Mumford 1 Proposal for a Teaching as Research Project: Assessing Students’ Use of Outside Sources Introduction After having taught the Writing in the Disciplines courses over the last eight years, I have developed a curriculum that emphasizes using sources in more sophisticated ways throughout a sequence of four assignments. I adopted this approach because students struggled with using sources in the literature review, which at one point was the only assignment that required students to find, comprehend, and integrate sources. My and other faculty members’ initial attempt at assessing students’ use of sources was an entry and exit exam in which students read a primary source, a study on the discovery of the DNA double helix, and wrote a comprehension based response. It became very clear very quickly that students struggled with reading and understanding original research. Over the next several years, I introduced the requirement of using one peer-reviewed source in students’ first assignment, the exploratory essay, in order to support and give context to the choice of major and/or discipline about which they wrote. Then I began to require the use of one peerreviewed source and a primary source, or study, as a part of the technical explanation for a lay audience. Now, when we finally get to the literature review, students have learned to define the difference between popular and peer reviewed primary and secondary sources and how to find them on library databases. However, even as students have been more exposed to varying sources and places to find them, over the last several years I have noticed that students struggle with finding, understanding, and integrating these primary sources, often relying on unintentional plagiarism. Their unintentional plagiarism is easily detected using plagiarism checking software such as Turnitin.com; however, the issue persists. Methods I propose to study the finding, comprehending, and integrating of primary source material in two writing in the disciplines courses by having students reflect informally on their process over the course of the semester, by issuing two surveys after key points in the semester, and having the students formally interviewed by the Students Assessing Teaching and Learning (SATAL) center. Additionally, their writing projects will be analyzed with the different levels of the use of source material being coded and cataloged. Demographic and major data, along with previous experiences with finding, comprehending, and integrating primary source material will also be collected by SATAL. After compiling four sources of data, a baseline operating definition of students’ on our campus general understanding and needs regarding the finding, using, and integrating sources in the writing in the disciplines courses will be assessed. In a subsequent semester, a two to four hour workshop based on these needs will be offered to one class with a second control class being taught the same curriculum but with no workshop. Student achievement levels will be collected in the same way as mentioned above throughout and upon completion of the course. Student success levels will be

Mumford 2 quantified and analyzed. The research journal prompt that will be done three times over the course of the semester after key writing projects have been completed follows: Write reflection (in a document titled Research Reflection that you will add to over the course of the semester) on the research process you utilized to find a peer review source. What was challenging? Confusing? When or where did you get hung up? How did you find the sources? What reading methods did you use to assess the relevance of the source? The survey questions will be as follows: 1. How familiar are you with what a peer reviewed source is? 2. How familiar are you with how to find a peer reviewed source? 3. How familiar are you with where to find a peer reviewed source? 4. How familiar are you with how to assess whether a peer reviewed source will be useful for your purpose (i.e. literature review, proposal, original research)? 5. Where do you typically find most sources you use for your writing and research needs? The SATAL questions will be as follows: 1.To what extent have you needed to find, understand, and use sources, specifying between either peer reviewed or popular, in previous classes? 2. What things about this class help you learn how to more effectively find, understand, and use sources?; 3. What changes could the instructor make to improve your learning in the area of finding, understanding, and using sources? 4. What changes could you do to your learning to succeed in this class in the area of finding, understanding, and using sources. The final projects which will be used to collect information on how sources are utilized follow: 1. Exploratory essay 2. Technical Explanation for a Lay Audience (WRI 116) or Object Analysis (WRI 119) 3. Research Review