Re: Feedback and revision

[Byron Stay <stay@msmary.edu>]

Harvey,

	It strikes me that the really critical thing in developing
quantitative studies, or even qualitative ones for that matter, is to keep
asking the question "what elements could possibly bias this study other
than what I've accounted for?"  In other words, we're looking at a
particular phenomena in a particular context with a particular methodology
and getting a particular set of results.  There's an awful lot to go wrong
here.  When Linda Flower was doing her research on protocol analysis, she
was trying to isolate aspects of the writing process by getting students
to talk as they were writing and then getting these moments on tape, but
protocol analysis is vulnerable to the charge that asking students to be
self-conscious of their writing, and then taping them in the act of being
self-conscious, biases the study irreparably.

	Faigley and Witte and Ed White have done some very nice work
discussing the problems with quantitative research.  I'm thinking
particularly of Faigley's (et al) early *Assessing, Writers' Knowledge and
Processes of Composing* (1985).  In this book the authors unpack all the
ways analysis can go wrong.  This is not to say all quantitative work is
flawed, it's just that it's very difficult to do convincingly.

	On the other hand, sometimes I think that qualitative analysis can
be equally flawed, it's just easier to mask the flaws because a clear
discussion of methodology doesn't seem to be as important.  Qualitative
analysis can really be improved if researchers push the limits of their
methodology every bit as much as they need to do in quantitative research. 
They need to ask "Is this limited focus really representative?  How have I
(unwittingly) biased this study?  Is my interview subject just telling me
what she thinks I want to hear?  How can I be sure that what I perceive is
really true?" 

	Molly, ethnographic studies are more fun, but do they seem less
flawed than quantitative studies to you?

	Byron

	Byron

Byron L. Stay
Associate Dean of the College
Mount St. Mary's College
Emmitsburg, MD  21727
301-447-4006
301-447-5755 (fax)
STAY@MSMARY.EDU

On Thu, 18 Jun 1998, Harvey Kail wrote:

>      Although Byron is happy or at least willing to see his early
> attempts at quantitative research in writing centers put to rest as
> "flawed," I wonder what he and others have to suggest concerning their
> experiences with  conducting systematic writing center research,
> whether quantitative or qualitative.
> 
> Harvey Kail
> University of Maine
> 
>