Research in the Digital Studio

Although the Williams Digital Studio does offer student consultation with their digital projects, that is not the Studio’s only function. In addition to serving students, the Digital Studio also provides resources and support for faculty and graduate student research. Bret’s dissertation project is a vivid example of Digital Studio-supported research.

bret_digital_studio_research

Bret writes:

Throughout the Spring 2014 semester, I have been using the FSU Digital Studio as the site for my dissertation research on knowledge transfer and materiality. I’ve been most interested in identifying connections between individuals’ tacit and explicit knowledge of the material affordances provided by the space in which they compose and the limitations of genre and media. It’s been a challenging process getting the protocols scheduled and set up, but the Studio has provided the perfect space, with available resources to help students compose on and off the screen, supporting the many diverse ways of approaching multimodal composing.

The eventual goal of my research is to articulate a better understanding of how material awareness influences the composing processes that students engage with when they compose across the contexts of print, screen, and network. Using the Mac and PC workstations along with the recording tools available in the Studio, I’ve been recording student think-aloud protocols as students work on completing remediation assignments for ENC3416: Writing and Editing in Print and Online, paying close attention to the tools, technologies, and strategies they use while writing. Using a multi-camera setup and screen recording technology, I’ve gotten to watch students work on some very smart projects and observe their writing processes in depth.