The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) and writing achievement in junior high students (aged 11-15 years) with and without written expression disabilities. Ninety-six students with (n=48) and without (n=48) written expression disabilities were administered the Das-Naglieri:…

Boise State University, Idaho, now has a better idea how well entering freshmen perform in reading, writing, and mathematics because of an Academic Profile instrument administered to freshmen at Boise State and other institutions. In general, Boise State students performed somewhat below other freshmen. The testing was initiated in response to the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the selection of benchmark writing samples influences the assessment of students' writing quality. More than 300 grade 3 writing samples were scored in two separate rating sessions. Within each scoring session, raters used a different set of benchmark writing samples. Raw ratings were analyzed…

This 1999-2000 report of student performance in writing provides information on student performance on the North Carolina Writing Assessment at Grades 4, 7, and 10. Noting that the annual writing assessment, a component of the North Carolina Testing Program, is also a component of the ABCs Accountability Program at Grades 4 and 7 and at Grade 10…

Focuses on the relationship between the development of segmental awareness and dyslexia. Finds that students in two training programs that taught the skills required to use phonemes performed as well as normal readers on phoneme segmentation tasks. Notes that the improvements were correlated in dictation but not in reading. (RS)

Investigates the written syntax of 81 college-able individuals demonstrating a specific learning disability. Supports a control impairment hypothesis, predicting that sentence production errors will be of the same kind as found in the language of writers demonstrating no handicapping conditions. Investigates the correlation of specific cognitive…

Compares the discourse knowledge and self-regulation of good and poor writers, as well as the quality and length of their final texts; 48 junior-college students wrote a comparative text. Results showed that poor writers were no more linear than good writers, and no less actively self-regulated their writing. Good writers produced larger texts of…

Analyzes approximately 4,800 independent evaluations of 796 essays written by 241 students in 13 first-year writing classes at two colleges. Finds very low consistency of holistically scored student performance from essay to essay, suggesting that drawing conclusions from one or even a few writing samples of a particular student is problematic.…

The key research question in this small-scale study focuses on the effects that an ICT (information and communications technologies)-based concept mapping intervention has on creativity and writing achievement in 10-11-year-old primary age pupils. The data shows that pupils using a concept mapping intervention significantly improve their NFER…

A study examined the effectiveness of a metacognitive intervention that concentrated on eight subprocesses of writing and on executive procedures according to an "Orchestra Model" of text production. Subjects, 90 tenth-grade students, participated in the intervention which lasted for about six months and consisted of about 60 lessons.…

The summary information in this report provides teachers, school administrators, students, and the general public in Alberta, Canada with an overview of results from the January 1997 administration of the English 30 Diploma Examination. The information in the report is most helpful when used in conjunction with the detailed school and jurisdiction…

Examines the relationship between professional development characteristics of "healthy" vs. "unhealthy" school districts and student writing achievement. Measures health of 24 school districts using Organizational Health Scale. Analyzes professional development characteristics of high-health and low-health districts. Finds that student writing…

Finds main effects for group but not gender. Finds that the combined use of direct and indirect measures appeared most effective in examining the complexities of writing produced by learning-disabled and nonlearning disabled college students. (RS)

Twenty learning-disabled students (grades 5 and 6) who received procedural facilitation for narrative composition, including story grammar cue cards and a metacognitive check-off procedure, produced better quality stories than a control group of 10 students. Including verbal reminders to develop characters did not affect story quality. (Author/JDD)

Investigates the relationships among self-confidence about writing, expected outcomes, writing apprehension, general self-confidence, and writing performance over one semester. Finds that students' beliefs about their own composition skills and the preperformance measure were the only significant predictors. (SR)