My past research on writing in graduate seminars (e.g., Prior, 1998) fits
that model, but I ended up seeing it as inadequate, especially when the
object of study was writing-reading-inquiry that took place mostly outside
of the class and was only partly inscribed in the student texts I
collected. What I'm currently planning is an attempt to vary the contexts
I sample in multiple ways (e.g., having students and instructors videotape
writing and other activity at home or in other settings, following multiple
projects rather than the writing task of one class, looking across
different classes in the same program, looking at the activity of
participants at different levels--undergraduates, graduate students, junior
and senior professors, looking at historical developments of the field and
institution--the history of work in an area, of genres in journals, of
departmental offerings, considering relations between academic and
non-academic activity).
Jay notes the obvious problems of how to analyze so much data and of how
partial the data remains in terms of what can be followed and over what
timescales. These are real problems, but then studies of classroom
interaction face the same dilemmas, only a small portion of (even) the
recorded data is fully analyzed and reported, some participants (because of
the interest of what they're doing or their willingness to participate)
receive more analytic attention. In analyzing my past designs, I concluded
that I had been tacitly accepting an official institutional perspective
when I looked at the task and the participants primarily from the
perspective of the class/institution and only recorded class meetings. In
any case, I wonder if others on this list are pursuing similar research
designs and, if so, with what methodological and theoretical
resources/problems.