ENGL 601/Spring 2006
Dr. Kathryn Valentine
Research Proposal
Susan Wood
Introduction
As more and more institutions of higher education attempt to serve students at a
distance, the call for research that examines the theories and practices that inform
distance education becomes increasingly important. Distance education classes are no
longer only correspondence classes; they are taught in a variety of formats, most of
which take advantage of the internet. Because the internet requires either reading or
writing to communicate, it behooves online educators and those who administer online
programs to better understand how communication takes place from both an instructor
and student perspective. While a significant amount of research has been done
investigating various aspects of online courses, the literature does not yet address the
complexity of written communication and the need to understand how an instructor
thinks about the process of effectively communicating with students, or how students
perceive and negotiate the multiple forms of writing in an online course, such as email,
discussion postings, assignments, assessments/evaluations, etc.
The experiences that students and teachers have in an online environment are more
than likely different from those in a face-to-face class; that this is a valid statement is of
little importance. What is important is whether or not the environment provides a space
for a variety of learners to construct knowledge. I propose to conduct research that
examines online distance education courses at Doña Ana Branch Community College
(DABCC) in an attempt to understand how community college instructors and students
negotiate communication, learning, and class management in an online environment. It
is my argument that institutions will be better able to serve students in online classes
and/or programs by understanding how instructors build, design and teach inside the
online course, and how students negotiate learning and their own participation in the
online environment.
Conceptual Framework
With increasing intensity, institutions of higher learning are being pressured to offer
courses online. Borland, Lockhart and Howard (2000) insist that with this pressure and
increase in numbers of online courses, institutions are obligated to evaluate the teaching
and learning that goes on in this new environment. And while online educators and
researchers draw from the same educational theories that inform educators in face-toface classes, the tools to deliver and assess instruction, facilitate the construction of
knowledge, and encourage interaction are different and/or underdeveloped. Studying
online pedagogies and course design and assessment is relatively new, but already
there is a growing body of literature that speaks to the complexity of issues surrounding
distance education, and specifically online courses. For example, qualitative research
that focuses on online education includes studies on how communities are built in this
new environment (Brown, 2001; Smith, 2005), the importance of interaction as a way of
addressing issues of isolation (Dickey, 2004; Mahesh & Stock, 1999), power issues
among students and with the instructor (Gouthro, 2004), and student attitudes and
perceptions (Lao and Gonzales, 2005; Motteram and Forrester, 2005).
Certainly conducting research on online courses is no less or more complex or messy
than studying face-to-face courses. Finding a theme that ties the questions and issues
together will help researchers make sense of this field of study. The importance—or
theme—of interaction runs through many of the current studies, and is one of the pillars
of a constructivist view of education (Dewey, 1938; Vygotsky, 1978). In a report on the
benchmarks for success in internet-based courses published by the Institute for Higher
Education Policy (2000), the authors provide seven categories of benchmarks against
which six institutions were rated. Of these seven categories, four contain criteria that
examine the kind and quality of interaction that occurs in online courses as a result of
design decisions. The studies cited in the previous paragraph illuminate the value and
importance of understanding interaction in online courses; however, they do not address
specifically the process an instructor negotiates as she designs student-instructor and
student-student interaction entirely through written documents and assignments and/or
instructions.
An investigation that looks at the role of the instructor in negotiating a course that relies
on text for communication requires an examination of theories in the fields of
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composition and professional communication. Employing and applying these theories
will aid researchers in asking and answering the kinds of questions that will get at how
successful online communication—communication solely through writing—takes place.
In order to do this successfully, research in this area must draw on work done in the
fields of composition, computers and writing, and professional writing.
A study conducted by Devoss, Johansen, Selfe and Williams (2003) examined the
literacy practices of three students in electronic environments in order to understand
what students who read and compose texts online outside of class bring with them to the
college classroom. One of the lessons these researchers learned that they overlay
specifically on English composition programs can be broadened to include online
