an end product, but instead it is a process, a means to
learning and developing critical thinking skills (Williams & Takaku, 2011).
The writing process needs to involve research, and library is one of the first places to
begin doing research. Due to minimal effort to integrate research into writing instruction,
Birmingham, Chiwongs, Flaspohler, Hearn, Kvanvig, and Portmann (2008) collaborated to
advocate partnership between the writing instructor and the librarian to champion the role of
research in writing. Students will benefit from conducting research to gather information for their
papers rather than drawing on in-class lecture and personal knowledge.
To make the writing process more manageable, the writing center serves any individual,
either the student or the instructor, by providing counsel on any writing phase from
brainstorming to the final product before it is submitted. Although its historical role shifted
between supplementing the writing instruction and a figurative place for autonomous writing, the
writing center is not the place where students go and get their papers revised, rewritten, or even
edited. The peer tutors are trained not to offer that assistance, which assuages the stigma from
having been forced in the past to correct problems with the writing for remedial students.
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Instead, the peer tutors are to offer guidance and ask questions, helping the student writers come
up with ideas on their own. (Boquet, 1999; Williams & Takaku, 2011)
While the writing center provides an environment conducive to talking about writing
ideas, peer assessment motivates students to do their best. The instructor utilizes the assessment
practice of peer editing, where students read each other’s papers and provide feedback. Having
constructive feedback helps with the revising part of the writing process. There are two online
peer assessment systems. One is Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) (Gunersel, Simpson,
Aufderheide, & Wang, 2008) and the other is Scaffold Writing and Reviewing in the Discipline
(SWoRD) (Kaufman & Schunn, 2011). Students are not leaning towards to thinking of the online
peer assessment as ideal way of being graded without instructor involvement; however, they
agree that their writing have improved due to the peer pressure of having their work being read
and evaluated by peers. More importantly, students appreciate the constructive feedback from
their peers. Overall, the recursive writing has been and still is being nurtured successfully
through the venues of writing across the curriculum, research, library, writing center, and peer
assessment.
Faculty Perceptions
Not only does the paradigmatic shift in higher education of student-centered learning
need to be embraced, but the faculty teaching orientation needs to be informed of the benefits for
incorporating more intensive writing opportunities into their classes. Faculty perceptions for first
year student writing development vary depending on their own writing instruction. Bean (2011)
recommends that the instructor gives writing a meaningful experience to students by assigning
productive writing assignments. The faculty has the responsibility to ensure that students are
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developing applicable writing skills. Yet some share the view that students are not cooperative
and disinclined to write.
Collier and Morgan (2007) determine how to provide writing instruction by either
“targeting the individual or representative group” or “tailoring the instruction for the class” (p.
444). For instance, the first-generation college students are not certain what the instructor asks in
terms of writing. Therefore, they are “targeted” for more specific writing instruction such as
using literal words “type” rather than “write” to indicate how to complete the writing assignment
(Collier & Morgan, 2007, p. 440). Actually, faculty seems to think they are at no fault while
some students on the other hand experience frustration with the unclear instructions to complete
writing assignments (Collier & Morgan, 2007; Gambell, 1987). What the faculty wants to see in
students’ writing are creative responses to the research conducted and information given to
demonstrate individual progress in critical thinking. Libarkin and Ording (2012) and Pausch
(2008) state that lucid instructions and feedback are instrumental in order to receive the desired
results from students’ writing.
On the flip side, the faculty has its own reservations about assigning writing. Faculty
reluctance and lack of incentive are the common barriers due to the dichotomy of teachers’
desire for students to learn and yet not changing their pedagogical practice including the ever-
dominant practice of lecturing (Fink, 2013). Still, their concerns include extra amount of paper
grading, fairness in grading/evaluating, time limitations to read, grade, and return with feedback,
appropriateness to the course, and credibility in giving writing instruction (Bean, 2011; Libarkin
& Ording, 2012; O’Connell & Dyment, 2006). O’Connell and Dyment (2006), after having
conducted a focus group of faculty members, receive suggestions about how to grade writing.
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Informal or expressive writing can be graded as part of the participation grade or as pass/fail;
whereas formal writing requires more careful grading, perhaps with use of rubrics.
Student-Centered Learning
The faculty needs to acknowledge how the paradigm shift from static lecture-based
teaching to dynamic student-centered learning helps redefine the college experience (Barr &
Tagg, 1995; Fink, 2013; Freire, 1993; Paulsen & Feldman, 2005; Spence, 2001). The landscape
of fostered recursive writing embraces student-centered learning, where students are empowered
in improving their writing development by being offered different options in getting assistance.
Significant learning needs to take place in order to make changes to the learning process of
higher education (Fink; Spence). Thus, instructors are no longer teachers but architects who
design the learning environment for students to participate and learn (Schwartz, Chase, &
Bransford, 2012).
Students do not always retain all information from lectures; they learn better when they
do hands-on learning such as writing, which will create a tangible effect on the memory (Fink,
2013). With the growing volume of textbooks filled with more and more information compiled
over years of research, history, and knowledge, students need teachers to teach them not
necessarily the content, but the means to learn how to learn (Fink, 2013).
Schwartz, Chase, and Bransford (2012) collaborated to address the issue of “overzealous
transferring” understanding and skills to other classes. The main argument in this study is to
encourage students to be more willing to embrace change, by letting go of the old, well-grooved
mentality of learning and grabbing hold of the mind-bending newness. The recurring theme
throughout their study is how to determine ways to discourage students from frequently using old
routine methods of learning and instead encourage them to try innovative methods to understand
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and/or apply new concepts. The authors concede that there are times when previous techniques
to learn something new do work; however, they interject that students need to realize and also
acknowledge there are other ways to comprehend phenomena and solving problems. By forcing
themselves to think beyond the usual approach of learning, students will remember for a longer
period of time what they have learned. Also, students need to question what they have been
learning rather than just accepting the material being taught to them.
The faculty will choose different approaches to empower students in their learning
process such as peer teaching (Tessier, 2004) and debate (Tessier, 2009). To examine how
learning happens, Levine, Fallahi, Nicoll-Senft, Tessier, Watson, and Wood (2008) refer to
Fink’s (2013) taxonomy of significant learning. The six elements focus on application and
connection of the material or experience being learned and also developing interpersonal and
communication skills. The transferability of learning to other academic disciplines can be done
through writing as the vessel. Students are to learn to adapt to change and whatever they do
learn, they can still adjust by transfering the learning (Schwartz et al., 2012) through writing.
Student Engagement. Students need to be engaged; the faculty now can see how writing
helps contribute to engaging students to learn. Student engagement is when a student is willing to
participate and learn, which is different from student-centered learning where the environment is
set up to provide optimal learning experience for the students regardless they want it or not.
Faculty plays an important role in facilitating student engagement with interacting with students,
keeping office hours, and providing timely feedback as examples (AlKandari, 2011; Kuh, 2008).
