A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Audio Comments and Written Comments from Instructors in a 100-Level Online Composition Class

Abstract: This study was conducted on the use of both written commentary and audio commentary in five sections of an entry level undergraduate online  composition class.  A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to compare the number of words commented on and the number of items commented on for written commentary and audio commentary.  The results indicated that two main effects and one interaction effect occurred.  The first main effect was that the media used produced a statistically significant effect, with the use of audio resulting in a higher number of words than the use of written text for all five instructors.  The second main effect was that the teacher giving the comments produced a statistically significant effect.   The interaction effect was between the media and the teacher.  Follow-up surveys and interviews with the five instructors provided additional insight on the different commenting patterns among the instructors. 

Introduction

Perhaps the most important aspect of a composition class is the feedback that instructors give to students on their writing.  Traditionally, instructors in composition classes have written comments by hand on students’ papers when giving them feedback on their assignments.  As word processing applications became more ubiquitous among students and instructors, instructors began to type comments into the paper.  When composition classes have been taught in face-to-face classrooms, these two methods—handwriting comments and typing comments—have been the most common methods through which instructors have provided feedback to students.  Occasionally in face-to-face classes, instructors have experimented with giving audio comments to students using cassette tapes.  The instructor would record his or her comments on a cassette tape and give the cassette tape to the student in class (e.g., Anson, 1997; Huang, 2000; Pearce & Ackley, 1995; Sommers, 1998). 
This pattern of commenting on student papers has changed over the past 15 years with the emergence of online education.   In an online class, drafts of papers are submitted asynchronously through the course management system, and feedback is provided asynchronously by the instructor, usually through the course management system.  This arrangement has created an environment in which drafts of papers can be submitted, commented upon, returned, and resubmitted without the student ever meeting the instructor.  However, the characteristics of an online class that render it advantageous over a face-to-face class also present challenges.  The face-to-face instructor can provide written feedback to a student on a paper and know that he or she will always be able to dialogue with the student about the paper in class or during office hours if necessary.  However, the online instructor has little or no opportunity for such meetings (Gallien & Oomen-Early, 2008; Wolsey, 2008).  Moreover, while certain synchronous communication tools, such as live chat, Wimba, or other applications, have become available, little is known about their use among online instructors (Skylar, 2009).   Wolsey (2008) reported that “online education currently privileges text-based communication.  Further, the Internet affords immediacy for some types of communication; however, feedback rarely occurs in real time” in online classes (p. 312).  Current trends indicate that the applications that an online instructor uses in providing feedback to a student’s essay usually involve asynchronous electronic means of providing feedback (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2008; Professors’ use of technology in teaching, 2010).
Online writing classes typically feature feedback to students in text form (Gallien & Oomen-Early, 2008; Wolsey, 2008).  However, digital technology has provided the means through which an instructor can provide audio comments to a student in an online class.  Technology to create audio .mp3 files and other forms of embedded audio comments is now available for use by instructors, some of whom have begun taking advantage of such strategies (Dagen, Mader, Rinehart, & Ice, 2008; Ice, Curtis, Phillips, & Wells, 2007; Ice, Swan, Diaz, Kupczynski, & Swan-Dagen, 2010;  Merry & Orsmond, 2007; Oomen-Early, Bold, Gallien, Wiginton, & Anderson 2008; Sipple, 2007).  Online instructors can now post audio comments to their students through the use of digital audio files in the same way that face-to-face instructors gave audio comments to their students with a cassette tape in the past.    
However, relatively little research has been conducted in this area, especially regarding the quantitative characteristics and differences between audio and written feedback on students’ writing. This study was designed to apply quantitative analysis to compare the use of audio comments to written comments on student compositions in online writing classes.  Qualitative analysis was also conducted on interviews with instructors in order to gain a better understanding of the patterns that the quantitative analysis might demonstrate.  

The Study
Participants 

Five instructors who had been assigned to teach online sections of an entry-level undergraduate composition course at a large accredited university on the east coast of the United States were invited to participate in the study.   All five volunteered to participate.  In terms of their experience in teaching writing online, all five instructors had taught at least 12 sections of online writing courses before the semester in which they participated in the study.  

Writing Assignments  

The class in which the study was conducted required four writing assignments from students.  This study was conducted on the first two assignments.  The first assignment (writing assignment #1) in the class was a narrative essay.  In order to ensure consistency across sections, the writing assignment instructions were given to the instructor to assign to the class.  The second assignment (writing assignment #2) was a comparison-contrast essay.  Again, in order to ensure consistency across sections, the writing assignment instructions were given to the instructor to assign to the class.  

