My research practices are guided by local needs, personal pragmatism and student development. As a graduate student, my research focused on the developmental process college students go through in their first few years of undergraduate study, moving from novice in a field to burgeoning expert. This research was made possible by local assessment systems already in place and made actionable by a robust general education program at that university. In the years since I completed my PhD, I have continually worked to maintain this pragmatic approach to taking on research projects, often working within my academic assessment specialization.
I study student writing and the signals of academic, professional and epistemological development in that writing.
Local Leads the Way
Every university is a unique ecosystem of academic programs and environmental pressures, making each locale an ideal location for studying student writing and development. The work of scholars like Connors and Lunsford or Lunsford and Lunsford has shown that there are some universal truths about college student writing, but the specifics of each individual’s development toward mastery of their own discipline is harder to quantify.
I believe in using local data as often as possible and in tying my research to local academic assessment needs. While assessment can easily be viewed as a box to check to appease accreditors, it is also a fertile source of generalizable knowledge about the ways college students develop towards their professional goals—and the signals they provide to show when they might change or abandon those goals.
Because so much student work is being collected, graded and assessed locally all the time, it only makes sense to create efficient systems to make meaningful institution-wide or discipline-wide observations to guide local action.
Practicing Pragmatism
As someone who teaches primarily general education writing courses (and many of them), my time for research is often limited. My focus on local data and local needs is driven both by a desire to help students at my university succeed and a need to ensure that I can complete my research goals, teaching demands and service expectations. While local data is often messy, it typically has the most direct route to meaningful action, whether that is a program revision or a general education curriculum change to better meet the needs of students, the university or the community.
Student Centered
I would like to call this section “Students First,” but that would make its placement awkward. But, my emphasis on local data, gathered and analyzed with low impact on my and other faculty members’ time, is really about placing the students first. Authentic assessment is always local and is always done in line with normal course and curriculum processes. Treating assessment as a research endeavor rather than just institutional service means elevating students’ work from all disciplines as a potential catalyst for action.
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I currently teach at Oregon Institute of Technology, a school with a heavy emphasis on teaching and professional practice. As a result, the output of my research is largely local. I am a co-PI on a multi-university study examining the design features of lab report assignments that help students acquire the discursive practices of professional engineers more quickly, but much of my research effort is spent in local program assessment.
