Toward an Ecological View of Electronic Peer Review:

Agency, Uptakes, and TransferAnn Shivers-McNair

University of Washingtonasmcnair@uw.edu

The Graduate Research Network at Computers and Writing2014

Research Questions• Material rhetorical perspectives on agency

suggest that it is dynamic, fluid, relational, situational (not possessed), and shared by human and nonhuman entities in a social space. • Rickert (2013), Dingo (2012), Fleckenstein (2010),

Grabill (2010), Spinuzzi (2008, 2003), Edbauer (2005)

• How can we explore these perspectives on agency in a case study of electronic peer review in a first-year writing class?

Case Study: Eli Review in First-Year Writing

• Course: a first-year writing course taken as a distribution requirement; 20 students, nearly half of whom self-identified as multilingual

• Tool: Eli Review (http://www.elireview.com/)• Total number of peer review sessions: 5

(each tied to a different writing assignment)

Toward an Ecology of Student Interactions in Peer Review

•Ratings of comments

•Critical reflection/survey

•Final portfolios

•Revision plan•Critical reflection/survey•Final portfolio

•Drafts reviewed•Comments given

•Review drafts•Comments received

Writer-in-Action

Reviewer-in-

Action

Reviewer

Reflecting

Writer Reflectin

g

Tracing Agency in Interaction

Objects of study Place/time What they can showStudent drafts Eli / prior and during

review sessionStudents working out ideas

Student comments (to and from)

Eli / during and after review session

How students understand and respond to each other’s writing

Student revision plans Eli / during and after review

How writers understand and take up feedback

Survey/critical reflection on peer review

Web form in class / end of quarter

How students perceive their work and interactions (with each other and with Eli) in peer review

Students’ final portfolios

Canvas e-Portfolios/ end of quarter

How students understand writing and revision, how they take up feedback

Snapshots: Instruments

Snapshots: Instruments

Snapshots: Data• The sample sizes in this study were small and did not meet

the assumptions required for parametric analyses (e.g., normal distribution, equal variances). I used Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests with χ2 approximation (JMP® Version 11) to compare continuous, dependent variables between Questions 1 and 2 and between Questions 5 and 6. Alpha was set at 0.05.

• There were 16 responses to each question. I found there was no significant difference between the responses in Question 1 and Question 2 (p = 0.18; 2 = 1.81), and there was no significant difference between the responses in Question 5 and Question 6 (p = 0.77; 2 = 0.08).

Snapshots: Data

Error bars represent standard deviation from the mean.

Snapshots: Quantitative Analysis

Snapshots: Qualitative Analysis

Discursive Markers of Uptake

“The ratings of my comments did not impact the way I wrote my comments. After I wrote the comments, I didn't go back to check what they thought of my comments.”“In the beginning of the class, I got a few ratings that weren’t ‘5’s’ which helped me give more detailed advice and try to see how I could improve my feedback.”

Implications

• Studying the complexity of the “in between,” the less-obviously marked pedagogical moments

• Agency as an important part of the transfer/transition phenomenon

• Existing studies of students recognizing pedagogical moments and responding flexibly and agentively (Nowacek 2011; Adler-Kassner, Majewski, and Koshnick 2012; Freedman and Adam 2000)

Moving Forward

• Balancing a distributed agency view with a research site and study objects that are, ultimately, human-focused

• Balancing quantitative data and qualitative data—which objects best illustrate agency-in-interaction?

• What theoretical and pedagogical implications might a study like this have?