a research proposal for my year one phd methods class
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McElroy 1 Stephen McElroy Research Proposal April 23, 2011 Multimodal Composing in the FSU Digital Studio Problem/Statement of Purpose The purpose of the proposed study is to investigate the nature of the work being done by students in the FSU Digital Studio and to illuminate that work with those students’ values, motivations, and understandings about that work. The now threeyearold Studio, located in the Williams Building (which building houses the English department), is a unique site that offers unique opportunities to students from all the colleges and departments across campus – to work individually or collaboratively, by themselves or with the assistance of a tutor, on digital and multimedia projects. I argue that the Digital Studio also offers unique opportunities for research that can advance our field’s understanding of digital and multimedia composing, of which variety of research this study aims to be an entry point. Review of Research A Digital Curriculum Emerges Since at least the early 1980’s, the computer (and more specifically back in those days, the word processor), with its affordances for digital composing, has been the subject of great interest to scholars in the field of Rhetoric and Composition. The May 1983 issue of College Composition and Communication, for instance, saw three articles on the utility of the word processor. In one, Collette A Daiute dutifully describes, for those who had never seen one, the elements and functions of a computer (Daiute). In another, John C. Bean,
Transcript
McElroy 1
Stephen McElroy
Research Proposal
April 23, 2011
Multimodal Composing in the FSU Digital Studio
Problem/Statement of Purpose
The purpose of the proposed study is to investigate the nature of the work being
done by students in the FSU Digital Studio and to illuminate that work with those students’
values, motivations, and understandings about that work. The now three-‐year-‐old Studio,
located in the Williams Building (which building houses the English department), is a
unique site that offers unique opportunities to students -‐-‐ from all the colleges and
departments across campus – to work individually or collaboratively, by themselves or
with the assistance of a tutor, on digital and multimedia projects. I argue that the Digital
Studio also offers unique opportunities for research that can advance our field’s
understanding of digital and multimedia composing, of which variety of research this study
aims to be an entry point.
Review of Research
A Digital Curriculum Emerges
Since at least the early 1980’s, the computer (and more specifically back in those
days, the word processor), with its affordances for digital composing, has been the subject
of great interest to scholars in the field of Rhetoric and Composition. The May 1983 issue
of College Composition and Communication, for instance, saw three articles on the utility of
the word processor. In one, Collette A Daiute dutifully describes, for those who had never
seen one, the elements and functions of a computer (Daiute). In another, John C. Bean,
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describing a project which focused on the advantages of revising with a word processor,
expresses in passing his and his colleagues’ discomfort with composing “directly at the
terminal[‘s ‘video-‐screen’]” (146). Only a few months later Cynthia Selfe published her
editorial in the first issue of Computers and Composition, which journal has since only
grown in popularity and stature. Since then, the role of the computer in the eyes of the
profession and the culture at large has shifted from one as a helpful (and neutral) tool to
one as an acting and integral participant in the makeup of society (Latour). Our
understanding of digital composing and our curriculum, however, has been notably slow
(and in some cases accompanied with reluctance) to catch up (C. Selfe).
Aside from recent developments that are described below, such slowness (or
reluctance) has likewise characterized the conceptions of digital composing in writing
centers. As Pemberton explains in his 2003 Writing Center Journal article, the “relationship
between writing centers and computer technology has been, overall, only a cordial one”
(11). Computers, says Pemberton, have been used in writing centers “sometimes as
writing tools, sometimes as teaching devices, and sometimes as communications media”
(11). Despite these digital integrations, “most of the interactions between students and
tutors [in writing centers] still center on the handwritten or printed texts that are placed
on a table between them or, perhaps, shared in a word-‐processed file” (9). Of the many
possible factors that play into this mere cordiality between computers and writing centers
besides suspicion on the part of writing center directors brought on by what Pemberton
calls perceived “incipient threats” is a curriculum that is broadly founded on the creation of
print-‐based texts.
