Types of Writing in Education

Overview

Every discipline has specific types of writing that are done within it (genres), and every genre has conventions (i.e., the features of that type of writing). We often recognize genre conventions when we're thinking about books or movies. You don't expect violence and action-packed chase scenes in a romantic comedy, but you do expect a fantasy book or film to have new worlds, magical creatures, etc. Genres apply to academic and professional writing as well. Once you recognize the writing genres in your graduate field of study, you'll be able to learn the genre conventions, which will help you write successfully.

Visit this page to learn more about the types of writing you'll do at the graduate level (and beyond) in the field of Education. Note that this page focuses solely on writing types that are unique to this discipline. (For more information about general writing resources--such as materials about writing abstracts, literature reviews, and research papers--visit the Writing Center resources page.

Quantitative Writing

A fundamental feature of papers written in the quantitative tradition is that they contain text written explicitly to communicate how researchers sought to eliminate, reduce, or control the potential effects of bias--in the data, in the analyses, and in the interpretation of those analyses. In this genre, for example, researchers typically seek to construct arguments from low inference quantitative evidence and to take an objective stance on the meaning of those arguments.

A common (though far from ubiquitous) way this philosophy is revealed is the use of the passive voice to describe how the study was conducted and how the data was analyzed to produce the results. This follows, of course, from the genre’s assumption that the positionality and beliefs of the researcher are independent of the research findings. Said another way, one of the fundamental assumptions in the quantitative paradigm is that the findings of a properly conducted quantitative study would be the same regardless of the identity or beliefs of the researchers. Thus, “a survey was conducted” rather than “we conducted a survey.”

Because there are dozens of different quantitative approaches and quite a bit of variability within each of them, there is no single organizational scheme that describes them all. That said, there are some commonalities as outlined below.

• Most quantitative journal articles begin with an abstract, which is a summary of the entire article. An abstract situates the study in the field, briefly describes the research frame (i.e., where the study was conducted and who the participants were), summarizes the major findings, and offers concise statements about the study’s conclusions and implications. Publishers define the length of abstracts; they are commonly between 100 and 250 words.

• Following the abstract, most quantitative journal articles offer an introduction section that describes the problem the study addresses, explains how the study approaches the problem, offers references to relevant literature about the study’s key concepts, and presents the specific questions the study aims to address.

• Following the introduction, most quantitative studies contain a section that describes the materials and methods the researchers used. This section provides participant descriptions; details about survey instruments, data collection and handling protocols; and details about how the data was analyzed (e.g., what statistical analyses were conducted).

• Following the materials and methods section, most quantitative articles contain a section that presents the study’s results. This section typically addresses each research question explicitly, describing the results in terms of statistical significance.

• Following the results section, most quantitative articles include a discussion section that explicates and contextualizes the results and explores their implications, usually with some effort to situate those implications in light of previous research. Some authors subdivide the discussion section into conclusions and implications, or variations thereon. Many writers in this genre consider this section the heart of the article. Some authors also include a limitations section that (a) addresses limitations of the approach itself and/or (b) addresses limitations of the present study, such as small sample size, ambiguous data, etc.

Claro, et al, provide an excellent example of an article in the quantitative tradition. Click on the link below to read through this model.

Claro, S., Paunesku, D., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(31), 8664-8668.

Qualitative Writing

A common feature of papers written in the qualitative tradition(s) is that they contain text written explicitly to communicate the point of view or positionality of the researchers. While it is certainly true that many qualitative researchers make great efforts to reduce bias in gathering and interpreting data, such as using multiple observers of participants or developing sophisticated systems to code open-ended interview responses, often the aim is not so much to eliminate the bias but rather to offer the reader a sense of the biases, beliefs, and experiences of the researcher-as-interpreter in order to help the reader judge for themselves how that bias might influence the study’s findings, conclusions, and implications. Not surprisingly, researchers in this tradition often do not prioritize low-inference argumentation or objective meaning-making; instead, they frequently make decidedly subjective inferences and offer overtly subjective points of view.

A common (though far from ubiquitous) way this philosophy is revealed is the use of the first-person perspective to describe how the researchers are connected to whatever is being studied, why the researcher decided to carry out in the first place, and how and why they selected the approach they used. Many writers in the qualitative traditions also include explicit information about themselves as researchers, a decision that follows, of course, from the genre’s assumption that the positionality and beliefs of the researcher may deeply influence the research findings. Said another way, one of the fundamental assumptions in the qualitative paradigm is that the findings of a study may not be the same if a different researcher conducted the study. Thus, “We interviewed the participants using a semi-structured interview protocol” rather than “Interviews using a semi-structured interview protocol were conducted.”

Many qualitative education researchers recognize five major traditions (although like much else in the qualitative realm, there is no general agreement). They are the ethnography, the case study, the narrative study, the phenomenological study, and the action research study. Not surprisingly, there is no single organizational scheme that describes them all (although many writers mirror the organizational structure of the traditional quantitative paper to include introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections). Below is a brief introduction to each of these five traditions and some of the writing features they leverage.