Saavedra and Saavedra (2012) comment on how student engagement will help students
academically, which, in turn, will improve their communication skills as desired by potential
employers. Sullivan (2012) centers his theory about engaging students by espousing “intrinsic
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motivation.” To engage students to overcome their aversion to writing requires inspiration and
self-efficacy, and Sullivan (2012) has come up with three strategies to keep students interested
with writing. “Variety, choice, and disguised repetition” provide students different opportunities
to write expressively and in variable formats, which are examples of successful student
engagement (Sullivan, 2012).
Student Perceptions. How to exactly explore student perceptions call for creative
measures, and having students write is one of the effective measures to gain insight of their
thoughts and feelings. One article from Journal of Palliative Medicine uses grounded theory
approach to figure out student perceptions with the application of Kolb’s Theory of Experiential
Learning. These six authors share how the curriculum has undergone some changes and that they
use the method of evaluating reflective writing to determine the effectiveness of these new
curricular changes. Conducting a program evaluation through the medium of analyzing students’
reflective writing solidifies the standpoint on how and why writing exercises exemplify
significant learning experience. “The reflective writing analysis validated progress toward
student mastery of the objectives” (Head, Earnshaw, Greensburg, Morehead, Pfeifer, & Shaw,
2012, p. 540). These students had shared how through writing, they were “more prepared and
also how the writing helps them never to forget what they learned” (p. 539-541). Specifically ,
the fact that this study has been conducted in a medical school field to foster students’ deeper,
more meaningful understanding through reflective writing emphasizes the need for bringing
awareness about first year students being inadequately prepared in the area of writing (Spellings,
2006; Kuh, 2007).
On the other hand, there are students, as the research reveals, who perceive their own
writing skills as good enough for college or employable enough for the workplace (Simkin,
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Crews, & Groves, 2012). Yet these same students value the importance of good writing skills,
refuting the presuppositions that they did not care about or think of writing skills as important for
college and also for the workplace (Simkin et al). Such contrasting evidence leads to
necessitating constructive feedback, to provide outside perspective of the students’ writing skills
as college-ready and employable.
By providing feedback will contribute to engaging students in their own learning process,
which then will enable the exploring of student perceptions on writing pedagogy as significant
learning experience. There would be moments where students need constructive criticism on
their learning process, through tangible forms of completing assignments, written/typed work,
and verbal responses (Aguis & Wilkinson, 2014; Busse, 2013; Harran, 2011; Hyland, 2013).
Students need to hear from the teacher about their learning process, and that is feedback.
Feedback is loosely defined as written or verbal acknowledgement, positive or negative, of the
individual’s efforts and may include advice or suggestion for improvement.
Not all feedback is productive or helpful. Students do not welcome generic, platitudinal,
summarized, or vague feedback and would even prefer to not receive feedback at all (Agius &
Wilkinson, 2014; Harran, 2011). Even more so, Elbow (1998) disagreed with feedback on free
writing exercises; therefore, he stated how it takes away the purpose of careless, freethinking
writing that he aimed for learners to adopt in order to get over their writing anxiety. Two more
drawbacks about feedback include: if or when the teacher overcompensates by giving false
praise; and, gives only positive feedback when negative constructive feedback needs to be also
given. How would students know what needs correcting or improving if they do not receive the
negative constructive feedback, if all they receive is positive feedback? They would be falsely
led into perceiving that they are doing good work (Simkin, Crews, & Groves, 2012).
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After such argument about not all feedback is productive or helpful, the teacher needs to
make the effort to provide feedback that would foster strong teacher-learner interaction as partly
defined by Moore’s (1989) three-part interaction. Specifically more so, students need to perceive
feedback as integral to their writing process for learning, not as “an end product of interaction”
(Harran, 2011, p. 420). The interactional relationship between the teacher and students through
feedback allows the students to feel they are being listened through their writing, which will then
result in students having the motivation to keep writing, to improve their writing (Hyland, 2013).
Students perceive the invested time and effort in the feedback given by the teacher when
the feedback exhibits the following characteristics: balanced (both positive and constructive
negative), timely/immediate, specific, detailed/explanatory, individualized, attentive, focused,
forward-looking (future improvement), transferability, addressing grammatical errors, and
suggestive rather than imperative making the corrections or revisions (Agius & Wilkerson, 2014;
Busse, 2013; Harran, 2011; Hyland, 2013; Simkin, Crews, & Groves, 2012). Feedback needs to
be given like a coach will give an athlete during practice to provide an opportunity to correct and
improve before participating in a competitive event to prevent possible injury or disqualification.
Students make the effort to work on their writing; thus, the teacher needs to make the
effort to provide productive, constructive, timely feedback to confirm students’ learning in order
to encourage them to continue in their writing efforts. Yet what if the students do not know how
to receive feedback? How do they perceive feedback as means to improve their performance?
Students may need some training to learn how to utilize feedback as means for improvement,
including revising their writing (Agius & Wilkinson, 2014). Students need to learn “how writing
is of learning ways to create specific meanings” (Hyland, 2013, p. 184).
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Writing Pedagogy
After encompassing how changing the orientation course to incorporate more intensive
writing that faculty is willing to assign to encourage student-centered learning and student
engagement, and also improve student writing development, the faculty needs to be aware of
various ways of using writing as a pedagogical method and how to effectively encourage
students to write. Considerably, “the cognitive role of writing” helps students realize the
evolutionary growth in their thinking process that stem from reading and writing (Hudd, Smart,
& Delohery, 2011, p. 180). When the instructor utilizes writing as a pedagogical tool, students
completing these writing assignments will learn more than just composition and critical thinking
skills; they will see the interconnectedness between what they learn and practice and how they
live their lives. The research attests how writing enhances the learning experience by which the
following two studies will help support.
Interestingly how a Taiwanese quantitative study reveals that writing contributes to
critical thinking skills, which are crucial for problem solving and creativity. The statistics show
that even individuals with mathematical and scientific reasoning do not possess the high level of
creative thinking as those who write often (Wang, 2012). For that reason, writing is essential for
critical thinking development.
Sommers and Saltz’s (2004) study, which is longitudinal, that took place at Harvard
University has inquired if there is a relationship between writing ability and first year experience.
Therefore, the class of 2001 participated by completing online surveys; a random sampling of
sixty-five from this class of over two hundred have been invited to get more involved in the
study, to bring writing samples and also be interviewed every term. A case study has been
conducted on each of the sixty-five participants. Their comments on the writing-intensive
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courses are favorable, with some saying how much they have learned from all the research and
writing they had to do. When asked about taking a course with no writing assigned, they reply
that they would not feel autonomous in their learning process but instead as one participant
eloquently explained: “I would have felt as I was just being fed a lot of information. My papers
are my opportunity to think and say something for myself, a chance to disagree” (Sommers &
Saltz, 2004, p. 128).