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That foundation would soon become the object of scrutiny. Only months after
Pemberton’s writing, Kathleen Blake Yancey, delivering her chair’s address at the 2004
Conference on College Composition and Communication, called on the field to “revisit and
revise our writing-‐across-‐the-‐curriculum efforts, develop a major in composition and
rhetoric,” and also develop “a new curriculum for the 21st century,” a curriculum that
“brings together writing outside of school and that inside” (308). She continued:
This composition is located in a new vocabulary, a new set of practices, and a new
set of outcomes; it will focus our research in new and provocative ways; it has as its
goal the creation of thoughtful, informed, technologically adept writing publics. This
goal entails the other two: extending this new composition curriculum horizontally
throughout the academy and extending it vertically through our own major. (308)
With the development and enactment of this new curriculum, one which saw as one of its
aims “technologically adept” composing, it rightly follows that a new kind of support
mechanism for this kind of composing, one analogous to writing centers’ support for
alphabetic texts, would be needed. How the FSU Digital Studio (and sites like it) addresses
that need is described below.
But first, a brief overview of how the stage was set for Yancey’s “moment.”
Technology Proliferates
In the decade following our field’s recognition of the affordances of the word
processor, advancements in computer technology and the then-‐fledgling internet captured
the imaginations of American citizens and with them the interests of the nation’s
policymakers. In 1991, the High Performance Computing and Communication Act was
enacted by Congress under the sponsorship of Al Gore, Jr., officially making a nation-‐wide,
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high-‐speed computer network the government’s goal. Two years later, the Clinton
administration published The National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action, which
concluded, “America’s Destiny is Linked to our Information Infrastructure” (Agenda). Then
in 1996, the “Technology Literacy Challenge” was issued, linking the country’s destiny
more specifically with its children’s “computer skills and the ability to use computers and
other technology to improve learning, productivity, and performance” (Getting 5).
Meanwhile, educators and scholars from around the globe took notice of how the
rapid advancements brought on by initiatives like those in the United States were changing
the nature of communication. While policymakers pushed for computer skills, these
scholars began to investigate what effects the proliferation of these skills and their use
would have on how people interact with one another. In 1996, The New London Group
(NLG), in their “attempt to broaden [the] understanding of literacy” to one of
“multiliteracies,” proposed a new conception of literacy pedagogy that would
account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and
multimedia technologies. This includes understanding and competent control of
representational forms that are becoming increasingly significant in the overall
communications environment, such as visual images and their relationship to the
written word -‐-‐ for instance, visual design in desktop publishing or the interface of
visual and linguistic meaning in multimedia. (61)
The NLG noted that changes in the “communications environment,” brought on by
technology and globalization, required educators to complicate and expand their
commitment to teaching “mere literacy” (which, said the NLG “remains centered on
language only”) to include also “the increasing multiplicity and integration of significant
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modes of meaning-‐making, where the textual is also related to the visual, the audio, the
spatial, the behavioral, and so on” (64). In other words, whereas the US government was
saying that technology offers new affordances and therefore we must learn how to use
them, the NLG was saying that technology offers new affordances and therefore we must
learn how they are being used and how those uses effect communication.
Citing the Clinton initiatives, Cynthia Selfe offered a third perspective in her 1998
CCCC Chair’s Address. Instead of advocating for students to be taught how to use
technology or for them to engage with how those technologies were affecting their
communication, Selfe argued that teachers needed to be more cognizant of the computer’s
“use in teaching composition” (412). Addressing her colleagues in rhetoric and
composition, Selfe warned that as a field, they had “relegated [computer] technologies into
the background of our professional lives” (413). This relegation, she claimed, was
“dangerously shortsighted” because it allowed scholars to ignore “how technology is
inextricably linked to literacy and literacy education in this country,” which ignoring would
make them complicit in contributing to the continuation of inequality along lines of access
to technology and technological training (414). Selfe’s conclusion was that scholars needed
to “pay attention” to “the social, economic, and pedagogical implications that affect their
lives,” to enact an approach of “critical technological literacy” (432).
