Institutional assessment in higher education often restricts measurement of learning to outcomes that elide the complexity of learning processes and contexts in favor of data that is tidy and manageable. Moreover, such outcomes are frequently written to express an economic value for the learning to justify the purpose of education as a personal…

This dissertation investigated the relationship between students and teachers in the context of writing pedagogical practices and writing curriculum. This study sought to extend the understanding of classroom relationships, specifically centered around writing instruction. Three dyads of teachers and students were observed as they interacted and…

In academia, there remains a broad cultural divide between STEM and the humanities that was identified over half a century ago by C.P. Snow. However, the nature of this divide has changed in recent years as a scientific tool, the digital computer, has become ubiquitous in daily life. The humanities must now contend with how to account for this…

This IPA study examines how professional college writing tutors feel their role is understood and appreciated (or not). While writing tutoring is a hallmark service at many undergraduate institutions, there remains an incongruence between what tutors, professors, students, and administrators expect from the role. In order to bring more clarity to…

This dissertation is a qualitative IRB approved research project that explores students' writing practices while students are enrolled in upper-level writing courses and a writing internship for the Editing, Writing, and Media undergraduate degree program. This project explores the phenomenon of transfer, or how learners utilize prior knowledge to…

The aim of this study was to parse types of self-regulation and understand their relations with writing quality. Various skills within self-regulation are indirectly related to written expression. This is because of their influence on self-regulation processes, such as planning, within the writing process. However, studies have not yet clarified…

This dissertation examines the integral role of identity in first-year composition, a crucial site of writing instruction predominantly taught by contingent, often inexperienced faculty. It explores how identity is manifested in composition textbooks, which are pivotal in transmitting knowledge about writing and pedagogy across various programs…

The local problem explored in this study was the barriers and challenges facing middle school teachers in integrating and assessing writing in a science classroom. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of college instructors and middle school science teachers regarding how teacher education programs provide…

This dissertation investigates the experiences of multilingual writers in a writing center at a major research university based in the United States. It includes interviews with the writers and with the tutors who serve multilingual writers, to understand if these writers are getting what they need in the writing center to be successful in their…

This dissertation was developed in response to a long-standing imperative for teachers and scholars of writing: the need to meet students where they are (technologically) and keep up with emerging writing technologies. Said differently, when an emerging writing technology comes on the scene, teachers of writing tend to develop theoretical and…

Results from national and state writing assessments suggest teachers struggle to meet the writing needs of students with disabilities as they score significantly lower than the overall population. With the implementation of Common Core State Standards in 2010, text-based writing became increasingly important for academic success both in the…

The purpose of this research study was to investigate how minority First-Year Writing (FYW)/Composition faculty in the United States theorize and bring the notion of linguistic justice into their teaching. In other words, this study sought to examine pedagogies/practices minority faculty use to incorporate linguistic justice in their…

This qualitative study focused on the perceptions three elementary school teachers had regarding their ability to integrate technology into the writing curriculum as well as their understanding of how technology and multimodalities can actually be integrated. The three teachers were asked to reflect on their technology use in teaching writing for…

This dissertation project explores the potential for using an inferential statistics test (t-tests) within an existing writing program assessment design. The purpose of using inferential statistics is to provide several perspectives on a data set collected using the existing assessment design thereby improving what a writing program administrator…

For first year writing instructors, the teaching practicum is vital for navigating both the writing classroom and the institutions in which the classroom is embedded. The composition teaching practicum, or the often-required training course for new writing instructors, is where new instructors are typically first introduced to their institutional…