Although with both studies acclaiming the benefits of writing, Martinez, Kock, and Cass
(2011) argue in their study that there are students who deal with writing anxiety. Writing anxiety
can be in any form such as procrastination, aggression, compulsive rewriting, or refusal to write.
Therefore, Martinez et al. (2011) suggest for faculty to provide coping strategies if they suspect
any student struggling with writing anxiety. The coping strategies include feedback, assistance
with the writing process, leisure reading, or writing for extra credit. Creswell (2009) seconds the
advice of leisure reading not just to address writing anxiety, but also for getting ready mentally
to write. Other ways to prepare for writing, Creswell (2009) suggests, include “leisurely writing
activity, such as writing a letter to a friend, brainstorming on the computer, reading some good
writing, or studying a favorite poem” (p. 81).
Bain (2004) has written a whole book on what he has learned from studying
approximately fifteen years what constitutes good teaching and what makes one a best teacher.
He states how best teachers are learners themselves and they constantly search for ways to
improve the learning experience for students. Bain (2004) refers to the writing pedagogy that
best teachers use, that they ponder what profound questions or writing assignments that will
inspire students to analytically and creatively write (p. 52-53). Writing assignments may be like
Angelo and Cross’ (1993) one-minute paper and reflective writing similar to Hudd, Smart, and
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Delohery’s (2011) PTA model—priorization, translation, analogy. In short, writing pedagogy is
effective when the instructor designs the writing assignments to encourage students to improve
their writing development and also develop critical thinking skills; and, that students understand
the purpose of and complete these writing assignments.
Conclusion
To establish the need to incorporate writing pedagogy to enhance the significant learning
experience, the purpose of the first year experience and orientation programs has been explored
to portray the understanding how this particular course is more than just an introductory class
with rudimentary assignments designed to get to know the institution and its mission. With
different academic pursuits, there is a need for at least one particular course that all students can
be taught the foundation of surviving and succeeding in college through writing. No matter the
level of college readiness, students still need a course where they can focus on developing and
honing writing skills or at least simply practice writing.
The composition classes, as the studies suggest, are not enough when it comes to
instilling writing self-efficacy and promoting student engagement and student-centered learning;
whereas, the orientation course is in a position to step up from simply welcoming first year
students to college to providing a thought-provoking, skill-building learning environment. The
writing assignments are to be designed for students to get past writing anxiety, develop writing
self-efficacy by perceiving writing as a means to learn, analyze, and communicate, and practice
writing college-level papers.
The orientation course, which is also first year experience, exposes students to what the
institution has to offer in providing assistance with recursive writing such as writing centers and
libraries. The ideal curriculum change for the orientation course is to have students learn about
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and experience peer assessment and instructor feedback on writing. There are faculty who are
reluctant about assigning writing in their classes, regardless of what academic discipline, due to
grading load, grading subjectivity, time, decreased content-based lecture, and questionable
qualification to provide writing instruction. These concerns are addressed with reasons to
incorporate writing in classrooms such as improving student engagement, advocating student-
centered learning, developing critical thinking skills, and improving composition skills in
specific disciplines.
Overall, this literature review records in detail the areas that serve to support my thesis of
empowering orientation students to perceive writing pedagogy as significant learning experience
to gain potentially successful educational endeavors. Following, Fink’s (2013) taxonomy on
significant learning will be explained as the theoretical framework to explore first year students’
perceptions on writing pedagogy providing significant learning experience.
Fink’s Taxonomy on Significant Learning as Theoretical Framework
College students frequently report that learning about themselves and about others is among the most significant experiences they have during college.
–Fink (2013)
After these multiple angles of discussing the phenomenon of the writing pedagogy
serving as significant learning experience and exploring student perceptions, I will be using a
theoretical lens to narrow down to seeking how toencourage students in my orientation class to
perceive the feasibility of the writing pedagogy that can and will provide significant learning
experience. After browsing through literature for that “just right” theoretical framework to
pragmatically connect the theory to the practice of writing, I was advised at first to look into
student engagement. After rejecting theory after theory based on student engagement, I was not
satisfied. From what I had unearthed so far did not fit what I had in mind in exploring student
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perceptions on writing pedagogy. I wanted to see how first year students perceive writing as
beneficial to further their education, to embrace life, and also to prepare for the workplace. After
another meeting with my dissertation chair to recant the idea of student engagement and focus on
something else, I did bring up Fink’s taxonomy on significant learning. Dr. Major reminded me
that I had to change the research topic, and I realized then it was about learning experience with
which I wanted to connect the writing pedagogy.
By having chosen the theoretical framework based on the six-component taxonomy
constructed by Dee Fink, who had extracted from the earlier taxonomy of Benjamin Bloom’s
(1956) to delve deeper by including more cognition and also metacognition, I can then develop
learning goals for my students while exploring their perceptions at the same time. The definition
for taxonomy is “a language and set of concepts” (Fink, 2013, p. 67). By creating a particular
language with its own concepts to provide structure, Fink has built his taxonomy upon the
foundation of Bloom’s (1956) cognitive taxonomy that had sorely lacked the humanness part of
learning. Having determined from his own research the “descriptions of quality teaching and
learning,” Fink also constructed the taxonomy to be applicable to higher education (p. 34).
Specifically, Fink’s taxonomy focuses on significant learning through foundational knowledge,
application, integration, human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn. When all six
components of Fink’s taxonomy are used, students will experience significant learning.
Learning goals
I understand that students need to know how to use new knowledge they learn in
Orientation 101 such as using the Blackboard and career exploration and preparation. Rather
than just learning new information, they need to understand how to apply this foundational
knowledge with “triarchic thinking of critical, creative, and practical thinking skills” (Sternberg,
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1989). Not only do the students need to learn how to apply the foundational knowledge, they also
need to know how to integrate the knowledge, to be able to connect the knowledge to other
classes, to the workplace, and also life in general. By learning the interconnectedness of what
they are learning, students will then realize their own self and also others, which helps alleviate
the sense of isolation that Kuh (2007), Tinto (1993), and Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) advise
against in terms of student retention and engagement.
Figure 1: An illustration of Fink’s Taxonomy on Significant Learning
www.vaniercollege.qc.ca
With the students learning about themselves and relating to others, they will then care
more about what they are learning. While I can define learning goals from each type of the
significant learning from Fink’s taxonomy, I must also create a learning experience for students;
in doing so would be called an integrated course design where I determine how learning goals
will be implemented into action, along with educative assessment and feedback (Fink, 2013).
Therefore, my advocating the pedagogical method of writing as tangible means for significant
learning is my way of creating a learning experience for students. I will also need to involve
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students in their own learning process, to help them see how writing actually benefits them.