The years following Selfe’s address (which she expanded into a book), indeed saw
increased attention to the use of technology in the classroom (Duffelmeyer). Meanwhile,
the efforts by the Clinton administration and the telecommunications industries were
successful in ensuring the integration of the internet into the daily affairs of citizens and
businesses everywhere. The popularity of mobile computing, social networking, and Web
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2.0, each an outgrowth of the internet, created even more opportunities for new varieties of
communication. Yancey pointed to these technologies in her CCCC Chair’s Address, and
they have since been the subject of studies for their classroom applications (Evans; Vie).
These and other studies are evidence of the fact that, just as Yancey envisioned, the
curriculum is changing. How these changes have altered (or not altered) the nature of
writing center work and created the impetus for sites like the FSU Digital Studio is the
subject of the next section.
The “Multiliteracy Center”
While curricula have been changed by new technologies as Yancey envisioned,
theorists have also attempted to make sense of the new communication environment.
Others speculated about what the new environment would mean for writing centers.
Selber argued for “rhetorical literacy” – “the thoughtful integration of functional and critical
abilities in the design and evaluation of computer interfaces” (145). Gunther Kress, a
member of the NLG, more recently made strides toward forming a theory of multimodal
communication that takes into account the many different modes afforded by modern
technologies (Multimodality). In the September 2010 special issue of College Composition
and Communication, Steven Fraiberg showed how “attention to the tying and untying of
these text, tools, and objects – knotworking – is key to the study of the production,
distribution, reception, and representation of multilingual-‐multimodal texts” (114). John
Trimbur, borrowing a term from the NLG, foreshadowed in 2000 these theorists’ work and
the effects thereof on writing centers:
My guess is that writing centers will more and more define themselves as
multiliteracy centers. Many are already doing so -‐-‐ tutoring oral presentations,
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adding online tutorials, offering workshops in evaluating web sources, being more
conscious of document design. To my mind, the new digital literacies will
increasingly be incorporated into writing centers not just as sources of information
or delivery systems for tutoring but as productive arts in their own right, and
writing center work will, if anything, become more rhetorical in paying attention to
the practices and effects of design in written and visual communication— more
product oriented and perhaps less like the composing conferences of the process
movement. (29-‐30)
True to Trimbur’s prediction, these kinds of sites have been popping up around the
country, but contrary to Trimbur’s belief, they have been doing so as additions to the
writing centers already in place – not replacing them. As Dickie Selfe explains, writing
centers are “safe in the sense that they have a remarkably important nexus of student
learning needs that are not likely to fade…Those colleagues and centers that wish to remain
committed to the alphabetic…can afford to do so” (110). In addition to the Digital Studio at
FSU, there are a number of other sites whose focus is on multimodal work. The recently
opened NOEL Studio at EKU is one example. The New Media Writing Studio at TCU is
another. The Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication at Clemson, whose opening
predated the others listed here, is one that has been written about by Gresham and Yancey.
These sites work alongside their respective institution’s traditional writing center, where
alphabetic texts remain the focus.
The differences between a traditional writing center and a site like the Digital
Studio, however, are not limited to the kinds of texts (i.e. alphabetic vs. multimodal) they
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focus on. In their description of the Class of 1941 Studio’s opening, Gresham and Yancey set
up another major distinction between a “studio” and a “center”:
This center, now also called the Pearce Studio, is like the “studio” model of
composition of instruction (Grego) and unlike it, and also like a Writing Center and
unlike it. Like the studio model of composition, the Pearce Studio includes writing
and fosters collaboration, but it’s not a site for courses. Like a writing center, it
assists students to develop process and product, but those products include posters
and speeches as often as print texts. (13)
A studio, Gresham and Yancey explain, offers opportunities for flexible collaboration and is
not limited to conferences between a single student and a single tutor for an allotted
amount of time.
