The affordances of screen capture technology for retrospective analysis of the writing process

Abstract

Screen recording technology provides us with means of analyzing the writing process. However, the possible advantages of using retrospective protocols with this new technology have not been explored. This paper investigated how stimulated recall induced peer-peer and instructor-student interactions during the replay of the participants' writing process using screen recording software affected the number of surface and non-surface changes made either during (noticing) or after (revision) the stimulated recall session (SRS). Twenty skilled users of English wrote different argumentative essays and recorded the writing process. Next, they participated in SRSs while watching the replay of their writing process, three times with a peer (twice as practice) and once with an instructor. Modifications were made during and after the SRSs. The results indicate that the number of modifications made in the instructor-student SRSs were greater than in peer-peer SRSs. However, further analysis revealed that the participants made more non-surface changes in instructor-student SRSs than in peer-peer SRSs. Intriguingly, no significant difference was found in the number of surface changes between the two types of SRSs. Implications of the finding are further explored.

Digital Writing, Word Processors and Operations in Texts: How Student Writers Use Digital Resources in Academic Writing Processes

“…Some studies have focused explicitly on revisions in the writing process (e.g. Elola & Mikulski, 2013;Sabbaghan & Maftoon, 2015), and some on how screen capture technology can be used as a pedagogical tool to give students feedback on their writing (e.g. Edwards et al, 2012;Silva, 2012).…”