Writing is a significant learning tool that students can keep using long after finishing my
Orientation class; I want my students to see how writing helps them handle the ever-growing
knowledge out there to learn. Phil Candy (1991) perfectly captures what I am trying to say at this
point with this word: autodidaxy, which he defined as “knowing how to learn what needs to be
learned in life” (cited in Fink, 2013, p. 60).
Other theoretical influences
Marginality vs. mattering. While Fink’s taxonomy on significant learning centralizes
my exploring first year students’ perceptions on writing pedagogy, there are other theoretical
influences that shape my research philosophy. Referring to the caring component of Fink’s
taxonomy, I will bring in Schlossberg’s (1989) theory of marginality vs. mattering. Students
need to feel they matter, and writing pedagogy should serve to fill that need because I will read
what they write and provide feedback. That I do read what they write proves the theory of
marginality vs. mattering. If I do not reach out to my students, it will be because I do not adopt
the use of writing pedagogy. Writing pedagogy is my main method, the heart of my teaching
philosophy, of reaching out to the students.
Banking concept of education vs. problem-posing education. Paulo Freire (1993) has
written books including Pedagogy of the Oppressed to advocate getting rid of the banking
concept of education due to its fruitless, static teacher-lecture based method of the instructor
depositing information into students’ memory banks. Students then do not exactly process the
information because they are not taught to apply and integrate the information. Therefore, they
do not retain the deposited information. Freire, on the other hand, advocates problem-posing
education by teaching learners in concepts they can learn and actually apply in their own
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realities. According to Freire, problem-posing education paves the way for students to think for
themselves and be responsive that I want to see in my own classroom. For instance, I try to
create writing exercises to prompt students into learning how to develop critical, creative, and
practical thinking skills (Sternberg, 1989) that can be transferable to subsequent classes, in the
workplace, and as productive citizens of the community (Fink, 2013). Another Freirean approach
is that I help students see, comprehend, and apply with real-life examples through writing.
Addressivity. Referring to Mikhail Bakhtin, how I use the writing exercises and
assignments to encourage students to be free in their expressive writing allows for dialogue to
take place, not actually verbally but written. Throughout teaching the short ten-week Orientation
class, I would share my own personal anecdotes with students to spark some interest. This is
addressivity that I use with the students to show how much I value their learning experience to
be productive (Clark & Holquist, 1984; Dimitriadis & Kamberlis, 2006; Shields, 2007). When it
comes to completing the writing assignments, I instruct students to be expressive and not worry
about grammar, punctuation, and other rigid rules of writing imposed upon us. I look for
students’ addressivity to change once they realize they no longer need to be formal in their
writing.
Interconnectedness of writing. Appealing to the application and integration components
of Fink’s taxonomy of significant learning, I would like to touch on this theorist, Lev
Semenovich Vygotsky, for the interconnectedness of life and learning (Dimitriadis & Kamberlis,
2006). Through the writing exercises I create, I want students to learn how to apply and integrate
what they are learning through their writing to other classes, in the workplace, and in life. I hope
that the students will see the purpose of the writing assignments as being trained to experience,
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learn, understand, and apply into words about life around them, which will deepen their
awareness, to improve their perception about how writing helps them think and learn better.
Expectations for writing pedagogy as significant learning experience. Having taught
Orientation 101 since 2008, I have been developing this tendency of not believing in my own
first impressions of students when they first walked into my classroom, when they first wrote in
such a manner that revealed their dislike for writing. Because my first impressions sometimes
turned out different. Therefore, Jacques Lacan having this theory of how one individual has
expectations for another by judging that other person’s potential and achievement based on
character and ability (Dimitriadis & Kamberlis, 2006). Also I need to be sure to provide frequent,
timely feedback in order to help students learn and also feel good about their writing activity.
On a side note, I do not know about other Orientation instructors at the same institution
where I teach, but I quickly change the first year students’ minds about the Orientation class, my
own Orientation class, not being an easy A largely due to the writing exercises in class.
Therefore, I push my students to work for that A.
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CHAPTER III:
METHODOLOGY
Why Qualitative Research?
Qualitative research differs from quantitative research in terms of characteristics.
Quantitative research uses instruments to objectively calculate the data, for instance. Whereas the
characteristics that make up qualitative research include the following: natural setting, key
instrument being the researcher with his or her own background and reflections, use of variable
complex methods, inductive and perhaps deductive reasonings emerging from the research
process, and holistic account. (Creswell, 2013)
Natural setting consists of a place that is already set such as a classroom, lab, or
workplace. There are at least few or no adjustments when conducting the study in the natural
setting, which serves as part of the research process to gather data. The researcher as the key
instrument is part of the qualitative research; the researcher’s intent for the research conducted
provides the background, why, and how the data is being collected. In addition, the researcher’s
positioning him/herself in the research process enhances the purpose of study. Not only does the
researcher uses the natural setting, but also uses variable other methods including interviews,
observations, recordkeeping, and journals. The researcher interacts with the persons either
witnessing or actively involved in the situation being studied. In order to validate the purpose of
the qualitative research, the researcher needs to be flexible during the research process; because
due to after the use of different methods and interacting with different individuals, the researcher
will discover affirmative, new, or even contrary ideas and developing theories. By embracing the
emergent design of the research process, the researcher will easily welcome diverse perceptions
and still look for thematic connections that tie together to support the purpose of the research and
provide theorized answers to questions. (Creswell, 2013)
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Therefore, I find qualitative research more attractive after I have briefly interpreted using
Creswell’s (2013) worded explanations these characteristics of qualitative research. The methods
used for qualitative research appeals greatly to me due to my own professional passion for
writing to be executed well as a communicative means, for students under my instruction to
understand the importance and power of writing as significant learning experience. The methods
I intend to apply are observation (which I watch students write without stopping to allow their
thoughts flow un-obstructively onto paper), their handwritten and also typed writings, and the
final career exploration essay—all which will take place in the natural setting of a computer lab-
style classroom.
My research focus is more than just a backyard research within my own classroom. There
is the potential, thanks to the encouragement of having emergent design as part of the qualitative
research, for any new cropping up of ways of getting more than the limited data in my own
classroom. Depending on my relationships with other Orientation 101 instructors, instructors in
other academic fields, and students, I can expand on validating the data I have collected.
Whatever methods I actually do capitalize, I am more focused on ensuring how students’
responsive writing helps support Fink’s taxonomy on significant learning of being beneficial for
instilling stronger critical thinking skills and better writing dynamics.
The point of any Orientation 101 class is to help first year students get adjusted in a
collegiate environment in areas of time management, study skills, academic work, independent
living, campus life, and career exploration and preparation (Orientation Workbook, 2014).
