Education Commons^™

Project Title: Challenging What We Think We Know: Moving Beyond The Obstacles Of Prior Knowledge, Bidisha Biswas, Rosa Jimenez, Jessica Pemble

Writing Research Fellows

Research Question: In what ways does prior knowledge affect students’ writing?

Method & Data Studied: During the final weeks of the fall 2008 quarter a survey was made available to the students in the American Foreign Policy course on Blackboard Academic Suite. The survey contained seven open-ended questions that prompted students to reflect on the assignments and evaluate, in particular, the way in which they chose to engage biases in assigned materials and their own preconceived ideas about foreign policy topics when completing writing assignments.