programs in general. They argue that “…programs must be willing to address an
increasingly broad range of literacies—emerging, competing, and fading—if they want
their instruction to remain relevant to students’ changing communication needs and
experiences within the contemporary cultural ecology” (169). In the online class,
defining what literacy means is paramount to finding the means of keeping instruction
relevant and engaging.
In addition to attending to definitions of literacy in the online environment, educators
must also address the social dynamics created in an online environment. Lester Faigley
(1985) in his article “Nonacademic writing: The social perspective” argues that
“researchers taking a social perspective study how individual acts of communication
define, organize, and maintain social groups” (in Peeples, 2003, p. 50). It will be useful
to take up this perspective in the process of studying communication in online courses
where much of the writing is nonacademic given that it is used to communicate and
create a discourse community, not to solely produce academic prose. This is different
from a traditional face-to-face class where the transactions that create a community are
done by and large through speaking and listening. Faigley (1985) asserts that research
needs to be done that will examine how an individual composes a text, how the text is
disseminated, who reads it and who doesn’t, what happens as a consequence of the text
being read (or not read), and what subsequent texts are created in response to the first
text. I would argue that this model is ideal for examining all of the writing done in an
online course, as it would help uncover the effectiveness of the text as defined by both
the instructor and students.
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An additional perspective of electronic texts is taken up by Stephen Bernhardt in his
1993 article “The shape of text to come: The texture of print on screens.” In this
landmark article Bernhardt examines how the shapes of texts changed in the 1990’s as
a result of technology. His careful examination of on-screen texts speaks to issues that
are surfacing in online classes today. He asserts that “we need to think about how
readers interact with text—what they do with it and how. We need to anticipate where
text is going…” (in Peeples, 2003, p. 233). This assertion is playing out today, especially
in higher education where instructors and students not only use computers to compose
and transmit formal texts (e.g. assignments), but also to perform very basic functions of
communication. These documents take on various shapes and sizes, depending on the
situation and purpose of the writer.
Marilyn Cooper (cited in Slack, Miller and Doak, 80) calls the process of communication
in which professional communicators engage participatory communication. This aptly
describes the communication that takes place in an online course. Forster (2002)
explains that the philosophy of learning behind the design of current distance education
classes holds that “teaching does not directly cause learning but is mediated by the
learner’s thought processes. Thus, the aim of teaching is not just to convey information
but to engage the learner in an active process of knowledge development in relation to
life experiences” (2). This process requires both the student and the instructor engage
in participatory communication. The instructor, it would seem, is the primary facilitator of
this participatory communication.
Charles Kostelnick (1988) provides a model consisting of a 12-cell schema of visual
communication that could be used to evaluate the writing done in online courses,
particularly onscreen documents produced by instructors (in Peeples, 2003), which may
illuminate components of successful communication. His model, produced for the
purpose of evaluating business documents, accounts for the fact that visual language in
the business world is almost never neutral, even though the writer may be attempting to
produce a text that is objective and clear. He argues that the goal of the writer can be
achieved when she combines “visual and verbal planning in the same holistic process”
(in Peeples, 2003, p. 271). While the online class is far from the business world, I would
assert that using Kostelnick’s 12-cell schema to evaluate the writing an instructor
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produces in an online class, which has some similarity to writing in the business world,
may be useful in understanding students’ responses and reactions to it.
The online environment in which this participatory communication is to take place is
tenuous at best given issues of student persistence in distance education courses.
Desmarais (2000) examined persistence in distance education programs and found that
there is a variety of factors that influence persistence, some of which are controlled by
the institution--such as availability of tutoring and technical support, some of which are
controlled by the instructor--such as course design and course management, and some
of which are controlled by the students themselves--such as work habits, attitudes
toward technology and skills related to technology (i.e. keyboarding skills). Carr (2000)
adds to this list student demographics and argues that distance education students are
typically non-traditional students whose lives very much influence whether or not they
choose to persist through a distance education course and/or program.