Writing, in my own reflection, is an essential all-encompassing tool that brings all areas together
onto paper, to help the first year student see in his own words how he is experiencing the
collegiate environment and also how he is practicing to be a better student. Writing is also a
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communicative means to do well in any type of workplace and/or profession from a mechanic
and cosmetologist to a doctor and lawyer. In a Bakhtinian way, reading distinctive voices
through written/typed words provides the holistic account for my pragmatic qualitative research
study (Clark & Holquist, 1984; Dimitriadis & Kamberlis, 2006; Shields, 2007). The more
diverse students take on the writing exercises, the more validity for the writing pedagogy as
significant learning experience will be through such diverse perceptions. Communication needs
to be clear and understood by different publics; and writing, although done in many formats and
perspectives, need to be able to get the message across to any reader.
Having discussed how the characteristics of qualitative research correspond with my own
research goals, I am expounding on how attractive the qualitative research due to its tangibility. I
can actually have in my hands the physical evidence for the research (the students’ writing both
on paper and on screen, along with my own observation reflections), to read for information and
determine how the information serves to support the purpose of research. I enjoy the diligence it
will take to conduct a qualitative research, the heavy time commitment to gather data which will
definitely embrace the emergent design, changing the tentative structure I had originally planned.
Glesne (2011) says it best:
Learning to do qualitative research is like learning to paint. Study the masters, learn
techniques and methods, practice them faithfully, and then revise and adapt them to your
own persuasions when you know enough to describe the work of those who have
influenced you and the ways in which your modifications create new possibilities. (p. 3)
The way Glesne portrays qualitative research helps me see my own capability of conducting an
extensive research project. Specifically, it is the emergent design is what calms my fears about
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research, that there is no static and definite conclusion. The qualitative research in my own
viewpoint is a philosophical way of determining the why such situation is happening.
Best of all how attractive qualitative research is to me is the reciprocity, as Creswell
(2013) aptly puts it. The main reason I have decided to continue my doctoral studies is not for
career purposes, but rather for reciprocity. I will keep teaching at Gadsden State Community
College, and I desire to see students benefit from practice writing. To reiterate, writing helps
students be better students and better potential employees and citizens of the community.
Therefore, my deciding to continue my studies and to do the dissertation on the topic of
exploring first year students’ perceptions on writing pedagogy as significant learning experience
is my way of giving back to the community, back to Gadsden State Community College and
colleagues, back to the workforce and professions, and last but not the least, the students. I want
each and every student under my instruction to learn what I have learned from writing.
Introducing pragmatism
Stemming from the “European metaphysical tradition and established in early 1800s,” the
Americanized version of pragmatism “focused on the subjective experience of the social world”
(Savin-Baden & Major, 2013, p. 24). Well understood for its “flexible” approach to qualitative
research in terms of choosing “eclectic and circumstantial” methods, the main objective of
pragmatism is to connect theory and practice within a natural setting (Creswell, 2013; Savin-
Baden & Major). A pragmatist focuses on what does work, which is the truth, the reality, by
showing the interactivity between the theory and practice.
Interactionism and the Chicago School are a specific type of the pragmatic approach I
seek in my study that “emphasizes the social and interactional nature of reality” (Savin-Baden &
Major, p. 25). Seeing how Thomas and Znaniecki (1919) conducted their pragmatic study
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analyzing perspectives of those “living the immigrant life in the ghettos of Chicago” cemented
my decision to adopt the pragmatic approach to my own study—because their methods including
reading letters are similar to what I intend to do, using my students’ writing to explore their
perspectives on writing pedagogy as significant learning experience.
As a pragmatist, I intend to show that writing pedagogy does work; and my chosen
theoretical framework of Fink’s taxonomy on significant learning serves to prove my truth, my
reality—the writing pedagogy. The intended circumstances focus on exploring whether or not
my students’ perceptions reflect my axiological belief about writing pedagogy as significant
learning experience (Creswell, 2013).
Pragmatism as interpretive framework
In determining on which interpretive framework to base my impending qualitative
research, I am learning how pragmatism fits what I have in mind. Pragmatism focuses on what
works (Creswell, 2013; Savin-Baden & Major, 2013). By being actively involved in whatever
problematic situation, the perceptions of these persons reveal individualistic opinions;
furthermore, these opinions will help substantiate an evaluative need for a study, a research, to
determine the pragmatism of the situation. With many different persons’ individualistic
perspectives solidifying the need to seek answers to the purpose and/or problem of the study, the
chosen interpretive framework of pragmatism provides the fitting structure for organizing and
inductively theorizing the information gleaned from different perspectives. However different
the individualistic perspectives may be, pragmatism pulls from the data of documents,
interviews, and other items to determine the effectiveness of theory being put into practice based
on the phenomenon.
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The ontological beliefs, adhering to pragmatism, discern variable perspectives of persons
who all are experiencing or have experienced this particular situation. The situation is what it is,
a reality experienced by many different persons. Since many persons experiencing the same
situation are studied for their own grasp of things, their interactions with each other will be noted
during the process of study. Moving forward, the epistemological beliefs sharpen the focus on
how I will conduct the study, with the assistance of the persons experiencing the situation. I
determine how each and every person’s perspective is constructed by the communal experience
(that is, writing pedagogy for significant learning), which may be or may not be replicated for
research purposes. I have the ethical responsibility based on axiological beliefs to ensure that
each person’s perspective and also own character are respectfully represented, which in turn will
validate the research overall.
After having established the individualistic perspectives and values, I being the
pragmatist heed the methodological beliefs by allowing any potential changes when seeking
conclusive theories to address the situation. While it is imperative to stick to the problem and
also the purpose of the study, I need to acknowledge the twists and turns after interviews, written
responses, observations, and any other phenomena of the situation have taken place in order to
have a flexible approach to inquiry. By being flexible in seeking conclusive theories, I will learn
and benefit from emergent ideas that may enhance the purpose of study. (Creswell, 2013)
Pragmatism, with its philosophical assumptions, is the best foundation for my seeking my
own conclusive, inductive theories to explore first year students’ perceptions on writing
pedagogy as significant learning experience. Ever since Fall 2008 when I started teaching
Orientation 101 at Gadsden State Community College as an adjunct instructor, I implemented
(and still implement) writing exercises as part of my pedagogical method to reach out to
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students. These writing exercises serve to help both the students and me, mostly because of my
hearing impairment. When they write, they are helping me to help them prepare for rest of their
college experience. Over time, the writing exercises disclose the need for first year students to
have more writing practice in order to do well (or simply survive) in other classes, especially
English. The only writing assignment that Orientation 101 curriculum requires is a one- or two-
page career exploration essay, which serves as a final for the course. I, however, assign my
students to write at minimum three pages for the career exploration essay final, encouraging
them to write more than three pages for their own learning experience.
The majority of students under my tutelage at first were apprehensive about writing; then
close to the end of each course, many students wrote or typed in a discussion posting on
Blackboard their appreciation for the writing exercises. Few of the most common end-of-class
responses have included how writing in my class helped them get over their fear of writing,
increased their thinking skills, and prepared them for other classes where writing is more
extensive.
