Posted by Essays on Sep 12, 2009 in
Study Guide |
Relationship between Process and Product
Table I displays the empirical relationship between the variables representing the student’s process of writing the essay as described by the phenomenographic analysis, and the product as described by the linguistic analysis. The table clearly shows that students who had a multistructural conception and who had adopted a surface approach had fewer processual relationships and less predictive scaffolding than those who had a relational conception and who had adopted a deep approach.
The table shows how the two cases discussed in the previous section relate to other cases. It shows that Student 2 had a low quality experience of writing the essay, that the outcomes in terms of structure and meaning in the essay were poor, and that his achievement was low. In interview, this student’s explanation of his approach revealed his difficulty in drawing the relationships among the ideas:
. . . as I wrote along I’m not really sure whether I related everything back. I think that’s something I sort of overlooked. I’m not sure I did it in enough detail or depth in my essay. I think basically I said what is culture. I probably, I’d say I focused on that too much. I didn’t relate it back enough to understanding society.
He also revealed his apparent lack of planning for the essay, thereby explaining why the introduction is inadequate in establishing the purpose and structure of the essay:
First of all I had to decide how I was going to attempt to answer it . . . So I decided first of all I’d have to sort of say what a concept was . . . and then I just went into explaining what culture was . . .
On the other hand, Student 19 had a high quality experience, with high quality outcomes and high achievement. Her explanation of her concept of this essay demonstrates her academic maturity:
. . . one of them [the main points of the essay] can contribute to say differences in, I don’t know, religion . . . like cultures can contribute to why people have religious beliefs and that’s sort of understanding of society. Or contributing to the way we perceive like different societies and different things like which is a contribution to understanding of the world society as a whole.
In explaining the purpose of the introduction, Student 19 focused on the importance of establishing the scaffolding of the essay, and how the essay’s sections will be related to the essay question:
Oh well to introduce the topic. I normally in my introductions mention most of the, or yes, I suppose most of the points that I’m going to talk about, the main points like, normally most essays have sort of four main points through it or five main points sort of try to talk about them in the introduction, and sort of tell the reader how you’re going to relate them to the question.
Student 19’s essay may be seen as the final polished outcome of a process which conceivably could have begun in a similar fashion to that explained by Student 2. A simplified protocol of the process may begin by establishing an understanding of the concepts of culture and society, through exploring these semantic fields taxonomically (as Student 2 has represented in the final essay). The next stage in the process would be to find the points at which the concepts intersect, thereby exposing the ways that they relate to each other. This ’solution’ to the problem would then suggest the main organising units of the essay. Finally, the writer would present this plan to the reader by foregrounding the essay’s purpose and structure (as Student 19 has represented in the final essay). Thus the two essays can be seen as being two extremes, not only in terms of their degree of success, but also, and possibly therefore, in terms of their stage in the evolution of the conceptual analysis.
The empirical relationship between the process and the product represented in Table I is summarised here in statistical terms. The Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated between a variable representing students’ experiences of writing the essays, the two product variables representing the structure and meaning of the essays, and a variable representing the assessor’s mark. Table II shows the Pearson correlation coefficients. Table II shows statistically significant and substantial relationships between the process and product variables. It shows, for example, that the process variable was substantially related to the two product variables. Thus, the students who conceived of the essay as relational and who adopted a deep approach to the writing of the essay tended to be those students who had a well-structured essay (r = 0.48) and had relational meanings well represented in the essay (r = 0.48).
These results suggest that the students’ experiences in writing the essay are substantially related to the structure and meaning of the essay, as well as to the assessor’s mark.
Relationship
Relationship between Process and Product
Table I displays the empirical relationship between the variables representing the student’s process of writing the essay as described by the phenomenographic analysis, and the product as described by the linguistic analysis. The table clearly shows that students who had a multistructural conception and who had adopted a surface approach had fewer processual relationships and less predictive scaffolding than those who had a relational conception and who had adopted a deep approach.
The table shows how the two cases discussed in the previous section relate to other cases. It shows that Student 2 had a low quality experience of writing the essay, that the outcomes in terms of structure and meaning in the essay were poor, and that his achievement was low. In interview, this student’s explanation of his approach revealed his difficulty in drawing the relationships among the ideas:
. . . as I wrote along I’m not really sure whether I related everything back. I think that’s something I sort of overlooked. I’m not sure I did it in enough detail or depth in my essay. I think basically I said what is culture. I probably, I’d say I focused on that too much. I didn’t relate it back enough to understanding society.
He also revealed his apparent lack of planning for the essay, thereby explaining why the introduction is inadequate in establishing the purpose and structure of the essay:
First of all I had to decide how I was going to attempt to answer it . . . So I decided first of all I’d have to sort of say what a concept was . . . and then I just went into explaining what culture was . . .
On the other hand, Student 19 had a high quality experience, with high quality outcomes and high achievement. Her explanation of her concept of this essay demonstrates her academic maturity:
. . . one of them [the main points of the essay] can contribute to say differences in, I don’t know, religion . . . like cultures can contribute to why people have religious beliefs and that’s sort of understanding of society. Or contributing to the way we perceive like different societies and different things like which is a contribution to understanding of the world society as a whole.
In explaining the purpose of the introduction, Student 19 focused on the importance of establishing the scaffolding of the essay, and how the essay’s sections will be related to the essay question:
Oh well to introduce the topic. I normally in my introductions mention most of the, or yes, I suppose most of the points that I’m going to talk about, the main points like, normally most essays have sort of four main points through it or five main points sort of try to talk about them in the introduction, and sort of tell the reader how you’re going to relate them to the question.
Student 19’s essay may be seen as the final polished outcome of a process which conceivably could have begun in a similar fashion to that explained by Student 2. A simplified protocol of the process may begin by establishing an understanding of the concepts of culture and society, through exploring these semantic fields taxonomically (as Student 2 has represented in the final essay). The next stage in the process would be to find the points at which the concepts intersect, thereby exposing the ways that they relate to each other. This ’solution’ to the problem would then suggest the main organising units of the essay. Finally, the writer would present this plan to the reader by foregrounding the essay’s purpose and structure (as Student 19 has represented in the final essay). Thus the two essays can be seen as being two extremes, not only in terms of their degree of success, but also, and possibly therefore, in terms of their stage in the evolution of the conceptual analysis.
The empirical relationship between the process and the product represented in Table I is summarised here in statistical terms. The Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated between a variable representing students’ experiences of writing the essays, the two product variables representing the structure and meaning of the essays, and a variable representing the assessor’s mark. Table II shows the Pearson correlation coefficients. Table II shows statistically significant and substantial relationships between the process and product variables. It shows, for example, that the process variable was substantially related to the two product variables. Thus, the students who conceived of the essay as relational and who adopted a deep approach to the writing of the essay tended to be those students who had a well-structured essay (r = 0.48) and had relational meanings well represented in the essay (r = 0.48).
These results suggest that the students’ experiences in writing the essay are substantially related to the structure and meaning of the essay, as well as to the assessor’s mark.
Tags: Guide, Relationship between Process and Product, Undergraduate Essay Writing
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