Carr (2000) also acknowledges that the quality of instructor preparation to teach online
courses is an important factor in student persistence. It is my contention that online
educators need to better understand how a student perceives written communication, as
well as how an instructor prepares to teach online, which may require her investigating
and learning how effective texts are written and presented. I want to investigate whether
or not a student is more likely to persist in an online course if an instructor pays
particular attention to design, presentation, and construction of the onscreen texts she
produces.
Personal Interest
That the literature on distance education has gaps is a given if only because it is
relatively new compared to other areas of educational research. However, I would argue
that there are also gaps because of perceptions about and attitudes toward distance
education. Borland, Lockhart and Howard (2000) highlight these attitudes by quoting
from an article published March 2000 in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
David F. Noble, a professor of history at York University, Toronto, and long time
critic of the role of technology in culture, speaks of distance education as “fools’
gold” that “is tempting some administrators to put the core values of their
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institutions at risk.” He refers to the low-tech, old-fashioned classrooms as
“sacred space” and says, “In person, you get a sense of me you can’t get online.”
While I disagree with Dr. Noble, I think it is wise to be tentative about the ways in which
online education can serve students, and more specifically undergraduates. How to
retain new students is a question most institutions ask and create strategic plans around.
Retaining students—especially new students—in the online environment is tricky at best,
but it can be done. I have been teaching online courses at DABCC since fall of 2002,
and have completed an online program, in which I earned a professional development
certificate in distance education. I can give anecdotal evidence that insists we continue
to offer online courses. I can also give anecdotal evidence that insists we be
increasingly rigorous in the ways in which we design online courses, prepare teachers
and students to participate in online courses, and assess the effectiveness and quality of
online education. It is with this background and my own need for clarity that I propose a
qualitative research study that examines teaching and learning in the online classroom.
The argument for creating opportunities for interaction is convincing. My own
experience speaks to the same end; I use a discussion tool in the online courses I teach
to encourage asynchronous interaction, and it seems to work. To be specific, I create a
kind of architecture within the discussion tool, encouraging students to engage in
different kinds of interaction. For example, there is a topic named ‘water cooler’ where
students can engage in small talk. There is a topic named ‘questions for Susan’ to
encourage students to ask questions publicly rather than through email. Additional topics
are given names to suggest to students that their participation can serve different
purposes, as in a face-to-face class. That this scaffolding of classroom participation
works is evidenced by the amount and variety of communication that happens within a
given semester and the way in which this creates connections. For example, in spring
semester 2003 I surveyed students in one section of an online class about their attitudes
regarding the online environment. One of the questions I asked was “Compared to your
face-to-face classes, how connected did you feel to your classmates?” Of 27 students,
11 said they felt more connected, 7 said they felt connected to the same degree and 9
said they felt less connected. When asked how connected they felt to the instructor, 18
said they felt more connected, four said they felt connected to the same degree and five
said they felt less connected. I also kept track of the amount of textual communication
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that took place. 2121 pieces of email were exchanged, of which 1263 were sent by me.
1301 messages were posted to the bulletin board, of which 101 were sent by me. These
are typical numbers for a class this size in a given semester.
However, this sort of information does not tell me how students figure out and negotiate
the communication that they present textually. It does not tell me what stages or events
they walk through as they determine what they want to contribute. It does not tell me
where they get confused or what strategies they use to gain clarity. I want to find out
what teachers of online courses at DABCC need to be cognizant of with regard to the
presentation of materials and communication. I want to find out where students get lost.
I want to understand the relationship between written communication/materials and
student learning in online classes in general. My aim is to examine these issues and by
doing so, understand more fully the issues to which online educators should attend when
teaching or administering an online program.
Research Goals and Questions
I see myself as an advocate for online courses –which means I must first gain an
understanding of what happens in the learning/teaching process in this environment. To
this end, I propose that this study accomplish the following goals:
At the theoretical level