To tie in the interpretive framework of pragmatism, I will share how I position myself in
the research as the Orientation instructor assigning approximately twenty students per class to
write responsively to prompts displayed on the PowerPoint or given verbally. Depending on how
I do an official pilot study, albeit I have been unofficially conducting a pilot study with each
class I have ever taught in the past, I will draw necessary data from observation when I walk
around the computer lab classroom to make sure each student keeps writing. The other methods
will certainly include their handwritten responses, typed responses from Blackboard discussion
postings, and the final—which is the career exploration essay, that I assign to be typed up at
minimum of three pages rather than the Orientation 101 program’s standard requirement of one
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to two pages. The ontological belief is how these students perceive writing, which I explain that
they are to practice writing to communicate in order to be better prepared for other classes and
for the workplace.
With the average number of twenty students in each Orientation class I teach, there are
multiple handwritten (and also typed) viewpoints that will help emphasize the effectiveness of
writing pedagogy as significant learning experience. Their handwritten and typed responses will
serve as “interactions with others,” when it comes to discerning the ontological outlook of this
study. As for epistemological beliefs, I construct the research in form of having students being
the research participants. With their participation, they do responsive, stream-of-conscious
writing. The ten-week Orientation course is the restricted time period for the study, and yet the
majority of students from previous Orientation classes have shared in their responses how they
have improved in their writing dynamics in ten short weeks, with only one course hour each
week. Yet, to conduct this study I am compiling all data from all Orientation classes that I teach,
since it is a repeated experience with different students.
The axiological beliefs, which center on values, are when I honor my students’
handwritten and typed responses as their individual beliefs. My own values permeate the purpose
of this study; but they do add to the need of conducting this study to inquire why some, if not all,
first year students in a community college setting are not on college level when it comes to
writing. By applying methodological beliefs in forms of observation, handwritten and typed
responses, career exploration essay final, and any other relevant phenomena, I will be alert for
any emergent interpretations throughout the course of this study. I understand after having had
previous students write, that there will be some unexpected results. Writing may be influenced
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not mostly from educational means, but from other external means such as technology and
culture.
To assume such beliefs, I would like to conclude my research by relating how writing
pedagogy serves to provide significant learning experience and also how I am able to explore my
students’ perceptions on this phenomenon. Additionally, I am looking to see how the research
process will help me inductively theorize why the college readiness of first year students do not
at first care for writing and then later embrace writing as means to continue their learning. Will
the research divulge reasons technologically, historically, culturally, socioeconomically, or any
other phenomenally way regarding first year students’ perceptions on writing pedagogy as
significant learning experience? I do not know yet, but I am interested to find out.
Pragmatic Qualitative Research Approach
The pragmatic qualitative research approach helps the purpose and organization of data
collection and analysis, explaining in detail the research methods designed to explore and
understand first year students’ perceptions on writing pedagogy as significant learning
experience. By connecting theory to practice, Fink’s taxonomy on significant learning serves as
the theoretical framework to help prepare first year students for rest of their collegiate experience
through writing pedagogy. Similar to how O’Connell and Dyment (2006) have conducted their
study, my pragmatic qualitative research study will be a naturalistic approach in fostering the
significant learning experience assimilating writing-intensive assignments—to study student
perceptions of how these writing-intensive assignments help or not help improve their learning.
Thus, the naturalistic approach is to conduct the study in a natural setting, where I teach
the orientation class in a most typical manner and not adjust anything to collect the anticipated
data. Students need to perceive writing more than just a means of communication, that writing is
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also a “process and product of critical thought” (Bean, 2011, p. 2). Thus when not informed the
purpose for each of and/or all the writing assignments, students may not be motivated to view
writing as a way to enhance their learning and also to help their writing skills.
Therefore, the purpose of each writing assignment or exercise to nurture learning will be
thoroughly considered. And with each assignment, its purpose will be communicated to
orientation students with the assumption that they, in turn, will register that the writing
assignment is not “busy work,” but actually a learning task.
Figure 2: Unique research lenses with guidance from Savin-Baden & Major (2013)
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The research lenses
I chose pragmatism for its flexibility in approaching research inquiry, meaning that I can
choose any combination of methods whether they are eclectic or not. Pragmatism fits my
intentions for the research including declaring how writing pedagogy should be viewed as
significant learning experience. I would like to conduct the data analysis in a phenomenological
approach in order to present my autobiographic interpretations of purposeful sampling of
students’ writing to determine the connection between writing pedagogy and the theoretical
framework of Fink’s taxonomy on significant learning. By explicitly constructing the prompts,
weekly reflection postings, and the career exploration essay to fit the learning goals as structured
by Fink’s taxonomy, the participating first year students’ perceptions may acknowledge and
embrace the effectiveness of writing pedagogy as significant learning experience.
Autoethnography
Glesne (2011) explains that autoethnography “begins with the self, the personal
biography” (p. 247). In this genre of autoethnographical writing, there are variable ways to
autobiographically write about directly experiencing the phenomenon. Obviously, I find the
alternative method of autoethnography appealing due to my tendency to write oh so personally. I
already wrote plenty in previous papers my personal and professional background of being an
Orientation 101 instructor, along with my role as the researcher. Yet I will view this method as a
challenge where I am to portray the setting and environment from my own perspective in
somewhat an objective way, to allow the reader to develop own thought, opinion, and/or feeling
rather than my telling them what to think and/or feel. Similar to leading questions during an
interview process, I do not want to tell, to lead, the reader to think and feel in a certain way. To
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autoethnographically write is to provide the reader a more developed viewpoint of the
researcher’s position within the environment being studied.
Main Research Question and Sub-questions
To create a question that centers the entire research study is difficult to think on the spot
without having some expectations or even some previous knowledge. Thankfully after several
years of teaching Orientation 101 already, I am interested to know what students are really
thinking when it comes to my using writing pedagogy to create a significant learning experience
for them in a class that has the presupposed reputation of being an “easy A” course. The
overarching question for this study is: how do students taking Orientation 101 perceive writing
pedagogy as significant learning experience? The following five supporting questions serve to
explore the overarching question that any first year student may ask:
1) What perceptions will first year students initially share about writing pedagogy
serving as significant learning experience in Orientation 101?
2) How will the writing help first year students with the foundational knowledge not
just in Orientation 101 but also in any other class?
3) In what ways will the writing help intrinsically and extrinsically motivate first
year students to learn how to learn?
4) In what ways will the students perceive writing as a useful learning technique to
apply and integrate in other classes, in the workplace, and in life?
5) What perceptions will first year students share about writing pedagogy serving as
significant learning experience before finishing Orientation 101?
