Implementing dynamicity in research designs for collaborative digital writing

Abstract

This paper implements a dynamic (i.e. temporal and local) research design for collaborative digital writing (CDW) in writing assignments in higher education. This research design builds on my paper “Temporality revisited: Dynamicity issues in collaborative digital writing research”, published in this journal (Engerer 2020). The design identifies current state-of-the-art approaches to digital writing and introduces 1) the components of text (the process and products of writing and learning communication), 2) external variables such as learning orientations and group composition, 3) an intermediate layer of time management that is related to organizing the assignment, and 4) the sphere of knowledge construction. The main modification, however, is the addition of four features specifically connected to time-related aspects: 5) micro-analysis, 6) dynamicity, 7) writer relevance and 8) source status. This dynamized research design is applied in a study of writing assignments carried out by the author with students of information science in the spring term of 2016. It is demonstrated how the temporal organization of a CDW process can be visualized and how central concepts such as Task structure, Reference structure and Final target structure are construed, operationalized and dynamically related to each other. Furthermore, a real-time analysis of sequential concept building is provided. The discussion shows that the study integrates all the above elements 1)-8) of a dynamic research design for CDW, although to different degrees. The study presented here can provide a general background for designing research in CDW and can inspire CDW researchers to capture in their research designs the dynamic, time-related features in CDW.