to understand how instructors think about online courses and how they go about
designing an online course, and creating and presenting materials

to understand how students negotiate their learning, the work they produce and
their participation in online courses
At the practical level

to provide insights into how instructors should prepare to teach online courses

to provide insights into what instructors should consider as they design and teach
online courses

to provide insights into what instructors should consider as they communicate
through writing with their students in online courses
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At the personal level

to determine what issues I need to attend to so that I can better serve students in
the online courses I teach at DABCC
In order to achieve these goals, I will attempt to answer the following questions:
Overarching research question

How do students and instructors experience written communication in online
courses?
Questions focused on instructors

How does an instructor design an online course?

How does an instructor prepare for, design and present materials for an online
course?
Questions focused on students

How do students choose to take an online course or enroll in an online program?

How do students experience and perceive communication with their instructors in
online courses?

How do students experience communication with their classmates in online
courses?
As a part of the study, I will survey instructors and students, asking a series of questions,
which may include the following questions:
Questions for instructors
1. What sort of preparation do you undergo to teach a course online?
2. What are the issues you must consider as you communicate with students in
online courses?
Question for students

What hinders my learning in an online course?
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Research Site and Methods
My research questions focus on understanding processes rather than proving a
hypothesis, and my research goals have personal--as well as public--implications.
These two points of view argue for my using a qualitative research framework to design
this study. Maxwell (2005) states that “Design in qualitative research is an ongoing
process that involves ‘tacking’ back and forth between the different components of the
design, assessing the implications of goals, theories, research questions, methods, and
validity threats for one another” (p. 3). I envision myself going through this non-linear
process in order to gain an understanding of how instructors and students “do” online
courses.
I propose an interpretive case study approach because it will provide a structure allowing
me to gain an understanding of online classes by examining a specific case. Bromley
(1986, qtd. in Merriam, 1998) argues that case studies “get as close to the subject of
interest as they possibly can, partly by means of direct observation in natural settings,
partly by their access to subjective factors (thoughts, feelings, and desires), whereas
experiments and surveys often use convenient derivative data, e.g. test results, official
records. Also, case studies tend to spread the net for evidence widely, whereas
experiments and surveys usually have a narrow focus” (32-33). Because I am close to
the issues surrounding distance education, it will be by seeing this environment through
different eyes—students and other instructors at DABCC—that I can gain a broader and
richer understanding.
The research site I will study is the Library Science Program at DABCC. Susan
Pinkerton, an Assistant Professor of Library Science at DABCC, has been responsible
for the Library Science Associate Degree at DABCC since 2000. When she first took
over responsibility for this program there were not enough students to fill the classes and
they often had to cancel sections. Pinkerton put the entire program online in order to
serve and attract students at a distance; enrollment in this program has tripled since she
began coordinating the program. In 2004 DABCC reorganized its structure and
Pinkerton no longer has the title of program coordinator; however, she continues to do
the work of a coordinator because of her own investment in this program and in the
students it serves, many of whom live in rural areas and would be unable to attend
DABCC if not for this online program.
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There are 10 courses in this program, all of which are offered solely online using WebCT
as the course management system. Students must complete 34 credits of technical
requirements and 32 credits of core and/or related requirements. Some these additional
32 credits are offered online, but not all. DABCC is working toward offering a significant
cohort of general education classes online to support students in distance education
programs. Pinkerton has agreed to let me use the online Library Science Program as
my research site. The value of this site for research is that the students in this program
are strictly online students. While they may have a few face-to-face courses, the
majority of their coursework is done online. Their comprehensive experience gives the
students and the instructors in this program a mature perspective of issues related to
online learning.
Three features of case studies outlined by Merriam (29) are:
a. particularistic – focus on particular situation, event, program,
phenomenon
b. descriptive – end product is a rich, thick description of the phenomenon
under study
Case Studies are holistic, lifelike, grounded, exploratory. They report
findings using “prose and literary techniques to describe, elicit images,
and analyze situations. . . . They present documentation of events,
quotes, samples and artifacts” (Wilson qtd in Merriam 30).
c. Heuristic – illuminate reader’s understanding of phenomenon under
study; discovers new meaning.
I will attempt to have my study encapsulate these features. I will focus on one particular
program—the Library Science Program at DABCC. To meet my needs and needs of my
readers the end product will present a thick description of what I find, which can then be
used to inform classroom practice. My goal will be to illuminate my readers’
understanding of the ways in which students learn in online classes and the effect of
written communication on their learning. I plan to study Pinkerton in the DABCC Library
