Miami-Dade Community College began in 1960 and now has 5 campuses and about 20 outreach centers. For the 1993-94 school year (the latest on which there are complete figures), 76,787 students were enrolled at Miami-Dade; another 43,391 took non-credit courses. Over the past 25 years, as the community has changed, obviously the college has reflected…

A study focused on enhancing the validity of foreign language (L2) reading comprehension assessment measures. Subjects included 131 cadets (88 beginners and 43 non-beginners) enrolled in French courses at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. First language (L1) reading comprehension was measured using the…

A study compared the writing development and ideas about writing of students in a whole language program with students in a skills-oriented program from the time they entered kindergarten to the end of the second grade. Subjects were 22 inner city students who completed second grade out of an original kindergarten cohort of 50 minority students…

A study examined the impact of written feedback on goals and self-efficacy, and the impact of goals and self-efficacy on changes in writing performance. Subjects were 137 students in a second-semester freshman-level college English composition class and 5 second-semester graduate assistant teachers. Consistent with social learning theory, results…

A Many-Faceted Rasch Model (FACETS) for measurement of writing ability is described, and its use in solving measurement problems in large-scale assessment is illustrated with a random sample of 1,000 students from Georgia's Eighth Grade Writing Test. It is a promising approach to assessment through written compositions. (SLD)

Prompted by repeated failure on a required English language proficiency test by a large proportion of undergraduates, educators at Cardinal Stritch College (Wisconsin) conducted a study to determine predictors of failure or success on the test, and whether revision of course placement standards should be considered to improve test performance.…

An arts-based supplemental education program was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively. It was hypothesized that this classroom program would cause gains in critical thinking skills, as measured through writing ability. The program provided 87 teachers in grades 3 through 12 with a classroom set of "Arts Indiana" magazine and an accompanying…

When evaluating the work of congenitally deaf students whose native language is spatial and semiotic, composition teachers must avoid being what Marjorie Siegel calls "verbocentric," since congenitally deaf students are, in effect, learning to write in a language completely foreign to them in structure, syntax, and grammar. The…

According to self-efficacy theorists, people's judgments of what they can accomplish are influential arbiters in human agency and, as such, powerful determinants of their behavior. In large part, this is because these self-efficacy beliefs are said to act as mediators between other acknowledged influences on behavior, such as skill, ability,…

Two groups of freshman students participated in the experiment. They were enrolled in their first ESL writing course. Before instruction, both groups were pre-tested. They wrote an essay. T-test results showed significant differences between both groups in writing ability. The experimental group made too many errors and had many writing problems.…

This study presents a quantitative analysis of cohesion of the academic writing of Chinese English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) graduate students by applying Halliday and Hansen's (1976) model. Six Chinese graduate students from a Midwestern university were selected for the study, representing two proficiency levels in written English--advanced and…