Preliminary Thinking on Sampling

My lunch today with Fred was primarily about how and what to sample in the TOPIC database. I've talked to Becky about this sampling question also, as well as John Horner (my "every man audience"). Plus, I'm doing a fair amount of thinking about it from my reading. What I want to do at this point is jot down some of my thoughts right now about what and how I would sample from TOPIC.

First, I need to keep in mind that my sampling is theoretical (that is, theory driven). This goal may be hard for the initial sample, and hard to predict for future samples because the emerging theory should guide the selection of data. I in no way need to make my sample in some way representative or of a certain number to be valid. No.

One thing I have noticed when others have thought about this question of what and how to pull data from the TOPIC vault is that people can see it as overwhelming. John Horner offered the advice to be careful not to set up a project that might take me years to do. He was seeing the vastness of the data and conjectured I would have to do some kind of research sample that would encompass the entire pool of data. No. No. Becky looked at it and paused at the amount and the complexity of the data. Each I felt had a sort of Grand Canyon moment--this is BIG.

Fred and I are in agreement that these Writer's Reviews documents should be viewed within the context of an entire Writing Cycle. In addition, he is leaning toward examining the relationship between what is said and happens in Writer's Reviews and what is said and done in subsequent drafts. Of course, this relationship is what is most interesting, and it is what other researchers have discovered is ambiguous. What students say they will do for revision and what they actually do can be quite different. I diverge from Fred a little bit in that I want to look at some Writer's Reviews just on their own as well.

The semesters of data I have chosen are these:
Year 04-05 1301 and 1302 (called (05-1301 and 05-1302)
Year 05-06 1301 and 1302 (called 06-1301 and 06-1302)

My current thought is that I will get a broad sample of writing reviews for my initial sample. I might also keep this sample fairly small so that I can make mistakes and it won't cost me a lot of time or effort, but it will be substantial enough for me to sink my teeth into the researching. For each course, I thought I would grab Writer's Reviews from Essay #2 and Essay #3.

I wish I could do tables in here, but here is my proposed selection.

For each essay in each class and year, I would grab two Writer's Review from draft #1 and two Writer's Reviews from draft #2 (4 Writer's Reviews for each essay and each year). That adds up to 32 isolated Writer's Reviews. In addition, I would pull a sample of full Essay Cycles from each course and each essay. A full Essay Cycle includes the every draft, every peer response, every Document Instructor response and grade, and every Writer's Review for the entire draft. I propose pulling two full Essay Cycles from each course and for each essay--that equates to 16 full Writing Cycles. I could modify this number down to 12 full Essay Cycles (6 from 1301 and 6 from 1302). 12 sounds more manageable to me, so I am not sure.

Fred might say only to do the full essay cycles, but I'm thinking I want the mix of Writing Reviews in isolation and then some in context. Hmm... I wonder if I should have some that are the same so that I could do a pass through of the data out of context and then look at it again in context. Hmm... . I have to consider that one.

This initial sample seems like it is large enough and broad enough to give me a base from which to then go in more particular directions depending up the emergence of my theory. My next quandary has to do with whether I will use a qualitative researching software tool. I probably will use one, but which one. It would be nice for me to be able to import a bunch of this text into the software program, but it looks like I may have to copy and past it in. ... More to look into.