Fishman also discusses the Clemson Studio in a chapter in the edited collection,
Multiliteracy Centers: Writing Center Work, New Media, and Multimodal Rhetoric. In it, she
notes the many differences between writing centers and multiliteracy centers while also
implicitly drawing some comparisons. Students like one who came to the Studio just to get
someone to “make my pictures show up on my web page,” she explains, “do not want
lessons on rhetoric and communication… They want solutions to their problems” (62).
This student is not unlike one who swings by a writing center on her way to class to have
her paper proofread before she turns it in. Often, as Fishman notes, students such as these,
tutors, and even administrators have a different understanding of the center’s (of both the
writing and multiliteracy variety) purpose.
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The FSU Digital Studio: A Site for Research
Dickie Selfe points to the kind of institutional uncertainty that Fishman notes and to
the uncertainty that Kress articulates when Kress says that “there are no values, no reliable
or agreed structures” in the face of emerging technologies and approaches. Selfe, in the
same collection in which Fishman writes, proclaims:
We need to explore the multimodal workflow of the disciplines, students, and
professionals around us. Why? Because we (English studies faculty) know so little
about the complex working conditions of multimodal communicators across the
disciplines. Without this cumulative knowledge, we cannot anticipate the needs of
academic or professional learner/communicators, much less apply our humanistic
attitudes, critical approaches, and ethical concerns to those needs and practices.
(113).
Selfe advocates more research into how students and professionals across disciplines
compose mutlimodally. Only then can we know what a “multiliteracy center” should be.
Seen in light of Selfe’s concerns, the FSU Digital Studio becomes not only a studio
where students can come to compose digitally and to get help with their multimedia
compositions but also a lab for research into multimodal composing itself. The Digital
Studio becomes a space where we can investigate how students from across disciplines
compose multimodally – what modes they use, what tools they use to create meaning with
those modes, what frames of understanding students bring with them to their texts to
assemble those modes, etc. We have the theories from scholars like Kress, who tells us
what multimodal communication looks like in theory. But what does multimodal
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composing look like in action? The Digital Studio offers us a venue for this kind of
investigation.
Research Question
Based on the purview outlined above, my question, broadly, is: what kinds of
composing do the visitors of the FSU Digital Studio do, and what do those compositions
look like? More specifically, what media are they using? What are their chosen modes?
What are their motivations for composing in a particular way? In Kress’s terms, what
conscious/willing decisions go into their textual ensembles (e.g. did a software limitation
cause the student to do a PowerPoint presentation instead of a video)? In Fraiberg’s terms,
what strands are students in the Digital Studio knotting together (e.g. how many computing
devices did the student use in the composing of one text; how many people’s
input/feedback did the student receive)? Etc.
Subject of Study
The subjects of this study are student visitors of the Digital Studio and their
multimodal texts. In my effort to engage with the problem as stated by R. Selfe (i.e. that we
know too little about the conditions of multimodal composing across the disciplines), I
have chosen these subjects for two reasons. The first is that if we want to look at
multimodal composing, we should go to a place where we know that is happening – and I
know that students in the FSU Digital Studio are composing multimodally because I work
there and see it happening. The second is that students from across the disciplines come
the Studio. Granted, more students from the EWM major than from any other major visit,
but we still see cross-‐discipline composing.
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I want to study both the students and their texts because I believe that one will
inform the other and vice-‐versa. I can ask students about their texts, and they may answer
honestly to the best of their ability, but I may not be able to (a) envision the text or describe
it my audience without seeing/showing it nor (b) get the student to communicate
effectively with me about the different elements of the text (i.e., we will almost certainly not
be using the same vocabulary to talk about these things). On the other hand, the text alone
will not be able to tell me what the student was thinking through the process, what the
assignment was the created the impetus for the test, or even what software package(s) the
student used for the composition. In other words, what the student can tell me about their
processes and what the text can tell me about the elements and modes therein will create a
more robust understanding of multimodal composing.