Science Program and three students in the same Library Science course. Even though
Pinkerton and I are colleagues, I will observe her class because of her experience in
teaching online courses. While there are adjunct instructors who teach online in this
program, using anyone of them as a participant in this study would be less meaningful
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than using Pinkerton; I predict that I will find a more robust online course if I observe
ones that Ms. Pinkerton teaches.
This study will span three-semesters. In the first semester (a spring semester) I will
conduct a pilot study and will look at an online sociology class at DABCC taught by Doug
Layer. Layer is relatively new to online courses and at the time of my writing this
proposal has only taught two online Sociology courses. By conducting a pilot project of
one of his classes, I will have the opportunity to make adjustments to my research plan
and design prior to my studying more formally the online instructor and students in the
Library Science Program. Another argument for conducting this pilot study is that the
students in the Library Science Program who are earning an Associates Degree must
also take General Education classes. DABCC has begun to offer several General
Education classes online, which serves students in the Library Science Program, as well
as others. All of this is to say that the students in Layer’s online Sociology class may
also be enrolled in the online Library Science classes.
During the following fall and spring semesters I will study the same library science
instructor in the same library science course. In other words, I will study different
students each semester, but the same instructor. I will use internal sampling techniques
to choose the three students each semester. After observing the class for a couple of
weeks, I will choose three students from whom I determine I can get the richest data
(Bogdan and Bilken, 2003). As an online instructor myself, I know that adult students
who are in the work place already and are taking online courses as a way to continue
working while completing coursework for a degree are serious students, as well as
critical of the courses they take. They are not hesitant to critique curricular content,
teaching style or learning environment. I will attempt to choose students who fit this
description.
By looking at the same instructor over two semesters—an academic year, and by
looking at six students who fit a specific description, I hope to gain a solid understanding
of the issues and phenomena that surface.
Methods of Data Collection
My methods for data collection within the defined case will include:
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1. interviews
I will interview the instructor and three students each semester. The interviews
will be semi-structured as I will have a short set of questions to direct the
conversation. The interviews will be semi-structured as a way to begin
discussions about online courses. These discussions will produce richer data
than would single answers to structured questions.
From students I will attempt to understand the process(es) they undergo in
negotiating the content, materials, requirements and communication necessary
for successful completion of the class. I will also ask questions that will illuminate
their attitudes about the learning that happens in the online class versus face-toface classes they have or are taking.
From instructors I will attempt to understand the process(es) they undergo as
they prepare to teach online courses, design course materials and communicate
with students during the semester, as well their attitudes toward student
behaviors and responses to written communication in the online environment. I
hope to learn how instructor attitudes play into the ways in which they interact
informally and formally with students, and the attention they pay to course design
decisions.
To check to see if what I’m hearing is what the participant wants me to hear, I
plan to provide opportunities for feedback from the participants. Interviews will
be only one piece in learning this information.
2. observation
I will request access to the online class each semester and observe
communication and interaction between the instructor and students and between
the students themselves. This will provide an opportunity to collect data in a
natural setting and observe how students understand expectations. I will also
observe how the instructor interacts and responds to students, much like a
researcher would do observing a face-to-face class. It is in this natural setting
that I will have access to themes that do not surface in an interview.
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3. documents
I plan to use the texts produced in the online classes, namely email messages
sent from the instructor, public postings from instructor and students, instructional
materials produced by the instructor, and work produced by the students in
response to formal and informal assignments. This form of data is especially
useful because it is not “vulnerable to self-report bias” (Maxwell, 2005, p. 112).
From these documents, I will attempt to draw conclusions about the instructor’s
understanding of whether or not the presentation of written documents affects
students’ ability to participate and construct knowledge. I will analyze the
materials through the lens of composition studies—specifically work by scholars
such as Cynthia Selfe, Gail Hawisher, Steve Bernhardt who research, write and
think about computers and writing.
Data Analysis
In order to gather meaningful data, I plan to employ the three techniques discussed in
Maxwell (2005) to analyze data.
Memos
Maxwell suggests that by using memos, a researcher has a structured way of analyzing
data because they stimulate thinking and encourage reflection. Rather than wait to end
of the data collection process, I will write memos throughout the study, reflecting on
recurrent themes that surface, as well as unique phenomena that occur.
Coding
In anticipation of this method of analyzing data, I will develop a list of tentative coding
categories, a list that will likely evolve as data is collected. Bogdan and Bilken suggest a
list of coding families that are useful in sorting through data. They are:

