Paper presented at higher education close up, an international conference from 6 8 july 1998 at university of central lancashire, preston. This conference is jointly hosted by the department of educational research, lancaster university and the department of education studies, university of central lancashire and is supported by the society for research into higher education correspondence to: prof. James hartley,department of psychology, keele university,staffordshire st5 5bg, uk. E mail: [email protected] in this paper the results from two studies on essay writing are contrasted. The qualitative study is rich in detail but, for those of a quantitative disposition, it lacks sufficient quantitative information. We are not told, for example, what proportion of the students involved are men or women, traditional entry or mature, and what disciplines they are studying.

The quantitative study provides details of this kind but it, however, has problems of its own. Internal inconsistencies in the study reveal that the validity of some of the findings is questionable. The paper concludes by suggesting the necessity for combining or sequentially chaining different methods in research of this kind. introduction qualitative studies in psychology can be fascinating and insightful but they may leave readers with a quantitative disposition worrying about the generality of their findings. Quantitative studies, on the other hand, whilst providing data from larger and more representative samples, seem more mechanical and arid to qualitative researchers.

This paper considers these issues in the context of studying the problems that students face in essay writing. It contrasts the recent results from a qualitative study street and lea, 1997 with those from a quantitative one described in this paper. At the time of writing we have copies of four of street and lea's articles in front of us lea and street, 1996a 1996b 1996c and street and lea, 1997. Only in the major one are we told how many students, lecturers and institutions were involved in their study: 'the analysis of the research data has concentrated on the differing interpretations and understandings of academic staff and students with regard to academic writing within two contrasting university settings. 10 interviews were conducted with staff in the older university and 21 students were interviewed, either individually or in small groups. At the new university 13 members of academic staff and 26 students were interviewed.' street and lea, 1997 but these are the only numerical data given.

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We are not told, for example, what proportion of the students are men or women, traditional entry or mature students, and what disciplines they are studying. Street and lea differentiate between three different, but overlapping, sources of difficulty for students writing essays and reports, and how their institutions deal with them. These are mainly dealt with by study skills courses, and handouts/guides for students. Knowing what is expected within and between different departments, and even between different tutors within the same department. These are largely ignored by many tutors, but students' ignorance of these matters is criticised in their feedback.

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The inability of staff to mark written work within a reasonable time span and with sufficient detail because of limited staff resources and the large numbers of students. These difficulties are ignored, defended or deplored by different members of staff. street and lea place their greatest emphasis on the second area of difficulty one that has not really been explored in previous research on essay writing although see hinkle, 1997. But are they right to do so? how widespread are the difficulties faced by their 47 students, and which do they find the greatest burden? we cannot answer questions such as these because of the qualitative nature of their reports.

Nonetheless, the findings, the commentary and the suggestions are so interesting that we set out to gather some more quantitative evidence to try to build upon this pioneering study. We devised a questionnaire on essay writing that addressed the three concerns discussed by street and lea. Thus there were questions about students' experiences of difficulties connected with 'deficits', 'interpretation' and 'institutional failings'. The questions were largely based upon the comments and discussion provided in street and lea 1997. We gave this questionnaire to 102 second year psychology students attending a lecture at keele university at the beginning of their first semester. These students were asked to complete the questionnaire with reference to the difficulties that they might have faced when writing their essays and reports in their first year at keele. Students at keele typically study two principal subjects and two subsidiary subjects in their first year, so they would have had to write essays/reports in four different subject matters during the year.

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It is this kind of complexity that street and lea had in mind in their study and which has not been commented on before. In our study the responses from two overseas students who had not been at keele in their first year, and from six students studying conductive education who did not follow a normal subsidiary programme were deleted, making a total of 94 respondents. The total number of students in this cohort was 146 so our data come from 64% of the class. It is clear, like most studies with psychology students today, that there are approximately three times as many women as men, and a greater preponderance of women mature students. In fact we divided our students into three age groups since previous work carried out at keele trueman and hartley, 1996 showed that significant differences between the performance of 'traditional entry' 18 20yrs and mature students over 21yrs manifested themselves more clearly when the 'mature students' were subdivided into two age groups 'borderline mature' 21 24yrs and 'older mature' students aged 25 and over.

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Preliminary analyses of the results showed, in fact, that there were sex differences on only two items in the questionnaire, and age differences on a further two. questions to do with 'deficits' the students were asked to respond 'yes', 'sometimes', or 'no', as appropriate, to each of four items asking them if they experienced any difficulties with writing skills or 'deficits'. The percentages of the students responding to these items were as follows: on two of these items, difficulties with punctuation and grammar, the mature students over 25yrs reported significantly less difficulty than did the traditional entry students 2, d.f.2 7.04, p lt.05, and 8.27, p lt.02 respectively. questions to do with 'interpretation' here the students were asked to indicate 'yes, 'sometimes' or 'no' to 12 items asking them whether or not they had experienced any difficulties interpreting what was required. The percentages of the students responding to these items were as follows: the women students reported that they experienced difficulties 'sometimes' significantly more often than did the men students on the item about sequencing the content of their essays. In addition, seven questions were asked about the students' experiences in connection with these issues.

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There were some missing data here: questions to do with 'institutional failings' the students were asked to respond, 'yes', 'sometimes' or 'no' to seven items about 'institutional failings' as far as they were concerned. Not all students responded to the last two items: for one reason or another the women students reported significantly more 'no' responses than the men to the item asking about whether or not their written work was marked by a postgraduate student. It is possible that this reflects the point that many students might not know the answer to this question, and indeed this is supported by the fact that eight students did not respond to this item. discussion the overall results in percentages from the three categories of difficulties were thus as follows: these results suggest that students experience most difficulties with their 'deficits' and fewer but about equal difficulties with their 'interpretations' and 'institutional failings'.

To what extent can these results be accepted? for example, we were greatly surprised to find that 80% of our students claimed that they had not received any guidance in the form of handouts/handbooks, when we knew that all of them had been provided i with a student handbook in their first year which had a section on essay and report writing in it, and ii had been encouraged to buy a specific booklet entitled 'how to write a lab report'. It is possible, of course, that the students did not realise that their handbook had such a section within it, and that few of them bought the booklet, but this form of argument seems a little weak. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, it is possible that it is easier for students to admit to difficulties that might be thought of as trivial such as spelling than it is to admit to others that might be thought of as serious such as not knowing what to do. And, in terms of street and lea's analyses, students may have found it easier to use this language, even though it does not get to the heart of their difficulties.

Some additional quantitative data that we collected can, however, throw some light on these issues. The questionnaire covered two sides of a sheet of a4 paper, and at the bottom of each side, we asked the students to 'underline the one or two items above' that caused them ' the greatest' difficulty. Page one of the questionnaire had items on 'deficits' and 'interpretations' and page two had the items on 'institutional failings'. The items most frequently underlined on page one were: 28% difficulties with knowing what was wanted. 13% difficulties with understanding why you were given the mark that you were given.

Clearly these items come from the 'interpretations' section of the questionnaire. The most frequently underlined items from the 'deficits part were: 06% difficulties with spelling. On page two, where the items covered 'institutional failings' and the additional questions described earlier, the items most frequently underlined 44% difficulties with lack of appropriate materials in the library.