English Doctoral Workhttps://hdl.handle.net/10365/325012024-03-29T10:22:41Z2024-03-29T10:22:41ZA Zoomable Assessment: Navigating the Ecologies of Writing Program AssessmentWarner, Matthewhttps://hdl.handle.net/10365/335092024-01-02T18:44:38Z2022-01-01T00:00:00ZA Zoomable Assessment: Navigating the Ecologies of Writing Program Assessment
Warner, Matthew
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 can learn about the program. To demonstrate the use of statistical tests, I selected as a variable of interest participation in an international collaboration, the Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Project (TAPP). Based on this variable, I asked, can inferential statistics identify whether participation in TAPP created a difference in student portfolio scores for a program outcome? To perform the t-test, I calculated the mean portfolio scores for TAPP and for Non-TAPP groups. Then, after sorting the program data by course, two courses, a writing in the health professions and a writing in the technical professions, had enough sections participate in TAPP to conduct two more tests, one for each course. The tests posed the same question, whether participation in TAPP had a difference in portfolio scores for a program outcome, but had zoomed from the program level into the course level.
The tests indicated that at the highest level (the program) participation in TAPP did not have a statistically significant difference on portfolio scores. The tests at the other level (the course) indicated that participation in TAPP did not have a statistically significant difference on writing in the health professions but did have a statistically significant difference on writing in the technical professions. Possible explanations for these results are examined in relation to existing writing studies literature.
The approach of examining several levels is dubbed a zoomable assessment because the statistical tests allow for more nuanced examinations, that is, the tests zoom into the data set. Based on the findings, I propose further uses and possible limits of uses of inferential statistics as a complement to existing assessment designs. As part of the proposal, I advocate for assessment design, such as zoomable assessment, that is accessible, meaning the design does not require special software or extensive knowledge of advanced statistical analysis methods.
2022-01-01T00:00:00ZRhetorical Agency in Digital Storytelling: New Americans' Voices in the ChthuluceneBelmihoub, Ibtissemhttps://hdl.handle.net/10365/325862022-07-29T19:39:33Z2021-01-01T00:00:00ZRhetorical Agency in Digital Storytelling: New Americans' Voices in the Chthulucene
Belmihoub, Ibtissem
This study explores New American (refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers) storytelling and agency through Donna Haraway’s concepts of the Chthulucene (pronounced thulusene), making kin, and staying with the trouble. Haraway’s framework positions this study in the Chthulucene era, where humans recognize that solving global issues requires making connections and taking collaborative action. This study demonstrates how New Americans can create counter-narratives through Digital Storytelling (DST) in the Chthulucene. An analysis of ten New American participants’ DST processes and story choices is provided. This research responds to three main questions: How do New Americans shape their digital stories through specific choices and how do these choices display agency? What do their storytelling processes reveal about agency through their rhetorical and linguistic choices? Finally, how do New Americans display their agency in multimodal storytelling? Participatory Action Research (PAR) is used to frame the research questions. Alongside the collaborative, flexible, and adaptable nature of PAR, the Story Center’s Digital Storytelling (DST) model was selected as the appropriate approach to facilitate DST workshops for New American participants. Three separate workshops included ten New American participants from different backgrounds. Approaches such as focus groups, story workshop reflections, and individual interviews were used to respond to the research questions. After transcribing focus groups and individual interviews, all data was coded using Grounded Theory. The findings suggest that participants make storytelling process, rhetorical, linguistic, and multimodal story choices by being intentional in using their original voice and agency as counter-narrators. Participants’ storytelling process choices indicate that past storytelling constricted their agency while DST provided an opportunity for their agency to be visible. Furthermore, participants’ rhetorical choices demonstrate their audience and situational awareness. In addition, linguistic choices illustrate that participants’ understanding and use of English demonstrates translingual practices. Moreover, multimodal story choices display their innovation and commitment to personal intentional storytelling. Additionally, participants' experiences in storytelling and how they implement their agency varies by individual. This study demonstrates what doing research and practicing pedagogy that operates in the Chthulucene might look like for Rhetoric and Writing Studies to remain relevant.
