The Writing Transfer Project
Promoting Transfer through
Reflection: A Cross-Institutional
Study of Metacognition, Identity,
and Rhetoric
Dr. Dana Lynn Driscoll, Oakland University
Dr. Gwen Gorzelsky, Wayne State University
Dr. Carol Hayes, George Washington University
Dr. Ed Jones, Seton Hall University
Special Thanks
• The ERS Seminar on Critical Transitions: Writing and the
Question of Transfer
• George Washington University for Year 1 funding for raters
and coders
• Oakland University, Seton Hall University, and Wayne State
University for additional funds for research and travel
• Conference on College Composition and Communication and
the Spencer Foundation for Grant Funding for Year 2 data
analysis
• Our students and faculty involved in the study
Reflection as a Means to
Understand Transfer and
Metacognition: Pedagogy,
Assessment, and Cross-Institutional
Results
Dr. Dana Driscoll
Department of Writing and Rhetoric
Oakland University
driscoll@oakland.edu
Background: Transfer
• Students substantially struggle in transferring writing skills from
high school to college, throughout college courses, and from
college to the workplace (Carson, Chase, & Gibson, 1993;
Beaufort, 2007; Driscoll, 2011; Wardle, 2009; Beaufort, 2007).
• New views of transfer (Driscoll & Wells, 2012; Lobato, 2003;
Schwartz, Bransford, & Sears; Slomp; Wardle) stress the
interaction between individual and context as key to investigating
how learning transfers from original to subsequent contexts. Like
traditional theories, these new views highlight the role of
metacognition in promoting transfer.
• Most of the transfer research we have is from single-institution
studies and describes what is happening; the goal of our project
is to approach transfer research from a cross-institutional,
longitudinal perspective.
Background: WAW, Metacognition,
and Reflection
• Metacognition (described as one of the eight “Habits of Mind”) is a
student’s ability to recognize learning processes and to regulate their
learning processes (Schraw and Dennison, 1994)
• Scholars contend that students’ struggle concerning transfer results, in
part, from the entrenched approach to teaching FYW which has
traditionally lacked content knowledge about writing (Beaufort, 2007).
• Some argue that FYW should emphasize metacognition and acquaint
students with research and theory on writing by using the writing
about writing (WAW) approach (Downs & Wardle, 2007).
• Scholars like Yancey(1998) and Taczak (2011) advocate using reflection
in composition pedagogy because it both fosters transfer and reveals
writers’ metacognition.
Research Questions
Overarching research question: What is the effect of a
WAW/highly rhetorical curriculum on transfer of learning, as
explored in diverse writing course contexts?
This presentation addresses the following questions:
• Are the courses in our study effective in producing better
writers?
• Are the courses in our study effective in encouraging
metacognition and transfer in terms of:
• transfer-focused thinking to the future?
• transfer while students are enrolled in their initial course?
• adaptation of prior knowledge to tasks while in the course?
• How does transfer-focused thinking show up beyond the
courses?
Methodology – Study Sites &
Participants
• Year 1 participants are from….
• 2 FYW sections at a mid-sized Northeastern Catholic University
(Seton Hall University, New Jersey)
• 25 sections of FYW courses and 1 section of an upper-level course at
a suburban mid-sized public Midwestern university (Oakland
University, Michigan)
• 9 sections of a sophomore/junior-level writing course at a large
urban public Midwestern urban university (Wayne State, Michigan)
• 14 sections of FYW courses at a large private Northeastern urban
university (George Washington University, Washington D.C.)
• Year 2 participants are a sampling of students from Year 1, and
include….
