The teaching of highly valued scientific writing skills in the first year of university is challenging. This report describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel written assignment, "The Personal Response" and accompanying Peer Review, in the course, Human Biology (BIOL1015) at The University of Queensland. These assignments were…

This survey research on National Writing Project (NWP) teachers and comparison teachers (N=35) in a southeastern state found that the NWP teachers wrote more than the comparison teachers did and that the participating teachers' writing was associated with students' achievement in writing. The pattern of the impact of writing life on achievement…

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) "Special Education at a Glance," which includes a copy of the "Guide to Planning and Assessing School-Based Special Education Programs," provides in a single document, information about the special education population at each Montgomery County (Maryland public school, including…

The purpose of this study was to learn whether there have been any changes in writing instruction across K-12 education in the past three years. A three-year time frame was chosen to structure the study as it included the time period subsequent to the College Board's first announcement of the SAT writing section (the 2002-03 academic year). The…

This study took an experimental approach to evaluating test speededness. In order to assess the benefits of extra time (or the penalty of strict time limits) on new SAT scores, sections that were designed to be administered with a 25-minute time limit were administered with a 40-minute time limit (or slightly more than time and a half) as part of…

Section 1008.30 (formerly 240.117), Florida Statutes, requires the State Board of Education to develop and implement a common placement testing program to assess the basic computation and communication skills of students who intend to enter a degree program at any public community college or state university. Every year the State provides reports…

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) "Special Education at a Glance." which includes a copy of the "Guide to Planning and Assessing School-Based Special Education Programs." provides in a single document, information about the special education population at each Montgomery County (Maryland) public school, including…

Success in higher education depends on students' ability to meet the writing requirements of their chosen courses, and in many cases this involves adapting to the literacy practices of particular disciplines. While research into professional academic discourse suggests that it may reflect differences in disciplinary culture and epistemology, there…

Historically, the Composition Program at Eastern Washington University (EWU), a comprehensive university in Cheney, WA, required a single essay sample from each composition student as the final exit exam; in practice, a student passed or failed the course based on an in-class argumentative essay, written in three consecutive class periods. Such a…

Haiku--the short, often nature-oriented poetry form--is generally intended to engage the reader in a single aesthetic moment. Every word, every syllable, counts, resulting in the reader being drawn quickly and intensely into the poet's unique experience. While legal analysis surely differs from haiku, in both its form and its substance, students…

This article examines the experiences of advanced students and of graduates in a nontraditional MA in professional writing program to discover how faculty may assure student success in professional writing occupations. The study investigates the knowledge domains and habits of mind that foster student success in writing. The research is the…

This study evaluated (1) whether essay placement (either at the beginning or at the end of the test battery) impacts test-takers' performance on the critical reading, mathematics, and writing multiple choice measures; and (2) whether essay prompt type (either a simple one-line prompt or a prompt including a short passage) affects test-takers'…

History departments are not generally known as hotbeds of assessment activity. Doctoral programs in history rarely touch the issue of how to assess student learning, while program review as an idea appears to many historians as an invasion of their turf by outsiders. At Eastern Michigan University, members of the faculty in the Department of…

Peer review has become commonplace in composition courses and is increasingly employed in the context of telecommunication technology. The purpose of this experiment was to compare the effects of anonymous and identifiable electronic peer (e-peer) review on college student writing performance and the extent of critical peer feedback. Participants…

The primary purpose of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The "Digest" includes a selection of data from both government and private sources, and draws especially on the results…