2021-01-01T00:00:00ZA Rhetorical Approach to Human Remains Display in Museum Collections: An Ecotriangle of Publics, Objects, and PlaceWatts, Amanda Christianhttps://hdl.handle.net/10365/323762022-07-29T19:39:33Z2021-01-01T00:00:00ZA Rhetorical Approach to Human Remains Display in Museum Collections: An Ecotriangle of Publics, Objects, and Place
Watts, Amanda Christian
This research approaches archaeological human remains in museum collections from a rhetorical perspective. Instead of joining the body of scholarship in museum studies that focuses on the process of curatorial interpretation, this project applies public memory studies to explore what happens to curatorial interpretation when it goes out into the world and is taken up in public circulated discourse. With a focus on publics, the moment of knowledge construction when visitors approach a display of human remains in a museum is captured and analyzed through the lenses of new materialism, rhetoric in situ, and public memory studies. Each lens represents the chosen approach to each of the three elements that converge at the moment of knowledge construction – publics, objects, and place – which are grouped together as a triangle of interrelated dynamics all working in a situationally-contingent rhetorical ecology of other factors and influences. Thus, the dynamic inseparable trio of publics, objects, and place are coined the “ecotriangle.” For museum studies, rhetoric’s foundational work can provide critical perspective into the nature of communication and meaning-making that happens when publics meet human remains in a museum space. In order to explore the ecotriangular relationship of publics, objects, and place with an interdisciplinary approach, this project begins by interrogating the implicit assumptions within the defitions of terms like “public” and “object” then develops collaborative definitions from the scholarship in rhetoric, archaeology, and museum studies. The particular case of human remains challenges most scholarships’ definitions of object. Yet as this research reveals, human remains as case study help develop and refine the approach to objects, materiality, interpretation, and museum display when challenged to inclusively frame such a case instead of treat human remains as an exception or outlier to scholarship on objects. Exploring the ecotriangle as a heuristic model for conceptualization of interrelational dynamics in knowledge construction extends current scholarship in rhetoric, especially rhetoric in situ and rhetorical ecology, and also reinforces existing interdisciplinary bridges between the fields of rhetoric, archaeology, and museum studies.
2021-01-01T00:00:00ZAdvancing Gender Equity in STEM: Antenarratives and Feminist Leadership Practices in Policy WorkPetts, Ashleigh Ryannhttps://hdl.handle.net/10365/323372022-07-29T19:39:33Z2020-01-01T00:00:00ZAdvancing Gender Equity in STEM: Antenarratives and Feminist Leadership Practices in Policy Work
Petts, Ashleigh Ryann
While the field technical and professional communication (TPC) has long been concerned with workplace writing and policy writing, few studies have addressed the process of policy writing within an academic context. Using antenarrative and apparent feminism methodologies, this dissertation explores the policy writing process and feminist leadership practices of the DESIGN Committee, a group of women academics who worked to propose new policy to address gender inequity in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields for faculty working in their statewide educational system (SES). Employing methods of observation, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and artifact collection over a period of three years, the researcher sought to answer two research questions: What does the process of policy writing look like for the DESIGN Committee? In what ways do feminist leadership practices, as performed by the committee leader and other committee members, influence the work of the DESIGN Committee? Through the creation of an antenarrative of the DESIGN Committee’s policy work, three important threads stand out: proximity, transparency, and accountability. These threads provide an alternative to the dominant narrative of the committee’s work. In addition, the committee leader’s use of feminist leadership practices, such as creating community, encouraging self-empowerment, and fostering collaboration, impacted the efficiency of the policy writing process. These results point to important factors for future policy writers to consider when composing policy to address diversity, equity, and inclusion or when employing feminist leadership practices.
2020-01-01T00:00:00Z