The Longitudinal Study of Writing at DU: What We're Learning, What It Means
Alba Newmann

Facilitator: Jennifer Campbell
Panelists: Jennifer Campbell, Richard Colby, Rebekah Shultz Colby

The Longitudinal Study panel was made up of three Writing Program faculty members: Jennifer Campbell, Richard Colby, and Rebekah Shultz Colby. They began by offering an overview of this four-year study of undergraduate writing, noting that in undertaking this project DU joins Harvard and Stanford as institutions that have committed energy and resources to such a complex writing study. The panelists explained the scope of the research project following a group of randomly selected undergraduates from matriculation to graduation, examining all of the writing they produce during that time. The aim of the research was framed in terms of transfer: learning what students carry with them from year to year, with regards to their writing. Also the panelists emphasized the importance of transfer back to faculty members helping faculty across the curriculum to understand whether their expectations of what and how students are learning to write, and how they are using their writing, are accurate.

Project Design:
In Spring 2007, the study began with 100 first-year students; these students were offered a stipend to encourage their involvement. Two years into the project, around 75 of those original 100 continue to be part of the study.

The research team is made up of six faculty members, as well as several graduate student and undergraduate student investigators. Each quarter, participants are asked to upload electronically every piece of writing they have completed, which can include self-sponsored writing as well as course work. Although members of the research team suspect that they arent always getting everything that students write, they are seeing a breadth of writing types, including foreign language work (which is not assessed in this study). The team is making use of an electronic portfolio system to manage the data.

In addition to uploading their writings, participating students are asked to complete a quarterly survey that focuses on three particular areas writing in their major, writing in their courses, and the types and amounts of writing they have completed since they were last surveyed. Annual interviews are conducted in the spring. The interviews allow for follow up on responses to questions posed in the surveys. In the first year of the study, questions emphasized transfer between high school and college. In the second year, the emphasis was on the transfer between the first and second years of college.
While students are asked to respond to questions about their attitudes toward and beliefs about writing (what kinds of writing they do and do not like to do, for instance), research questions also focus on how the types and quantities of writing students complete may shift over time. Additionally, the researchers are interested in questions of how writing knowledge and skills transfer across majors and between assigned and self-sponsored writing. As participating students approach their junior year, many of them will take part in study abroad, and that may have some interesting effects on the study.

Initial Findings:
The panelists offered two snapshots of their initial findings drawn from the survey data and the interviews. The first had to do with correlation between attitudes and beliefs in year one, as expressed in the surveys. Specifically, there was a high correlation (27.6%) between perceived abilities about writing and writing about reading (which was familiar to students from high school). At the same time, there was almost no correlation when it came to writing from quantitative (14%) or qualitative (10%) materials. Also, according to self-reported abilities, there was a strong correlation between attitudes about creative writing and perceived abilities in writing creatively.

At this point, audience members asked questions about how the researchers were defining qualitative (the example of ethnographies was given). An audience member asked whether final exams were included among the writings gathered. The panelists confirmed that they are included. The panelists acknowledged some of the limitations of the electronic portfolio and the ways in which it creates aggregates; but they also acknowledged that students are familiar with the tool and know how to use it.

The conversation then turned to the annual interviews. The interviews with sophomores asked them to reflect on what they had learned during their first-year writing sequence. Students were asked to compare the amount of writing they completed in their first year with the amount in their second year. Among a sample group, three students reported writing more as sophomores than they had as first year students, while 16 students reported writing less in the second year (and responses were split as to whether this was good or bad).

When asked whether their writing had improved since high school, due to the WRIT sequence or other classes, 33 students said their writing had improved, five felt that their writing had stayed the same or that they hadn't learned that much, and four reported some frustration in not knowing whether theyd improved or not. When asked what they had learned from the WRIT courses, the top responses were: how to write in an academic genre, how to do research (which included finding and evaluating sources and making use of online databases), how to properly use citation styles (such as MLA and APA) and how to organize their writing (at the level of ideas, paragraphing, and metadiscourse). A number of students also mentioned that they had developed an awareness of rhetorical practice as well as a greater awareness of writing process, and an increased vocabulary.

The panelists shared several interview excerpts with the audience that demonstrated the range of responses and attitudes expressed by students.

Conclusions:
In concluding, the panelists reflected once again on what transfers for students: what aspects of the courses and ways of thinking about writing students identified as things they took with them when the WRIT classes were over. The researchers noted that, when responding to open-ended questions, students might mention strategies, such as specific search skills, because these are things that they can easily report back on; they may even emphasize small things, which were not a focus for the class.

In reviewing the writing samples submitted, the researchers are performing descriptive assessment, identifying the range of genres present, They acknowledged that there is some speculation in this process because they dont have the assignment sheets to which students were responding. Instead, they try to analyze what the actual artifact does, not necessarily what it was intended to do. The researchers also identify the apparent main purpose of the writing.

The research team has begun thinking about developing their interview protocol for seniors; one possibility is to ask students to go back over submitted writing and self-reflect on the strengths or development they see in this body of work.

Q&A:
Once the presentation was over, the audience posed a number of questions. In response to these questions, the panelists explained that they do not see any comments from professors or grades on papers, nor do they have writing scores from standardized tests for the student participants. Students upload clean copies of their documents. Also, the investigators consider the papers they are getting to be a dump that is that students are not self-selecting which pieces they should include.

One audience member asked what, if any, demographic information is being collected about these student authors, such as country of origin, language of origin, or status as first-generation college students. Currently this information is not being collected, and the demographic data available are somewhat limited. The researchers know they have a few international students in the study. Also, the research team has asked students to indicate what kind of high school they went to and whether they felt their high school experience had helped them or caused interference once they arrived in college. As a result, they found that some students who came from strong high schools found the first year more challenging than they expected. The panelists noted that, in addition to other research questions, they plan to develop several case studies, which could delve into demographic issues.

A question was asked about the amounts of writing students complete each year (referring back to students self-reporting that they wrote less as sophomores than as first-year students). The panelists indicated that they will continue to track this, as they ask students to report (both in the surveys and interviews) on every class for the types and amount of writing they are asked to do. The follow-up questions in the interview provide more details in this area and will allow the researches to track variations across majors and years. The panelists also reflected that every year they adjust the questions they ask to strengthen the research instruments and that they have begun quantifying some of the qualitative data as well. They are balancing elaborate schemes for coding data and researched-focused schemes with an eventual aim of creating student profiles out of the more detailed qualitative descriptions provided in the interviews.

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