Table 1 Groth’s (2003) Descriptions and... | Emerald Publishing

Table 1

Groth’s (2003) Descriptions and Exemplars From Our Study

Groth’s Levels Based on SOLO Levels	Groth’s Pattern Descriptor	Groth’s Nuanced Descriptions of Students’ Responses	Exemplars From a Middle School Students’ Comments
Prestructural	No design strategies articulated, but is aware of the existence of studies and empirical data.	Use preexisting studies and information gathered from sources such as books, internet websites, and journals to determine answers; or reliance on others to already have gathered the data or no identification of data gathering techniques; or redundant or unnecessary response	None
Unistructural	Data collection without concern for representativeness.	Acknowledge the need for empirical data; or initiate ideas for data gathering techniques; however, data gathering techniques not likely to be representative of the population from which drawn	“Um, after a large sample size, the results don’t vary extremely or that if there are outliers, they don’t affect the overall … test?” (Henry)
Multistructural	Data collection with concern for representativeness.	Ascertain data gathering techniques with concern for representativeness; however, no unification of these two aspects in order to develop a coherent strategy for data gathering	“Um, you kinda hafta figure out what defines a normal text message.” (Toby)
Relational	Data collection with concern for representativeness and one or more methods to ensure it.	Unify data gathering techniques and concern for representativeness; realize the importance of incorporating either random sampling, stratified random sampling, or both	“I have a new idea. Instead of, like starting a new conversation, we should just go back and look at our old ones and, like, just look at, like, what our parents sent us as opposed to what our friends sent us as opposed to as what our, like coaches sent us.” (Micah)

Groth’s Levels Based on SOLO Levels	Groth’s Pattern Descriptor	Groth’s Nuanced Descriptions of Students’ Responses	Exemplars From a Middle School Students’ Comments
Prestructural	No design strategies articulated, but is aware of the existence of studies and empirical data.	Use preexisting studies and information gathered from sources such as books, internet websites, and journals to determine answers; or reliance on others to already have gathered the data or no identification of data gathering techniques; or redundant or unnecessary response	None
Unistructural	Data collection without concern for representativeness.	Acknowledge the need for empirical data; or initiate ideas for data gathering techniques; however, data gathering techniques not likely to be representative of the population from which drawn	“Um, after a large sample size, the results don’t vary extremely or that if there are outliers, they don’t affect the overall … test?” (Henry)
Multistructural	Data collection with concern for representativeness.	Ascertain data gathering techniques with concern for representativeness; however, no unification of these two aspects in order to develop a coherent strategy for data gathering	“Um, you kinda hafta figure out what defines a normal text message.” (Toby)
Relational	Data collection with concern for representativeness and one or more methods to ensure it.	Unify data gathering techniques and concern for representativeness; realize the importance of incorporating either random sampling, stratified random sampling, or both	“I have a new idea. Instead of, like starting a new conversation, we should just go back and look at our old ones and, like, just look at, like, what our parents sent us as opposed to what our friends sent us as opposed to as what our, like coaches sent us.” (Micah)

Source:Groth (2003, p. 259).