The Purpose of This Blog

The purpose of this blog is to create an online space for participants and potential participants to learn more about the research that Dr. Jennifer Long and Dr. Kim Jones, McMaster University, are conducting regarding the effectiveness of scheduling weekly writing groups to improve research productivity in female engineering faculty members.

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Questions We Will Ask in the Focus Group

Describe your experiences taking part in the writing group this semester. In addition, was this different from other writing groups that you’ve taken part in? If so, how was it different? If not, how is this not different? What did you like best about the writing group? What would you like to change about the writing group? Everyone has been given a sheet of paper with three tables. Each table has up to six possible activities. We’d like you to please rank these activities in the order of the amount of time you spend on each (1 designates very rarely allocated time to… and 5 designates very frequently allocated time to…[activity]). The responsibilities we’ve chosen are: teaching, researching, service responsibilities, administrative tasks, or other. If there is a category we haven’t included, please describe what it is. What is your experience of the ways in which research and research activities are prioritized in your department? How supported do you feel concerning your abili...
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Why Are We Doing This Research?

Background:  Women are not only under-represented as engineering professors, but have been shown to advance up the promotion ladder more slowly than men. Research shows that women spend higher proportions of their time on teaching and service and smaller proportions on research than their male counterparts. Other research has shown that writing groups can dramatically increase productivity (e.g. number of papers and grant applications written). Scholars have investigated participants’ rate of writing submissions before and after taking part in writing groups. These scholars have demonstrated a ‘per person’ increase from a baseline of 0.5 to1.2 publications, per year (Rickard, et al. 2008). Writing groups were also shown to: 1. Increase writing confidence 2. Improve satisfaction with the publishing process 3. Provide opportunity for peer support, recognition 4. Incentivize writing activities In all, good writing practices can be learned, and writing groups can bolster wr...
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What Methods Will We Use to Gather Data?

Writing Group Focus Groups (a) Approximately 10 participants (b) Female faculty who are Contractually Limited Appointments, pre-tenure, Associate Professor, Full Professor; Teaching-Track Faculty. All participants will be engineering faculty members at McMaster University. Writing Group Online Surveys (a) Approximately 10-15 participants (b) Female faculty who are Contractually Limited Appointments, pre-tenure, Associate Professor, Full Professor; Teaching-Track Faculty. All participants will be engineering faculty members at McMaster University. Time-use Anonymized Survey (a) Approximately 50 participants (b) Rank is open (including but not limited to: Contractually Limited Appointments, pre-tenure, Associate Professor, Full Professor; Teaching Track Faculty). All participants will be both male and female engineering faculty members at McMaster University.
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