setting/context codes

definition of the situation codes

perspective held by subjects

subjects’ ways of thinking about people and objects

process codes

activity codes

event codes
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
strategy codes

relationship and social structure codes

narrative codes
Using these coding types or families, some tentative categories are:

student attitudes toward online classes compared to face-to-face classes
(perspective held by subjects)

student attitudes toward course design (setting/context code)

impressions of student-teacher interaction (perspective held by subjects)

student attitude toward emailing persona of instructor (subjects’ way of thinking
about people)

levels of confusion regarding assignments (activity code)

student negotiation of course content (strategy code)

student negotiation of due dates and timelines (strategy code)

instructor description of course design decisions (narrative code)

levels of confusion regarding other forms of communication (narrative codes)
While I will code data as it comes in and revise the categories as needed, I will wait until
all data is gathered before employing the next step in the analysis process, that of
drawing conclusions within each course and across courses. I will also spend some
time, though limited, analyzing the difference between the pilot study and the full study.
Narrative Analysis
Because I will most likely have access to a large amount of text written by students and
the instructor, analyzing this textual data will allow for the “voice” of the class as a whole
and the individual participants to surface and be heard and recognized. This should also
provide the means of making connections between the courses over the two-semester
time span.
Validity
The research design that I have developed for this study presents two possible validity
threats. They are participant selection and my own connection to the topic. In the
section on participants, I explained my reasons for choosing a colleague as a research
participant and my criteria for choosing specific students. I will not study a large number
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of participants, as this is in keeping with the theoretical basis for conducting an
interpretive case study. Gathering data over a year and within two separate classes will
also allow me to observe many instances of how the instructor and students interact and
learn, and compare the data from the two semesters. I will also ask the participants
questions in the interview that draw on their experiences in other online courses.
Maxwell (2005) explains that this sort of comparison – between the two courses and with
other similar experiences -- will help to identify and explain crucial phenomena.
As an online instructor and an advocate for online instruction, I am hyper aware of the
criticisms that surround distance education, and online learning in particular. The
criticisms range from students being annoyed with a disorganized instructor to anger at a
program that does not deliver on promised student learning outcomes. Instructors
blame low retention and completion rates on students who enroll in online courses
based on the misconception that online courses do not require as much work. It is my
awareness of these criticisms and misconceptions that motivates me to deliberately and
carefully research communication in online courses. Acknowledging this bias will help
me accomplish two tasks: (1) to be thorough, reflective and thoughtful in my data
collection and analysis, and (2) to provide my readers with a context in which they
interpret the data themselves, as well as understand the conclusions I draw.
Conclusion
From a personal perspective, conducting this research will help me develop
professionally by answering questions that will have a direct impact my teaching.
Because I also have some responsibility for mentoring faculty at DABCC new to online
teaching, answers to my research questions – or at least a better understanding of the
complexity of how communication takes place in an online class – will benefit a larger
community. I assert that my interest in this topic can be sustained over the course of the
next few years as I finish coursework in the Rhetoric and Professional Communication
Ph.D. Program and formally make this presentation for my dissertation work to my
committee.
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