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Site selection and rationale
The rationale to select as the site for my study a northeastern Alabama rural two-year
public community college bases on its strong student-centered culture. The mission of a
community college, being a bureaucratic institution as defined by Birnbaum (1988) and Carnegie
Classification of Higher Education Institutions, focuses on workforce development, career
preparation, access, low-cost, and community service—open to all individuals with different
backgrounds in race, gender, beliefs, values, education, and knowledge. Conducting a study
within a two-year college fits with reaching out to students who are welcome by open-enrollment
invitation, because of their needs and perceptions shaped by diverse backgrounds.
The rationale for choosing this particular institution, emphasized by the open-enrollment
invitation, provides a more diverse student participation for the research, gaining more diverse
perceptions on writing pedagogy as significant learning experience.
Subject selection and rationale
The rationale to select the students enrolled in my orientation courses bases on the
potentially wide variety of student demographics ranging from traditionally-aged college
students to international and returning adult students. While the demographics of the student
body at a two-year public community college are diverse, I am centering the study on student
perceptions regardless of their backgrounds. With student perceptions on writing pedagogy as a
student engagement tool being diverse may or may not help support the study.
Each orientation class taught at Gadsden State Community College averages twenty first
year students. The demographics of these subjects make up of: traditional college students
(recently graduated from high school and under the age of 25), returning adult students (either
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not attending college soon after high school graduation or returning to complete college degree/
program after a period of absence from college studies), and international students.
The other participants of this study will be three to six (maybe more if possible) faculty
members that compose a focus group to read and analyze the data that will be collected from the
writing assignments (Fishman & Reiff, 2011; Gambell, 1987; Levine, Fallahi, Nicoll-Senft,
Tessier, Watson, & Wood, 2008; O’Connell & Dyment, 2006; Todd & Hudson, 2008). This
focus group will represent the longitudinal part of the study, since they will read from both terms
of Spring and Fall 2015.
Data Collection Procedures and Rationale
The pragmatic qualitative research framework, along with Fink’s taxonomy on
significant learning and also my own phenomenological observations, will be implemented to
observe the phenomenon of first year students’ writing in my orientation classes. A computer lab
is the classroom setting for the orientation classes being observed for this study, where students
experience writing both with a pen and paper and also on the keyboard. The blackboard virtually
provides students another way of practicing their writing. The students’ writing exercises,
writing assignments, discussion postings, and career exploration essays will be collected and
organized for a focus group of participating faculty to read and analyze.
The focus group of three to six faculty members may be cogent to determining how
functional the pedagogical methods of writing are in helping first year students to become better
college writers (Collier & Morgan, 2007; Gambell, 1987; Levine, Fallahi, Nicoll-Senft, Tessier,
Watson, & Wood, 2008; O’Connell & Dyment, 2006; Todd & Hudson 2008); their consultative
responses will be analyzed to consider assimilating writing-intensive exercises to better prepare
students in seeing the interconnectedness of their learning in other classes and the rest of their
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college experience (Fishman & Reiff, 2011; Hudd, Smart, & Delohery, 2011; Jones, 2008; Kuh,
2008; Levine, et al., 2008; Martinez, Kock, & Cass, 2011; Pausch, 2008; Reither, 1985; Saavedra
& Saavedra, 2011; Schwartz, Chase, & Bransford, 2012; Sommers & Saltz, 2004; Sullivan,
2012; Todd & Hudson, 2008; Wang, 2012; Williams & Takaku, 2011). Rather than using all the
writing from twenty students per class, an appropriate number of different handwritten writing
samples will be randomly selected for the focus group to read and analyze within one meeting or
even two meetings if necessary. And also another set of randomly selected typed writing samples
will be sent electronically to each participating faculty member to read within a time frame for
more thorough reading and analysis. The two different analyses from each participating faculty
member will focus on the following areas: student perceptions, student engagement, student-
centered learning, overall college readiness for writing college-level papers, writing pedagogy
effectiveness, and the meeting of learning goals fostered by use of Fink’s taxonomy on
significant learning.
Variable ways of collecting data
Variable ways of collecting data is the norm for qualitative research. Observations,
interviews, documents, and audiovisual materials are the types of data collection as noted by
Creswell (2013), Glesne (2011), and Kvale and Brinkman (2009). Observations, in short, range
from full participation and participant as observer to full observation; whereas, interviews in any
form and/or number are conducted structured, semi-structured, or unstructured/conversational.
Documents and audiovisual materials are more tangible, with documents consisting of
paperwork either private or public and audiovisual materials including videotapes/films, emails,
journals, and digital storage such as compact discs (CDs) and flashdrives.
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To really get down to the detailed account of collecting data, I must consider the location
of gathering relevant information—which is my computer lab of a classroom. Since I require my
students in Orientation 101 to write both on paper and (type) on keyboard, the data consisting of
my subjects’ participation in my study is self-transcribed. In order for me to have access to
morally and ethically use my students’ writing exercises for my research, I must go through the
channels of submitting the IRB (institutional review board) approval form. Additionally, I would
also need to get the homogenous group of subjects, which are students enrolled in my
Orientation 101 course, to individually sign a consent form before participating in the research.
Ethical considerations
I am to make assurance that there will be no intention on my part to do any harm,
ridicule, exploit, or impose upon these student-research participants and the rest of those who
may be affected by the findings of the research. I will state that names, demographics,
background information, and any other discriminating identifying information will not be shared
or included in my study, even though students’ names are on the writing pieces. The purpose of
this pragmatic qualitative research study is to seek understanding about first year students’
perceptions on writing pedagogy as a student engagement tool, which may or may not help
determine their writing skills not being college ready.
Regarding my study on first year students’ writing skills not being on par as college
ready, there may be several ethical issues, which will be further discussed in a summarily way. It
is one thing to collect and keep the data, which are students’ writing exercises. I have never
returned the handwritten prompt responses, not even to provide feedback for them. And it is
another thing to expose some of these writing exercises in a published manuscript. Nevertheless,
it will be different once I receive the IRB approval, where I will have to begin formal
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proceedings in collecting the data. For instance, I will draft up an informed consent form to give
out to my students and probably the director of Orientation 101 program before I can formally
collect data, which are the handwritten responses to the prompts displayed on the PowerPoint,
typed Blackboard discussion postings, and career exploration essay drafts.
Submitting the IRB Approval Request. When I submit the IRB request to begin my
formal data collection, I must consider how collecting such data will affect the student, the
Orientation 101 curriculum, and Gadsden State Community College as whole, not to mention
Alabama College System and K-12 school systems from where these students, who are research
participants for my study, have graduated. Hence, I am to make assurance that there will be no
intention on my part to do any harm, ridicule, exploit, or impose upon these student-research
participants and the rest of those who may be affected by the findings of the research. I will state
that names, demographics, background information, and any other discriminating identifying
information will not be shared or included in my research report, even though students’ names
are on the writing pieces. The purpose of this pragmatic qualitative research study is to seek
understanding about first year students’ writing skills not being college ready and also explore
their perceptions on the effectiveness of writing pedagogy as significant learning experience as
defined by Fink’s taxonomy.