Writing Assignment #1

Students submitted a draft of writing assignment #1, the narrative essay.  Among the five instructors, the style of response to the first draft differed.  Two of the instructors commented on the first draft of the writing assignment #1 using only written comments.  The written comments were typed into the essay itself.  The essay with the embedded written comments was then posted to the student in the online class platform.   The other three instructors commented on the first draft of the narrative essay by providing only audio comments in .mp3 file form.  The instructor created an .mp3 file in which he or she talked to the student about the paper.    The audio comment file was posted to the student in the online class platform.   All of the students across all five sections then wrote a final draft of writing assignment #1.  The final drafts were posted into a designated folder in the online class platform. 

Writing Assignment #2

Students submitted a draft of writing assignment #2, the comparison-contrast essay.  Again, among the participating instructors, the style of response to the first draft differed.  The two instructors who had commented on writing assignment #1 using only written feedback commented on writing assignment #2 by providing only audio feedback.  The audio comment file was posted to the student in the online class platform.   The other three instructors, all of whom had commented on writing assignment #1 using only audio comments, commented on writing assignment #2 using only written feedback.  The document with the embedded text comments was posted to the student in the online class platform.  As with writing assignment #1, all students across the five sections then wrote a final draft of writing assignment #2.  The final draft was posted into a designated folder in the online class platform.  

Consistency in Technology Use

Two steps were taken to ensure consistency in technology use among instructors in providing feedback to their students.  First, when instructors gave written feedback, all five instructors used MicrosoftWord TrackChanges.  Second, before the semester began, the five faculty members were sent a Sony digital voice recorder.  In addition, before the study began, they were sent a sample paragraph with errors and weaknesses in it.  They were required to produce a short .mp3 file of their voice commenting on the paragraph.  The faculty member then sent the .mp3 file to the researcher.  In this way, each instructor developed a level of familiarity with the creation of an .mp3 audio file with the digital voice recorder.  This step reduced the chance that a degree of unfamiliarity and discomfort with the technology among the faculty members would affect the results gathered in the study.  

Consistency in Feedback Content

In order to ensure that all instructors provided reasonably comparable types of feedback in both written and audio form, and in order to ensure that a level of consistency in commenting was maintained across all five instructors, guidelines were provided for them on the types of issues on which to comment.  The study used Stern and Solomon’s (2006) categorization of comments into global-level, middle-level, micro-level, and other issues.  Stern and Solomon, after having examined 598 papers from 30 different portfolios within the university, found these four areas to be representative of the full range of individual instructor comments on student papers.  Furthermore, Ice, Swan, Diaz, Kupczynski, and Swan-Dagen (2010) used the same classification scheme for their study, noting the soundness of the feedback hierarchy presented by Stern and Solomon. 
In this study, global-level comments refer to comments on issues related to the overall organization of the paper, the topic of the paper, how well the paper is introduced in the introductory paragraph, how well the thesis statement is developed, and how well the paper is concluded in the concluding paragraph.  Middle-level comments refer to comments on issues related to how well a thesis statement is defended in the body paragraphs, how well the body paragraphs are developed, how effectively topic sentences are used in paragraphs, and how well support or evidence of claims are integrated within body paragraphs..  Micro-level comments refer to comments on issues such as grammar, punctuation, word choice, phrasing, formatting, references, and citations.  Other comments refer to comments that thanked the student for posting the paper, that gave the student instructions on posting the second draft, or any other guidelines or comments to the student that did not relate to the writing strategies in the paper.
Following this pattern, each instructor was asked to provide commentary on at least one global-level issue, one middle-level issue, and two micro-level issues.  This arrangement did not mean that instructors were allowed to give only four comments to the paper.   It meant that they were directed to comment on at least one global-level issue (e.g., selection of topic,  strength of thesis statement, etc.), at least one middle-level issue (e.g., paragraph unity, paragraph coherence, details and support given to arguments, etc.), and at least two micro-level issues (e.g., subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, parallel structure problems, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, etc.).  In commenting on these issues, they could choose to comment on more than one instance of an issue.  For example, they might have chosen to comment on more than one sentence fragment, more than one paragraph that lacks unity, etc.  
This strategy helped ensure that comments to a particular draft were not dominated by, for example, only grammatical issues and that other global- or middle-level problems were not addressed.  It also helped ensure that comments were not exclusively at the global and middle level and that no micro-level issues on grammar and mechanics were addressed.