Methodology
My study will be broken down into two separate stages of data collection. The first
will comprise an online survey that I will send to visitors of the studio (who provide their
email address to begin each visit), the ultimate aim of which will be to achieve and to
convey a better understanding of the wide array of processes, needs, motivations, and
concerns of the body of students who visit the studio. In the second stage, which will
provide a more direct, focused, and ground-‐level view of the composing happening in the
Studio, I will select five students (based on their major, which would optimally be varied,
and a combination of their survey responses, my own observations, and those of other
tutors in the Studio), collect their texts for analysis, and interview them about their
experience composing in and around the Digital Studio.
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The survey will be delivered online. I will send an email to each student with an
introductory paragraph, explaining about the survey and why I am asking students to take
it. I will also provide them with a consent form, which they will have to return to me before
receiving the link to the survey. The survey will consist of in between 30 and 40 questions;
the total number of questions presented to each student will depend on her answers to the
questions. I.e., some of the questions’ appearances on the survey are dependent on what
answer a student provides on another question. My questions, a sample list of which is
provided in Appendix A, are worded to engage the student in an assessment of her
experience with the Studio. There are also some evaluative questions, the answers to
which may aid in the selection for interview process. For instance, if someone answered
that the Digital Studio was integral to the completion of her project, yet said she was
dissatisfied with the experience, that may be an indication that there is something about
the story of her composing experience that would make it a good candidate for the second
stage.
Not only will I be looking for anomalies when I analyze the survey results, but I’ll
also be compiling them (i.e. the results) and running some really basic statistical analysis.
Even if I have a good response rate, my sample will be non-‐representative and of
convenience. After I’ve done this analysis, I’ll move on to stage two, at which point I will
collect texts and conduct interviews of the selected subjects.
The interview questions will largely depend on a few components: (1) the
interviewee’s composition (I wouldn’t want to ask about video equipment with someone
who made a PowerPoint presentation), which I will collect before doing the interview; (2)
the interviewee’s answers to the survey questions; and (3) observations made by either
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myself or by another tutor during the interviewees use of the Digital Studio. In most cases,
however, the interview will mostly be about getting the student to explain the different
aspects of their composition and how that composition came together. For instance, if a
student responds on her survey that she used 4-‐5 different computing devices, I might ask
her to tell me about those devices and why she chose (or was forced) to use them.
I will code the interviews according to an inductive scheme, which scheme will
depend on the interviewees’ responses themselves. I will also code the students’ texts with
inductive schemes, schemes which will likely change for each text because of the likelihood
of variance in medium and platform. A sample coding scheme of a student text can be
found at <http://stephenjmcelroy.com/methods>.
I will compile all results, interpret them, and explain my findings in a publication to
follow. Further research may be suggested. A diagram of this study design can be found in
Appendix B.
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Works Cited
“Agenda for Action.” IBIBLIO.ORG. Web. 25 April 2011.
Bean, John C. “Computerized Word-‐Processor as an Aid to Revision.” College Composition
and Communication. 34.2 (1983): 146-‐148. JSTOR. 25 April 2011.
Daiute, Colette A. “The Computer as Stylus and Audience.” College Composition and
Communication. 34.2 (1983): 134-‐145. JSTOR. 25 April 2011.
Duflemeyer, Barbara Blakely. “Critical Computer Literacy: Computers in First-‐year
Composition as Topic and Environment.” Computers and Composition. 17
(2000): 289-‐307. Elsevier. Web. 25 April 2011.
Evans, Ellen and Po, Jeanne. “A break in the transaction: Examining students’ responses to
digital texts.” Computers and Composition. 24 (2007): 56-‐73. Elsevier. Web. 25 April
2011.
Fishman, Teddi. “When it isn’t Even on the Page: Peer Consulting in Multimedia
Environments.” Multiliteracy Centers: Writing Center Work, New Media, and
Multimodal Rhetoric. Eds. David M. Sheridan and James A. Inman. Cresskill:
Hampton P, 2010.
Fraiberg, Steven. “Composition 2.0: Toward a Multilingual and Multimodal Framework.”
College Composition and Communication. 62.1 (2010): 100-‐126.
Getting America’s Students Ready for the 21st Century: Meeting the Technology Literacy
Challenge. June 1996. ERIC. Web. 27 March 2011.
