Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

With almost no exceptions, scholarship on writing transfer has been situated in face-to-face writing courses; any unique affordances and challenges OWI has for writing transfer are largely unknown. This study addressed that unknown territory through a convergent mixed methods research design involving students and instructors of online first-year writing courses at BGSU. The student-focused portion of the study, examining how students' perceptions of writing and themselves as writers developed during the course, involved a survey, given at the bookends of the Spring 2020 semester, and follow-up interviews with four of the survey participants. The faculty-focused portion involved a series of interviews supplemented with artifact collection in order to learn about how writing faculty practiced transfer-oriented pedagogy in online courses. The student portion of the study revealed a complex response to OWI, certainly complicated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that had quickly dominated life in the Spring 2020 semester. While data suggested some changes to students' perceptions about writing and writing transfer, the largest shifts occurred in response to questions about their perceptions of themselves as writers and their dispositions toward writing, with both negative and positive results. The faculty portion of the study revealed that faculty, though varied in their approaches toward adapting pedagogy for online courses, included dispositional development within their teaching goals and philosophies and responded, in their varied pedagogies, to the lack of immediacy that characterizes online learning. The alignment of dispositional goals named by faculty and the attitudes toward writing and learning reported by students suggests that OWI may offer positive development of certain learning dispositions toward writing transfer. This research suggests that writing instructors and program administrators should consider intentional alignment of dispositions w (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Neil Baird (Advisor); Neal Jesse (Other); Dan Bommarito (Committee Member); Scott Warnock (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Pedagogy

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Instructional Technology (Education)

This qualitative study explores faculty responses to student plagiarism in relation to the use or non-use of plagiarism detection software. The faculty participants responded to intentional and unintentional student plagiarism through a teaching lens by teaching students academic writing skills and/or life lessons on personality integrity. Pedagogical interventions were used by the participants to deter student plagiarism, including those participants who also chose to utilize plagiarism detection software. Participants using plagiarism detection software provided their students with opportunities to revise intentionally or unintentionally plagiarized work. Exploration of faculty perceptions on plagiarism detection software showed similarities among participants when grouped by academic discipline. Plagiarism is complicated by differences in disciplinary writing conventions and concepts such as intertextuality, text overlap, and patchwriting. Further qualitative research is needed on faculty perceptions of student plagiarism, as well as discipline-specific practices and expectations.

Committee: Greg Kessler (Committee Chair); Yuchun Zhou (Committee Member); Jesse Strycker (Committee Member); Danielle Dani (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Technology

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2019, Higher Education

Do any law school involvement activities influence law student self-reported gains in writing skills? With Alexander Astin's Involvement Theory and I-E-O model as frameworks, this quantitative dissertation sought to answer this question. This study used a dataset containing survey responses from 3,803 full-time, third-year law students to the 2018 Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE). A blocked form of stepwise linear regression determined which independent variables related to law school involvement activities had a statistically significant impact on the dependent variable of law student self-reported gains in writing skills. The results showed that fifteen variables had a statistically significant relationship to student self-reported gains in writing skills. This dissertation has both academic and practical significance. It builds upon the limited number of studies analyzing law students' perceptions of their writing skills, dissertations utilizing LSSSE data, and research extending Astin's Involvement Theory and I-E-O model to legal education. Its findings can be used by law schools to help law students develop their writing skills before they graduate, since good writing is critical to bar exam passage and new lawyers' success early in the practice of law.

Committee: Ronald Opp Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Eric Chaffee J.D. (Committee Member); Robert Detwiler Ph.D. (Committee Member); Penny Poplin Gosetti Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Higher Education; Higher Education Administration; Law; Legal Studies

MEd, University of Cincinnati, 2005, Education : Curriculum and Instruction

This study was an attempt to view the writing process through the eyes of the students. It was an effort to discover what students believe about writing, specifically about the social aspects and the process of writing. In addition, teachers were questioned to determine if they could accurately report what students believe about writing. Questionnaires were completed by 80 fourth-grade students and 3 fourth-grade teachers in a middle-class, suburban district. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 5 students and 1 teacher. Findings showed that students value being creative and choosing their own topic. Students also stated that content and mechanics, followed closely by neatness, were the most important aspects of good writing. Results of teachers' reports of student beliefs were mixed. When reporting which genres students enjoy the most, teachers accurately reported fictional stories, letters and journals. However, teachers believed that students enjoyed the social aspects (sharing and discussing their writing with others) more than the students actually did. Students reported that they preferred the private aspects of writing (drawing pictures, being creative and typing).

Committee: Keith Barton (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, EDU Teaching and Learning

Most foreign/second language (L2) teachers invest a significant amount of time and effort in responding to student writing by providing written feedback. Despite the considerable number of experimental studies in the field of L2 writing on effectiveness of written feedback, correction of grammar errors in particular, our understanding of the nature of teacher feedback on student writing or on teachers' attitudes toward providing feedback is limited. The descriptive studies which have been undertaken in the field of L2 written feedback predominantly investigated teacher feedback from student perspectives. Therefore, little is known about the perceptions of L2 teachers on written feedback. Since most studies on the topic have been conducted in the English as a second language context, studies conducted in foreign language contexts are rare. Recently, research in the field of L2 writing has increasingly acknowledged the influence of contextual factors on teacher feedback, in turn creating a need for comparative studies on written feedback involving multiple populations with different linguistic/cultural backgrounds in diverse settings to fill a gap in the current research base. This comparative study explored teacher feedback on college L2 student writing from the teacher perspective by investigating the similarities and differences in perceptions of written feedback between teachers of a foreign language (Korean) and teachers of a second language (ESL) in North America. Using an online survey, the study investigated the perceptions of a total of 153 college instructors of ESL and of KFL (Korean as a foreign language) across North America. The 46-item questionnaire inquired about perceived types of written feedback, perceptions of the use of written feedback, perceptions of selected approaches to responding to student writing, and perceived written feedback practices. Descriptive and correlational statistics were used for the data analysis. Major differences between (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alan Hirvela (Advisor); Chan Park (Committee Member); Larry Miller (Committee Member) Subjects: Education