Research Questions and Research Design

	The purpose of the research was to compare the audio commentary and written commentary in terms of the number of words and number of items used in each type of commentary.  Specifically, the following research questions were investigated in this study: 1) was there a significant difference in the number of words used between audio commentary and written commentary? 2) was there a significant difference in the number of items commented on between audio commentary and written commentary? To answer these research questions, the study adopted a mixed method design with a primary focus on quantitative design. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected to help answer the research questions.

Data Collection and Analysis

First, all audio and written comment files were collected from all five instructors’ classes.  Teacher 1 (T1) had 13 students, teacher 2 (T2) had 15 students, teacher 3 (T3) had 17 students, teacher 4 (T4) had 14 students, and teacher 5 (T5) had 15 students.  Therefore, a total of 74 .mp3 files among the five instructors were collected.  Second, all written comment files that had been posted by each participating instructor were collected and organized by instructor.  Third, the audio comments were transcribed.  The transcriptions were completed using Dragon Naturally Speaking software. 
A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on both the audio comments and the written comments for each instructor.  This ANOVA was conducted in order to determine whether there was a significant difference in the number of words used between both media for all four levels of commentary (global, middle, micro, and other).      
In addition, the number of items commented on by each instructor for each of the first three categories (global, middle, and micro) was counted for both the audio comments and the written comments.  An ANOVA was conducted to determine if the number of items commented on was significantly different between audio and written for each of these three levels.  It should be noted that it was not possible to count the number of items commented on for other comments.  The reason this arrangement was not possible is that other comments are not specific to items or areas of concern in the paper.  They offer salutations to the student or further information to the student on posting the second draft.  
Finally, interviews taken with and surveys taken by instructors were analyzed qualitatively through open-coding to examine instructors’ commenting patterns and to determine if the qualitative information from the interviews informed the quantitative analysis on the comments. 

Findings
Research Question 1: Comparing Number of Words

The repeated-measures ANOVA showed a significant difference at the 0.05 level in the number of words between audio and written form for all commentary categories: global level, F(1,69) = 100.07; p < 0.001; middle level, F(1,69) = 86.10; p  < 0.001; and micro level, F(1,69) = 78.47; p < 0.001. In other words, there was a significantly higher number of words in audio commentary than in written commentary.   In addition, the ANOVA also showed that there was a teacher effect for all commentary categories: global level, F(4, 69) = 21.91, p < 0.001; middle level, F(4, 69) = 15.64, p < 0.001; and micro level,  F(4, 69) = 7.18, p < 0.001).  In other words, the average number of words used from teacher to teacher, collapsing across audio and written comments, differed, and this difference was statistically significant at the 0.05 level for all commentary categories 
Furthermore, the ANOVA showed that there was an interaction effect for all commentary categories: global, F(4, 69) = 19.865, p < 0.001); middle level, F(4, 69) = 13.17, p < 0.001); and micro level, F(1, 69) = 5.75, p < 0.001).   In other words, the difference between the number of words used for audio comments and the number of words used for written comments varied from teacher to teacher, and the difference was statistically significant at the 0.05 level.   
An ANOVA was also conducted on the number of words for audio and written commentary for other comments for all teachers combined. The results indicated a significantly higher number of words in audio form than in written form, Audio M = 106.31, SD = 59.48; Written M = 15.18, SD = 19.22; F(1,69) = 267.70; (p < 0.001).  All instructors used more words on average for written comments than for audio comments when giving comments on other issues in their students’ papers.  Overall, the test of level showed a significant difference between the number of words given for audio comments and the number of words given for written comments.
For comments on other issues, the ANOVA showed that there was a teacher effect.  In other words, the average number of words used from teacher to teacher, collapsing across audio and written comments, differed, and this difference was statistically significant at the 0.05 level, F(4, 69) = 21.72, p < 0.001). The interaction effect was also evident in the “other” comments.  In other words, the difference between the number of words used for audio comments and the number of words used for written comments varied from teacher to teacher, and the difference was statistically significant at the 0.05 level, F(4, 69) = 7.42, p < 0.001).   

