Project Overview
In ENG397, Writing as Inquiry, a group of six worked on a comprehensive research project for the Conservators’ Center in Mebane, NC, a nonprofit that preserves threatened animal species. The Center rescues animals in need, provides educational resources for the community, and breeds animals responsibly in a captive environment. The students worked closely with the staff of the Center to research and analyze its tour programs offered to the public. The Center wanted to be sure that its tour program was as effective as possible but did not know how to best gather feedback from visitors.
As a service learning section, the group worked on their professional communication skills while also helping out the community. Five out of the six members had previously worked with the Center in another service learning class, Publishing, the year before. Therefore, they were familiar with the Center and their mission, which allowed them to dig in much faster than a group without that prior knowledge. After researching best practices of case studies they decided to observe every kind of tour the Center offered multiple times and to develop a visitor survey to get additional information about the visitors’ reactions after their tours. After collecting survey responses, they then held a focus group to further determine which parts of the Center’s tour program were effective and what further suggestions visitors had for making an already effective tour program even better.
The group designed and wrote the surveys, coded the responses, and entered everything into an Excel spreadsheet with a column for each question and a row for each response. They studied that spreadsheet for nearly two weeks looking for patterns and consistencies in the answers and then developed questions for the focus group based on the responses.
Running the focus group, the students had a direct view into the opinions of the audience and used the responses to compile findings for the staff of the Center to consider. For example, they discovered that people who came to the Conservators’ Center loved it, but would really enjoy a tour more geared towards children. Another important response they discovered in their research was that people would be willing to pay a little more to visit, which meant that the Center could afford to raise their prices. In their final report, the group also included constructive feedback for the Conservators’ Center to make their tour program more effective.
CUPID Connections
The team fully utilized the CUPID lab in Alamance 318 to complete the research. They relied heavily on the computers in the lab as a source of technology, using programs such as InDesign, Excel, and Word. Not only that, but they also used the space to host their client and practice for the focus groups. The rolling chairs also provided mobility and allowed the group to roll from computer to computer to share ideas. The whiteboards also provided a space to lay out the patterns and findings in their research. The shared space and technology allowed the group to make connections and conclude findings about their research.
The group actively sought to collaborate at each step of the research. Acknowledging that before the group could move forward everyone’s opinions needed to be heard, the group made sure to discuss the progress every class. Although at times the group got frustrated, they realized that listening to different perspectives strengthened the argument overall. According to Kasey Thornton ’12, “We needed a way to stay on task and not let our discussions get out of control with well-intended ideas and suggestions. To avoid this, we examined the question/problem we were given from EVERY angle, and we even sat down at the beginning of the semester and made a list of the research goals we were trying to accomplish so there would be no question.”
Rhetorical Decisions
Researching, inquiring, and writing are a few of the pillars of professional writing and are services that every organization needs. The Conservators’ Center’s focus is on rescuing exotic animals, but they needed professional writers to make sure that they were doing the best they could in presenting information to their audience.
The group made deliberate rhetorical decisions about the language, pictures, and general research to reflect their audience. After a good deal of on-site research and observation, they identified the audience as visitors, adopters, volunteers, and staff of the Conservators’ Center. With this identification they had a better idea of what to do with information gathered, where to go with their writing, and how to pursue their ideas.
Although the audience was identified, the group had to take this information one step further. In the beginning of the project they were unsure of where they wanted their research to focus. Kasey explained, “When you’re asked a research question as broad as “is our tour program the best it can be,” it’s easy to go in a hundred different directions with that, and that’s okay. Sometimes just sitting and brainstorming and playing with ideas is effective.” The group fully explored this idea of discussing possible paths while not straying too far from the original point. They made sure that with every suggestion came several questions to challenge and push the writer to reflect on their thoughts. For example some of their questions included
• Does this suggestion directly pertain to one of our research goals?
• If not, do we believe strongly enough that this suggestion will benefit the Conservators’ Center’s tour program, or that it will absolutely address one of the problems concerning the Center staff?
These and other questions facilitated a discussion of their research while also reintroducing them to the mission and purpose of their collaboration with the Center.