•
•
•
•
7 students from the two FYW sections at SHU
15 students from the sophomore/junior-level sections at WSU
7 students from the upper-level writing course at OU
22 students from the FYW sections at GWU
Methodology – Data Collection
• During Year 1, 2011-2012, we collected the following data:
• pre- and post-semester writing samples to examine change over
time
• self-reflections from across the semester to understand the role
of reflective writing in transfer and related areas
• pre- and post-semester Writing Knowledge Transfer survey
responses about student writing strategies, beliefs, perceptions,
and dispositions to understand self-reported beliefs/attitudes
related to transfer
• During Year 2, 2012-2013, we collected the following data:
• 60 minute in-depth interviews on writing, transfer, and related
areas
• WID writing samples from each interviewee
• Follow-up Writing Knowledge Transfer Survey responses
Methodology – Rating and
Coding
• Development of shared research methods, analysis methods, and
rating/coding approaches
• Met at ELON seminar for preparation and analysis work (2011, 2012,
2013); met at GWU for a coding week in August 2012 & June 2013
• Raters/coders were trained graduate student teachers working in
the WID program at GWU (24 in year 1; 31 in year 2)
• They rated:
• Student writing:
• 208 Year 1 writing samples (68 matched pairs)
• 66 Year 2 writing samples
• Examined: Audience, Role of Sources, Use of Genre: Purpose and
Development, Contextualizing; Genre-driven organization, style
• Student reflective writing:
• 398 reflective pieces of writing with 98 possible codes; codes were
applied 14,127 times
• Coded 38 interviews in Year 2
• Examined: Transfer-focused thinking, writing knowledge, metacognitive
strategies, sense of identity as writers, writing-related dispositions
Methodology – Data Analysis
• Inferential and descriptive statistical analysis of the pre- and
post- writing samples from year 1 (paired samples t-test,
effect size, means)
• Inter-rater reliability calculations were done to see how
closely our raters and coders coded (on the fly during year 2,
and post-rating during year 1)
• Codes were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively
• Quantitatively, we examined patterns in the number of codes, the
kinds of assignments, and the kinds of students over time
• Qualitatively, we examined the nature of the comments, how
students were framing their experiences
• We are in the process of this analysis work now, and expect to
find much more as we continue to dig into the data (especially
from year 2)
Year 1 Results: Writing Analysis
• We were able to compare 68 sets of student papers from writing
collected prior to the beginning of the semester to the end of the
term (across four universities). Students showed significant
improvement in writing while enrolled in our courses (p<0.001;
effect size 0.385).
3.2
3.1607
3.1
3
Prior to Start of
Term
2.9
2.8
2.7
2.775
2.6
2.5
Mean Paper Score
End of Term
Year 1 Results: Writing Analysis
3.16
Mean of all scores
2.78
3.37
Style
3.06
3.03
Organization
2.69
3.04
Contextualizing
2.63
3.15
Genre
2.71
3.13
Use of Sources
2.74
3.19
Audience
2.9
0
0.5
1
1.5
End of WAW Semester
2
2.5
3
Pre-Semester
All of the results are significant at the p<0.02 level or above.
3.5
4
Key areas for a Metacognitive
Understanding of Transfer
• Emphasis in this talk is on transfer-focused metacognitive
processes, which we call “transfer-focused thinking”
• These include three areas (generated from our dataset):
• Anticipating connections to future contexts
• What (learning strategies, writing and rhetorical knowledge, content
knowledge)
• Where (educational, professional, personal, general connections)
• Prior Knowledge (from previous course to current writing course)
• Anticipating prior knowledge’s usefulness in present setting
• Using/adapting prior knowledge and dealing with challenges
• Negative transfer
• Using Knowledge and Skills (from current course to other context)
• What (learning strategies, writing and rhetorical knowledge, content
knowledge)
• Where (educational, professional, personal, general connections)
• Negative transfer / Challenges
Transfer-focused Thinking: Anticipating Future Connections
Type of Connection (What, where)
Connection to future educational
experiences (where)
Number of
times coded in
reflective
writing in 398
documents
(year 1)
Number of
times coded in
36 interviews
(year 2)
119
12
Connection to future personal life (where)
Connection to future professional life
(where)
10
1
82
8
General connection to future (where)
94
4
Learning Strategies (what)
67
2
Non-writing content (what)
12
3
Unclear/unknown connection
3
2
Writing & Rhetorical knowledge (what)
212
13
Total Anticipating Connections Made
599
45
Transfer: Prior Knowledge
Type of Prior Knowledge
Number of
times coded
in 398
documents
(Y1)
Number of
times coded
in 38
interviews
(Y2)
Anticipating Prior Knowledge
108
6
Challenge with Prior Knowledge
68
37
Negative/Unsure About Prior knowledge
46
14
Using prior knowledge unsuccessfully
6
5
Using/Adapting Prior knowledge successfully 29
66
