Meet Isabelle Lundin the author of "Making Confident Changes: Using Metacognitive Revision as a Pedagogical Tool"

Isabelle Lundin graduated from Oakland University and was heavily involved with the school's Writing Center. She is the author of “Making Confident Changes: Metacognitive and Writing Self-Efficacy in Writing Courses.” 

Isabelle wanted to expand the “preexisting relationship between metacognition and writing self-efficacy” with her research. She was specifically drawn to the relationship between writing and metacognition due to her time spent in the writing center and her educational pursuits. Isabelle credits her work at her university’s Writing Center for allowing her to identify the gaps of knowledge in her field, stating that “it helps me pay deeper attention to the ways writers' unique experiences are tied to their writing processes…there is so much literature that talks about metacognitive reflection after the fact and how that helps people transfer their knowledge from one rhetorical context to another. But there's not a lot of research that talks about using it within the writing process and harnessing the power of metacognition to help you accomplish the writing task.” 

However, Isabelle’s research was not always seamless, and she faced two significant challenges. While conducting the study, she realized that she could not match student participation with her initial structure and thus had to adapt it to fit her needs better continuously. Additionally, her research mentor passed away unexpectedly; this painful loss not only affected Isabelle personally but also drastically altered the course of her research project. 

Despite her challenges, Isabelle continued her research by adapting it when necessary, as she was far too passionate about the subject to quit. She explained that the most helpful strategies she employed while having to alter her project were “trusting [herself] and making connections with everything that [she’d] read prior… and synthesizing it.” When asked what advice she would give to anyone interested in entering a new disciplinary field, she recommended: “embrace that you are not going to know what you're doing right away, but you will figure it out…do your best to enter the genre and enter the discipline— it is also important to have a faculty member that can support you.”

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This post was initially developed through a partnership between Dr. Cope’s Fall 2023 WRT280: Research Methods students, who interviewed the author, and Dr. Cutrufello’s Fall 2023 WRT320: Digital Writing students, who drafted the post and was edited and updated by Lee Krauss.