Research Question 2: Comparing the Number of Items Commented On 

The ANOVA showed a significant difference in the number of items commented on when using audio comments and the number of items commented on when using written comments for all commentary categories for all teachers combined: global level, F(1,69) = 20.12; p < 0.001; middle level, F(1,69) = 8.24; p < 0.005; and micro level, F(4, 69) = 14.61, p < 0.001.  In other words, there was a significantly higher number of items commented on in audio form than in written form. While the difference in the number of items commented on was significantly higher in audio format than in written format for all teachers combined, the results for individual teachers were mixed. For example, three teachers commented on more items on the global area in audio form than they did on the global area in written form, and two teachers commented on more items in the global area in written form than in audio form.  For the middle level, four teachers commented on more items in audio form than they did in written form, and one teacher commented on more items in the in written form than in audio form.  For the micro level, two teachers commented on more items in audio form than they did in written form, and three teachers commented on more items in written form than in audio form.  
The ANOVA indicated that there was a teacher effect at all levels for the number of items commented on.    The average number of items commented on from teacher to teacher, collapsing across audio and written comments, differed, and this difference was statistically significant at the 0.05 level: global level, F(4, 69) = 8.89, p < 0.001; middle level, F(4, 69) = 14.61, p < 0.001; and micro level, F(4, 69) = 31.09, p < 0.001
Furthermore, the ANOVA showed that there was an interaction effect.  In other words, the difference between the number of items commented on when giving audio comments and the number of middle-level items commented on when giving written comments varied from teacher to teacher, and the difference was statistically significant at the 0.05 level: global level, F(4, 69) = 10.60, p < 0.001; middle level, F(4, 69) = 7.04, p < 0.001; and micro level, F(4, 69) = 9.69, p < 0.001.  
The data on the comments at all levels showed that the teachers exhibited different styles and perhaps preferences when commenting in audio form and when commenting in written form.  We can see that instructor preference influenced the number of comments made more than it influenced the number of words used.  
Overall, the findings showed two main effects and one interaction effect.  The first main effect is that the media used (audio versus written) among all teachers produced a statistically significant effect.  The use of audio resulted in a higher number of words than the use of written text for all five instructors.  The second main effect was that the teacher giving the comments, whether audio or written, produced a statistically significant effect.   Some teachers provided significantly more comments than others, both in audio and in written form.  The interaction effect was between the media and the teacher.  There was a statistically significant interaction effect between the media, or whether audio or written comments were provided, and which teacher provided them.  In other words, whether certain teachers used more words in their global-level, middle-level, micro-level, or “other” comments than other teachers used depended on the type of media (audio or written) each teacher used.  In addition, whether one type of media (audio or written) resulted in more words in the comments for all four levels depended on the teacher giving the comments.  
Simply knowing which teacher is giving comments is not sufficient information in predicting how many words are used in the comments at the global, middle, and micro levels.  Similarly, simply knowing which media is being used for the comments is not sufficient in predicting how many words are used in the comments at each level.  One has to know which teacher is providing the comments and which media he or she is using in order to predict how many words will be used in the comments at each level.  