Kress, Gunther. “’English’ at a Crossroads: Rethinking Curricula of Communication in the
Context of the Turn to the Visual.” Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century
Technologies. Eds. Gail Hawisher and Cynthia L Selfe. Logan: Utah State UP, 1999.
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+++ Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. New York:
Routledge, 2009. Print.
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.
The New London Group. “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures.” Harvard
Educational Review. 66.1 (1996): 60-‐92.
Pemberton, Michael. “Planning for Hypertexts in the Writing Center… Or Not.” The Writing
Center Journal 24.1 (2004): 9-‐24.
Selber, Stuart A. Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Carbondale: SIUP, 1999.
Selfe, Cynthia L. “Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying
Attention.” College Composition and Communication. 50.3 (1999): 411-‐436.
ProQuest. Web. 23 April 2011.
Selfe, Richard (Dickie). “Anticipating the Momentum of Cyborg Communicative Events.”
Multiliteracy Centers: Writing Center Work, New Media, and Multimodal Rhetoric.
Eds. David M. Sheridan and James A. Inman. Cresskill: Hampton P, 2010.
Trimbur, John. “Multiliteracies, Social Futures, and Writing Centers.” The Writing Center
Journal 20.2 (2000): 29-‐32.
Vie, Stephanie. “Digitial Divide 2.0: ‘Generation M’ and Online Social Networking Sites in
the Composition Classroom.” Computers and Composition. 25 (2008): 9-‐23. Elsevier.
Web. 25 April 2011.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key.”
College Composition and Communication. 56.2 (2004): 297-‐328.
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*The following questions are roughly in the order that they may appear on the actual survey. The questions that begin with “If” will only appear on the online survey if the student fits the requirement of the question. How did you learn about the Digital Studio?
• Professor/Instructor • Academic Advisor • Class Presentation • Fellow Student • Other
If other, please explain: ______ How many times have you visited the Digital Studio?
• 1-‐2 • 3-‐5 • 5-‐10 • More than 10
What kinds of activities have you done in the Digital Studio (select all that apply)?
• Brainstorming • Learning Software • Help With Specific Technical Question • Drafting of Digital Project • Revising Digital Project
Did you schedule an appointment to work in the Digital Studio, or did you just walk in?
• Scheduled an appointment • Walked in • I have both scheduled appointments and walked in.
Did you come to the Digital Studio to work on or get help with a class assignment, or did you come to work on or get help with something unrelated to any class?
• I came to the Digital Studio to work on or get help with a class assignment. • I came to the Digital Studio to work on or get help with something unrelated to any
class. • I have come to the Digital Studio to work on or get help with both class assignments
and projects unrelated to any class. If you came to the Digital Studio for projects unrelated to any class, were those projects totally personal, or were they related to your position as student in the University?
• My projects were totally personal. • My projects were related to my position as student in the University.
Did you go to the Digital Studio just to work or to get help from a tutor?
• Just to work
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• To get help from a tutor If to get help from a tutor, did you seek an appointment or time your visit to work with a specific tutor?
• Yes, I sought help with a specific tutor. • No, I did not care which tutor helped me.
If you sought help with a specific tutor, why did you most seek help with that specific tutor?
• Knowledge about a particular software package. • Knowledge about a particular kind of assignment. • Previous interaction with tutor in the Digital Studio. • A friend or instructor gave me the tutor’s name.
Even if you did not seek tutor assistance in the Digital Studio, did a tutor talk to you about your project or the goals for your visit?
• Yes, a tutor talked to me about my project or the goals for my visit. • No, a tutor did not talk to me about my project or the goals for my visit.
How much interaction did you seek with the Digital Studio staff?
• I sought constant interaction with the Digital Studio staff. • I sought frequent interaction with the Digital Studio staff. • I sought occasional interaction with the Digital Studio staff. • I sought no interaction with the Digital Studio staff.
How much interaction did you experience with the Digital Studio staff?
