Waking Dormant Researchers: Student Co-Research as Writing Research Methodology and Pedagogy

摘要

This thesis explores the ways that students took up writing researcher skills, knowledges, and identities through a teacher-student co-research investigation of writing in an online writing research course. The following questions guided this study:* How did literate activity occur in an online Composition as Critical Inquiry Course?* What writing research skills, knowledges, and identities did the students take up and demonstrate as they participated in a co-research project?The study also examined the efficacy of co-research as a methodology and pedagogy.Chapter 1 reviews literature from the relevant English studies fields. Central topics include the rationale for writing research pedagogies, an exploration of co-research (the primary methodology for this project), and an overview of online writing courses (OWCs).Chapter 2 describes the methods and methodologies used in this study. It begins with a rationale and description of the course that served as the site of the co-research investigation followed by a description of the methods used in the study. For the first research question, the students were invited to investigate literate activity in our OWC and report their findings in journal articles. For the second research question, four students participated in a focus group where they were asked to describe the writing research skills, knowledges, and identities they developed during the course.Chapter 3 presents results and discussion related to the first research question. Findings from six student co-research projects are presented along with a discussion of the affordances and limitations of each co-researchersu27 work.Chapter 4 presents results and discussion related to the second research question.Students took up an awareness of genres/contexts, research methods, and self-knowledge. This chapter also examines the extent to which the students took up conscious writing researcher identities.The thesis concludes with recommendations about co-research as methodology and pedagogy.