Explaining Ethics. Ethics in any qualitative study requires careful attention to detail
from asking and receiving approval from the institutional review board (IRB) and recruiting
assistance from gatekeepers to defending the research by determining the validation criteria set
forth for the specific interpretive qualitative framework. The role of researcher will be critically
looked at closely since the researcher is the main instrument of the research. And, there are
informed consent, confidentiality, safety, well-being, dignity, and comfort for the research
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participants to be considered. The researcher must contemplate any possible consequences of
taking each step of the research process. Ethics does not stop with receiving the approval from
IRB to conduct the study; ethics is an ongoing process throughout the research. (Creswell, 2013;
Glesne, 2011; Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009)
Ethics protect both the researcher and the researched. The researcher cannot impose or
force upon the researched with beliefs or demand participation for the study. Instead, the
researcher is to observe and respect the differences of the researched, such as culture, language,
beliefs, and traditions. In turn, the researched must respect the researcher’s attempts to
understand the phenomenon by asking questions, getting involved, or any other way in collecting
data for the study. Both the researcher and the researched need to acknowledge that the inquiry
process is “dynamic” as noted by Glesne (2011), where any step of the inquiry process may
change as events and/or time turn.
Quality Assurance
The validity, trustworthiness, and reliability of this case study will be checked by several
qualitative techniques including member checking, triangulation of data, rich description, peer
debriefing, and prolonged time in conducting the study. To prolong this pragmatic qualitative
research study, a focus group will be conducted. The results in the next chapter will provide a
lengthy rich description on how this pragmatic qualitative research study has been conducted,
along with one or two colleagues perusing through the progress of the data collection and
analysis for peer debriefing.
Validity
Validity can be perceived differently among qualitative researchers, according to
Creswell (2013), in terms of definition and application. Words including trustworthiness,
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credibility, dependability, reliability, verification, soundness, legitimacy, efficacy, authenticity,
and transferability have been utilized, whereas Creswell states how he sees validity as
“emphasizing the process” (p. 250). This author, therefore, explains how the research process has
been strengthened by the lengthy commitment working and studying in the field, being deeply
involved with the subjects for construction of knowledge, along with profusely articulated
depictions illustrating the environment in where the study is being conducted. Having such
details in the study alone validate the inquiry process.
Communicative and pragmatic validity. Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), on the other
hand, view validity in the same light as trustworthiness and transferability, along with Creswell’s
(2009) strength. While sharing how to validate the constructed knowledge from interviewing,
Kvale and Brinkmann imperatively indicate how validation is not a one-time step during the
research process; “verification is built into the entire research process with continual checks on
the credibility, plausibility, and trustworthiness of the findings” (p. 250). Rather than saving all
the validity for the concluding section or even confining to any one section of the study,
conducting validation techniques each and every step of the research process enhances the
soundness and appeal of the study. Two types of validity mentioned in Kvale and Brinkmann’s
text, which are communicative and pragmatic, determine the constructed knowledge gleaned
from conversations and observations respectively. Communicative validity employs the
researcher and subjects in discourse about issues relating to the research, with the subjects’
responses confirming the purpose of research. Pragmatic validity focuses more on action rather
than talk, conferring with Kvale and Brinkmann’s having brought up the proverbial saying:
“Actions speak louder than words.” The researcher, during the discourse, notes the respondent’s
reaction and body language; thus, the researcher uses this observation to interpret what the
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respondent means beyond verbalizing words. For instance, the respondent scratches her nose
when answering a question—is she lying or embarrassed?
For my study, I will probably lean more on pragmatic validity due to heavy focus on
students writing in my computer lab of a classroom. During these writing exercises, including
responding to prompts in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, typing up discussion postings on
Blackboard, and progressive recursive work on writing and typing career exploration essays, I
will observe their body language and also their writing style and habits. I can form
interpretations from these observations. The interviews I conduct with colleagues who will have
read selected writing samples will substantiate the need for communicative validity. If I do
decide to select few certain students to interview, I will use both communicative and pragmatic
validity—after all, discussing one’s writing skills may be a sensitive topic.
Other validity techniques. Other than communicative and pragmatic validity, there are
more types of validation such as Lather’s (1991) “triangulation, construct, face, and catalytic” (as
cited in Creswell, 2013). Triangulation comprises of multiple resources, theories, and techniques;
construct validation recognizes the existing theories rather than developing new ones; face
validation reminds the reader, individual, and/or research participant what they already know;
and, catalytic validation empowers/stimulates research participants in making changes to
embrace the theoretical proposition. Both triangulation and catalytic validation both serve the
purpose of my study well, exploring first year students’ perceptions on writing pedagogy as
significant learning experience.
Why bother validating the research? There are indeed authors such as Wolcott
(1990a), according to Creswell (2013), who question the need to validate. Why bother validating
the research? The main reason being is that Wolcott and other qualitative researchers prefer to
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concentrate on understanding the phenomena in their respective studies, to spend quality time
studying, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting, formulating theories rather than spend time
worrying over how to validate each research technique and also how to persuade any reader to
see and perhaps acknowledge the purpose of the study. Referring to Kvale and Brinkmann’s
(2009) words “the more one validates, the greater the need for further validation,” it makes sense
why any qualitative researcher, including myself, needs to be cautious and not over-validate.
Less is more. Still, the research needs to be trustworthy. As a qualitative researcher, I am to
balance out the validation measures to increase the soundness of my study, the research process.
How I will validate. The validation measures I will use or may contemplate using to
enhance validity in my study are triangulation, peer review with a bit of member checking, rich,
thick description for transferability, and clarifying bias of my position as the researcher. The
multiple data sources for triangulation consist of writing both on paper and on computer: 1)
stream-of-consciousness handwritten responses to prompts given on PowerPoints; 2) typed
weekly reflection discussion postings on Blackboard; 3) career exploration essays in first and
subsequent second and third/final drafts; 4) email correspondence as form of interview process
with several colleagues, few of which are teaching Orientation 101 also, regarding samples of
my students’ writing for peer review; 5) one cohesive analysis of all contributed feedback on
writing samples to be checked and approved by the same colleagues; 6) evaluation from
discussion postings and follow-up e-interviews (or even in-person interviews) with my students
who do respond to the “bonus” discussion postings; and 7) my own observations.
Conclusion
This chapter encompasses how an orientation class can be more than a collegiate
introductory course by being constructed as a productive learning environment in which first
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year students are “intrinsically motivated” to write to learn (Sullivan, 2012). The validity,
trustworthiness, and reliability of this case study will be checked by several qualitative
techniques including member checking, triangulation of data, rich description, peer debriefing,
and prolonged time in conducting the study. To prolong this pragmatic qualitative research
study, a focus group of three to six colleagues (other Orientation instructors or other faculty) will
be conducted for each term of Spring and Fall 2015.
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