Transfer: Using knowledge/skills
Type of knowledge/skill use
Number of
times coded in
398 documents
(Y1)
Number of
times coded in
38 interviews
(Y2)
General use of knowledge/skills
31
122
Adapting knowledge
Connection to current educational life
(where)
Connection to current personal life
(where)
Connection to current professional life
(where)
2
6
23
76
8
6
4
12
Learning Strategies (what)
0
5
Negative Transfer
1
7
Non-writing content (what)
1
7
Writing & Rhetorical knowledge (what)
10
98
Reflective Example
• “At the beginning of the semester after being introduced to
the framework of this course I was somewhat skeptical. The
idea of being a pilot course for what sounds to be a study on
our class to see how it can be beneficial to students in the
future did not really seem too inviting….As time has gone on
my perspective towards our English 3010 course has changed
for the better. After being taught more in depth about the
meaning of the ideas for this course such as “discourse
community” and how it relates to our professional outlook I
was able to grasp a better understanding for what the purpose
of this course really is…For example, I feel as though being a
novice in a particular field such as accounting, the idea of
genre analysis and its function helps me to identify the
different areas of writing within that field and its purpose and
convention that I would not have been able to before.”
Discussion - Results
To summarize, our initial analysis of data suggests the following:
• Reflective writing prompts that scaffold in a WAW course can be
useful in encouraging transfer-focused thinking, especially
towards future activity
• Students report a *lot* of transfer-focused thinking and
anticipating use of prior knowledge in year 1, but we see less
evidence in their reflections of actual use in year 1 (by that we
mean descriptions of what they did and how they used it)
• In year 2, however, students report transferring knowledge in
their courses.
• We also saw very positive results in students’ growth as writers in
all of these courses
Discussion – Reflective
Prompts
• Reflective writing prompts can be shared across
very diverse courses to better compare and
study student writing and thinking at different
levels and institutions
• Reflection can be used as a pedagogical,
research, and assessment tool
Multi-Institutional Research
• Need to go beyond single-site or single-class studies of
transfer.
• Multi-institutional research allows for
generalizabilty/aggregability and understanding nuances in
context.
• A multi-level study has the potential to reveal which factors
related to knowledge transfer are more important at different
points in a student’s development.
• In addition, we are developing a methodology for conducting
multi-institutional writing transfer research that can be replicated
and expanded by other scholars (as described in “MultiInstitutional Research and Generalizability: The Case for the
Writing Transfer Project” currently in preparation)
References
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Beaufort, A. (2007). College writing and beyond: A new framework for university writing instruction. . Utah: Utah
State UP.
Carson, J. G., Chase, N. D., and Gibson, S. U. (1993). Academic demands of the undergraduate curriculum: What
students need. Washington, DC: Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.
Downs, D., & Wardle, E. (2007). Teaching about writing, righting misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning “first-year
composition" as “introduction to writing studies.” College Composition and Communication, 58(4), 552-584.
Driscoll, D. L. (2011). Connected, disconnected, or uncertain: Student attitudes about future writing contexts and
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Driscoll, D. L., & Wells, J. (2012). Beyond knowledge and skills: Writing transfer and the role of student
dispositions. Composition Forum, 26.
Lobato, J. (2003). How design experiments can inform a rethinking of transfer and vice versa. Educational
Researcher, 32(1), 17-20.
National Research Council (1999). How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington D.C.:
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National Science Foundation. “Transfer of Learning: Issues and Research Agenda.” NSF Workshop Report, 2002.
Web. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2003/nsf03212/nsf03212.pdf
Schraw, G., & Dennison, R. S. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary Educational Psychology,
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Schwartz, D. L., Bransford, J. D., and Sears, D. (2005). Efficiency and innovation in transfer.” Transfer of Learning
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Taczak, K. (2011). "Connecting the dotsaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning "First-Year
Composition" as "Introduction to : Does reflection foster transfer?” Ph.D., Florida State University, Tallahassee.
Wardle, E. (2009). "Mutt genres" and the goal of FYC: Can we help students write the genres of the university?
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