(1) The Ethnography: Works in this tradition vary widely, but they have in common fine-grained, rich and detailed descriptions of people and the situations in which they find themselves, usually offered in the context of an overarching theory or theories that anchor the work. The descriptions, then, operate as a way to explicate the theories themselves. Researchers are frequently embedded in the research frame right alongside the people whose stories are being told, a methodological approach called participatory ethnography. In such studies, the use of the first-person active point of view is used heavily.

Resources about ethnographies in education:

Atkinson, P., A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland, and L. Lofland, eds. 2007. Handbook of ethnography. London: SAGE.

Levinson, B. A., K. M. Borman, M. Eisenhart, M. Foster, A. Fox, and M. Sutton, eds. 2000. Schooling the symbolic animal: Social and cultural dimensions of education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Yon, D. 2003. Highlights and overview of the history of educational ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 32:411–429.

(2) The Case Study: The case study grew out of the ethnographic tradition, and like ethnographies, case studies are characterized by the same fine-grained, rich, and detailed descriptions of people and the situations in which they find themselves. As with ethnographies, writers of case studies are often participatory researchers, immersing themselves in the research frame right alongside the people and situations being explored. Mirriem (1988) notes a major difference between an ethnography and a case study: in a case study, the researcher is likely to have expertise or deep familiarity with the people and the context, whereas an ethnographer is more likely to be relatively unfamiliar with the people and contexts under investigation. This aspect of case study often shapes the genre, in that writers of case studies often present first-person accounts of meaning-making.

Although she wrote it nearly 35 years ago, Mirriem’s seminal text is still a go-to resource for all things case study:

Merriam, S. B. (1988). Case study research in education: A qualitative approach. Jossey-Bass.

(3) The Narrative Study: The narrative study explores phenomena in education using stories as the central element. Writers of narrative studies center the experiences and events, presented as narrative, and as such, elevate the anecdotal experiences and events to the position of things worthy of scrutiny. In these studies, the narrative is written in such a way to position the events or experiences in a particular repose relative to some feature of the education landscape the writer wants the reader to consider.

Understanding educational phenomena through narrative is well-established; many recognize John Dewey’s (1938) Experience in Education as the work that firmly established the tradition as a research method. Not surprisingly, the writing style of these pieces shares commonality with pure narrative pieces: rich evocative description, the use of metaphor, poetic phrasing, and other devices common to narrative fiction appear in these works.

For an excellent introduction to narrative in education research as practiced today, see Clandinin et al (2000):

Clandinin, D. J., and F. M. Connelly. 2000. Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Dewey, J. 1938. Experience and education. New York: Collier.

(4) The Phenomenological Study: The phenomenological approach in education research is perhaps the most theoretically bound and strident qualitative method, and its aim is to understand what it means to experience phenomena in education. Writers of phenomenological studies concentrate squarely on the lived in-the-moment experiences, often focusing on fleeting, unspoken, tacitly understood phenomena as the central feature of investigation, with a goal of capturing some of the essence of what it is like to be in that experience. This, in turn, can become a way to consider the philosophical aspects of education from the inside out, as it were.

Writing in this tradition is usually deeply reflexive, extremely contextualized, and often very personal, with the writer often sharing complex thoughts and feelings framed in ‘real time,’ as they occur.

Friesen, et al (2012) offer a comprehensive, if dense, treatment of phenomenology as an educational research method:

Friesen, N., Henriksson, C., & Saevi, T. (Eds.). (2012). Hermeneutic phenomenology in education: Method and practice (Vol. 4). Springer Science & Business Media.

(5) The Action Research Study: It is helpful to view action research (also called Participatory Action Research, or PAR, in education) as a particular kind of case study aimed at improving some aspect of teaching. As in case studies, the action researcher is also a participant, but with a specific goal: to explore what happens in the teaching context when they take a particular action. Action research has become increasingly popular among teachers as a way to recapture the research space previously dominated by outside researchers and scholars; the tradition privileges the insider perspective as equally authoritative. This idea is central to the writing style and approach of papers written in this tradition: action research papers are written in the first-person, active voice and are centered on a researcher-inclusive question (i.e., the researcher is often written into the question) phrased in a way that invites a wide range of (usually) qualitative data-gathering about a particular phenomenon, situation, or context. Examples of such questions would include “What happens to my students’ engagement with science exploration when I…” or “What can I notice about my students’ experiences on the playground when I…” And like the case study, action researchers often provide first-person accounts of meaning-making.

Rabin and Smith’s (2016) My lesson plan was perfect until I tried to teach”: care ethics into practice in classroom management exemplifies some of the writing and organizational styles and approaches used in the action research tradition:

Rabin, C., & Smith, G. (2016). “My lesson plan was perfect until I tried to teach”: care ethics into practice in classroom management. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 30(4), 600-617.