Corroboration of These Results with Teacher Surveys and Interviews

The interaction effect was borne out from comments the instructors made on their surveys and in their interviews.  As stated above, there was an interaction effect between media and teacher.  There was a statistically significant interaction effect between the two types of media (written and audio) and which teacher provided the two types of media.  As stated above, simply knowing which teacher is giving written or audio comments is not sufficient information in predicting how many words are used in the comments at the global, middle, and micro levels.  Similarly, simply knowing which media is being used (written or audio) for the comments is not sufficient in predicting how many words are used in the comments at each level.  One has to know which teacher is providing the comments and which media he or she is using in order to predict how many words will be used in the comments at each level.      
At all levels, all instructors used more words for audio than for written—except for teacher 1 at the global level.  At the global level, teacher 1 showed a higher word count for written comments than for audio comments (M= 208.5, SD = 114.4 for audio; M =  211.0, SD = 167.4 for written).  In her interview, teacher 1 stated the following:
…I do have what I sort of think of is almost like cheat sheets.  You know, I say what I think of like particular for what is succinct or brilliant or whatever [laughter] statements like, oh, I better keep that one.  So I have a whole series of the statements inside my own little textbook at all plug those in. In fact, when I do the written I do this, you know, global middle, micro and I find that almost all students need the certain comments on thesis statements, so I’ve got was written out so you know, I save a certain amount of time doing that.  I'm not saying that each one is totally original.
Teacher 1 used predesigned “cheat sheets” for her written comments.  These are templates of comments that she has prewritten.  She copied and pasted these comments into the paper when she desired to point out a specific item for students to work on in the second draft of the paper.  She mentioned in her quote above that she often used these templates for her comments on thesis statements.  Thesis statements represented a global-level area.   This pattern of pasting prewritten comments into students’ papers may explain why the number of words she used at the global level for written comments was higher than the number of words she used at the global level for audio comments.  
	In addition, this dynamic further explains why this interaction effect was significant in the study.  Teacher 1’s use of written comments, especially for the global level, features a different method and pattern than all other teachers’ use of written comments.  Simply knowing which media is being used (written or audio) for the comments is not sufficient in predicting how many words are used in the comments at each level.  One has to know which teacher is providing the comments and which media he or she is using in order to predict how many words will be used in the comments at each level.
	Teachers 2 and 3 used the lowest number of words in both audio and written form than all other instructors did.  In her interview, teacher 2 mentioned that she had made a conscious effort not to post lengthy audio files to her students:
And I try to be more conservative without overwhelming students with the audio comments. I wouldn't consider myself a blatherer, you know, I don't I don't go on and on with my comments and you even in my conversations in normal life. So I really just choose as you suggested specific things to talk about.
Therefore, we can see that her philosophy in providing audio comments is borne out in the quantitative data showing the number of words she used. 
	Teacher 3 did not indicate any particular philosophy of providing audio comments, but he did note a reason why his written comments tended to feature a relatively low number of words:
It takes more effort to writing extensive in-text comments. I generally don't put too much at the end of an essay and to write in text comments right next the issue takes a lot of time and more thought than to just describe the situation in audio format.
Thus, while teacher 2 used fewer words to save students from exhaustion, teacher 3 used fewer words to save himself time.  In both cases, their interviews pointed out possible reasons for their comments exhibiting the lowest numbers of words for the audio comments and nearly the lowest number of words for the written comments.
	Teachers 4 and 5 used the highest number of words in audio form among all instructors.  In her survey, teacher 4 explains this phenomenon:
I was likely to go into more detail about what was strong about the essay and this also added to the length of the file. In the audio file, I can tell the student that the thesis is good and then say why that thesis is well crafted (whereas in a written file, I might just write, “Thesis is effective.”).
She elaborated on this trend in her interview:
…what I'm doing when I'm giving the comments orally, I tend to expound more on my points. So for example, if in the written file, I might just say this thesis is appealing or, you know, thesis is strong. And then in the audio file. I may go into a little bit more detail about why I feel the thesis is effective.
Teacher 5 explained a similar phenomenon when she provided audio comments at the global level:
Because I was like addressing, for instance, maybe I was addressing a problem with the thesis. Then I would try to give some examples. You know, I just felt inclined to say more. And again, I felt going into this that I would spend less time on the audio comments. But I ended up spending more time and I just thought that if I you know gave them more examples that that would be helpful.
Overall, the comments gleaned from the instructors’ surveys and their interviews corroborated with the quantitative data in showing that an interaction effect occurred from teacher to teacher and from media to media.  Just knowing which teacher is giving written or comments is not sufficient information in predicting how many words are used in the comments at the global, middle, and micro levels.  Similarly, just knowing which media is being used (written or audio) for the comments is not sufficient in predicting how many words are used in the comments at each level.  One has to know which teacher is providing the comments and which media he or she is using in order to predict how many words will be used in the comments at each level.  

Discussion and Conclusion
	The findings on the number of words used corroborate with those of other studies.  Dagen, Mader, Rinehart, and Ice (2008) in their study found that the word count “was double, triple, or greater when comparing the means between audio and text-based feedback” (p. 161), with statistically significant differences. At the same time, the findings of this study pointed our new insights in the field regarding the teacher effect and interaction effect. The finding regarding the significant difference on the number of items commented on is different from some previous studies. For example, in the study conducted by Dagen et al. (2008), the mean instances of feedback per paper for mechanics, grammar, and style was 7.05 for written comments and 6.42 for audio comments, which did not show statistically significant difference in the regression analysis.   Merry and Orsmond (2008), in their study of 15 students and two tutors using audio and written feedback in a face-to-face human biology course, found that audio feedback resulted in 395 comments while written feedback resulted in 359 comments.  However, the differences between the number of comments for audio and for written were not inferentially statistically analyzed for significance in their study.  This difference in findings calls for more research in the future to help understand why the difference exists in some instances but not others.

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