• I had constant interaction with the Digital Studio staff. • I had frequent interaction with the Digital Studio staff. • I had occasional interaction with the Digital Studio staff. • I had no interaction with the Digital Studio staff.
How would you rate your level of interaction with the Digital Studio staff?
• Too much interaction with the Digital Studio staff. • The right amount of interaction with the Digital Studio staff. • Not enough interaction with the Digital Studio staff.
How did your expectations about the nature of the Digital Studio before your first visit align with your actual Studio experience?
• My expectations were completely met by the experience. • My expectations were somewhat met by my experience. • My expectations were somewhat different from my experience. • My expectations were completely different from my experience.
If your expectations were completely different from your experience, please briefly explain why: ___
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What kinds of things did you expect to find in the Digital Studio before your first visit (check all that apply)?
• Ample space to work individually and in groups. • Up-‐to-‐date computer technology. • Wide selection of latest productive software/applications. • Friendly/knowledgeable staff. • Workstations with two monitors. • Printing Capabilities • Scanning Capabilities • Video/audio recording equipment
Which of the following things did you actually find in the Digital Studio in your visit(s) (check all that apply)?
• Ample space to work individually and in groups. • Up-‐to-‐date computer technology. • Wide selection of latest productive software/applications. • Friendly/knowledgeable staff. • Workstations with two monitors. • Printing Capabilities • Scanning Capabilities • Video/audio recording equipment
For the project or goals that you worked on in the Digital Studio, how much of that project or those goals would you best say were completed in the Studio?
• All of my project or goals were completed in the Studio. • Most of my project or goals were completed in the Studio. • Some of my project or goals were completed in the Studio. • None of my project or goals were completed in the Studio.
If most, some, or none of your project or goals were completed in the Studio, in what other spaces were your project or goals completed (check all that apply)?
• Dorm, Home, or Apartment • Library • In outdoor campus setting • In off-‐campus setting • Classroom
In your best estimation, how many different computing workstations or devices (personal, workplace, or university-‐owned laptop, desktop, smartphone, tablet PC, etc.) did you directly interact with to complete your project or goals?
• 1 • 2-‐3 • 4-‐5 • 6 or more
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Did you receive help on your project or goals from anyone other than the tutors in the Digital Studio?
• Yes, I received help outside the Digital Studio. • No, I did not receive any help outside the Digital Studio.
If you did receive help outside the Digital Studio, from whom did you receive help (check all that apply)?
• Instructor • Friend • Parent • Academic Advisor • Classmate • Library or University staff
How integral was the Digital Studio in the completion of your project or goals?
• The Digital Studio was absolutely integral to the completion of my project or goals. • The Digital Studio was very integral to the completion of my project or goals. • The Digital Studio was somewhat integral to the completion of my project or goals. • The Digital Studio was not at all integral to the completion of my project or goals.
What kinds of software did you use in the Digital Studio (check all that apply)?
• Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) • Adobe applications (Acrobat, Photoshop, InDesign) • Free web applications (Wix, Weebly, Vuvox, Prexi, etc.) • Other
If other, please explain: ________________ How satisfied are you with your overall experience with the Digital Studio?
• Very satisfied • Somewhat satisfied • Somewhat dissatisfied • Very dissatisfied
How likely are you to use the Digital Studio again?
• Very likely • Somewhat likely • Somewhat unlikely • Very unlikely
How likely are you to recommend the Digital Studio to a friend?
• Very likely • Somehwhat likely • Somewhat unlikely • Very unlikely
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Phase
Procedure
• Web-‐based survey/ questionnaire (N>30 [selection of N from visitors to the Studio])
• Compilation/ breakdown of survey results
• Search for trends and unique cases in responses
• Purposefully selecting 5 participants from N based on responses and tutor observations
• Develop interview questions
• Collection of students’ texts • Individual in-‐depth personal
interviews with participants • Potential follow-‐up emails
• Coding and modal analysis of texts
• Coding and inductive scheme / analysis of interviews
• Interpretation and explanation of QUAN/QUAL results
