While my own long-term use of audio commentary has convinced me of its usefulness as a pedagogical tool, two of my qualitative, classroom-based research projects--one on ECI students' attitudes toward handwritten vs. audio commentary, and one on differences between revisions completed by ECI students using handwritten vs. audio commentary--have offered some measurable results. For instance, as noted on a website I co-created with Jeff Sommers, out of 197 composition students surveyed about their commentary preferences, 176, or 89%, stated a clear preference for the audio method over the handwritten method (see http://www.users.muohio.edu/sommerjd/images/survey_results4.gif). In interviews I conducted with ten ECI students who volunteered after completion of the course to be study participants, I found that student preference for audio commentary was predicated on their belief that they were praised more fully in audio, remembered teacher commentary better and longer, were given more detailed feedback, and understood comments more accurately than they did when they received handwritten responses. One study participant remarked that the audio method increased her motivation to write better, saying, "it really boosted my confidence as a writer…It made me try harder." Another noted that audio commentary helped him internalize feedback better, saying, "I would usually just skim over written comments unless something caught my eye; however, on the...[audio] I had to listen to all of it and it seemed to sink in more, so I was able to remember what was said."

In a related study designed to determine whether or not revisions were different when students worked with audio vs. handwritten commentary, I studied original drafts and final revisions from the same ten student volunteers in two sections of ECI. These volunteers relied solely on my commentary during their revision process; they did not meet with me in conference, nor did they consult writing center tutors for extra help as they revised. In this study, I looked at papers from two ECI assignments: a less complicated narrative essay where students were asked to write and reflect upon an important personal experience, and a more complex and challenging source-based argument essay. In order to help verify that the results were related to the method of commentary rather than the ease or difficulty of the assignment or the skill level of an individual writer, I made sure that students from one section received audio commentary on the reflective narrative, while students from the other section received handwritten feedback on that same paper. This was reversed, then, with the argument essay, allowing me to begin to examine whether or not individual writers revised differently with alternative feedback methods. The design also helped me examine whether or not different commentary styles on the same assignment with different writers yielded any revision variations. Furthermore, in my analysis of their final revisions, I was most interested in whether or not commentary style seemed to have any bearing on students' ability to negotiate substantial content changes in their essays. In particular, I was interested in revisions related to what I believe to be two of the most frequent requests made by composition instructors: significant content development (writing more in order to advance critical thinking, explain or clarify points, provide evidence, etc.) and revisions addressing problems pertaining to a paper's focus (linking ideas better, deleting extraneous or unrelated material, adding transitional phrases, sentences, and paragraphs to connect material, etc.).

My research results revealed that nine out of ten of the student volunteers revised more substantially in the areas of development and focus on papers where they received audio instructor feedback, regardless of the ease or difficulty of the assignment (sadly, one out of ten made insignificant revisions using both methods of commentary). Specifically, in nine out of ten cases, students who received audio commentary on their reflective narrative papers added more significant detail, description, action, characterization, and critical reflection than those who revised using handwritten feedback. Furthermore, students who revised the more challenging argument paper using audio comments developed content more significantly by adding more astute examples, evidence, counterarguments and refutations than their peers who worked with handwritten commentary. In addition, my research revealed that in the area of focus, the vast majority of students working with audio commentary, regardless of the assignment, were better able to delete extraneous material and add transitional sentences and paragraphs to connect previously unconnected ideas than those working with handwritten commentary. As one student stated about the influence of audio commentary on her writing, "I feel audio comments help me to focus better."

Perhaps because the audio method is more text-specific, more detailed, offers the time and space for individualized instruction, genuine praise, and real teaching, the majority of students in my studies who used it to guide their revision processes produced better final papers. One participant reported, "I think [audio comments] are en excellent idea because they give so much more information. [The professor's] mouth is going to move faster than her pencil, and her pencil is going to move slower than her brain." In interviews with the ten students whose revisions I analyzed, it became clear that in 90% of the cases, the expansive aspects of audio commentary allowed them to understand the holistic nature of the feedback better: in other words, the ways that individual comments related to the entire paper. Students reported vast uncertainty regarding handwritten margin notes in particular, leading one interview subject to wonder, "when a professor writes something like 'develop this idea' next to something, does that mean the sentence closest to the note or does it mean the whole paragraph, or what? I never feel like I know." In my study, student papers revised using handwritten commentary suggested that margin notes were read as completely localized, applying only to the sentence closest to the comment. In addition, study participants reported that global endnotes were often left unread. Conversely, the more inherently global nature of audio commentary--the way it allows a professor to quickly suggest how developing one section, for instance, requires development of several other sections--helps students understand the relationship between smaller, text-specific comments and the larger holistic issues required in revision. Ultimately, student attitudes and learning outcomes might be best summed up by this study participant, who commented, "When I got stuck I could just replay my CD and somehow listening not reading…made it easier for me to get refocused. I wish all Profs. used audio comments."