For decades, colleges and universities have been grappling with the task of closing the readiness gap for underprepared writers entering the higher education system. Traditional developmental education models are costly and inefficient at best, and detrimental to the matriculation of students at worst. Bridge programs have had moderate success,…

This dissertation investigated the efficacy of an eight-week dysgraphia intervention, created to address dyslexic dysgraphia and motor dysgraphia. Following multiple case study and mixed-methods designs, the researcher quantitatively assessed the copying fluency and compositional fluency for three high school male participants prior to and after…

"'English is Unavoidable': The Implementation of Multilingual Writing in Foundations Writing, General Education, and Writing Across the Curriculum" reports on a longitudinal, qualitative study of six administrators and one multilingual student who were involved in three institutional writing initiatives during a time of major…

Because writing is complex and draws upon so many psychological and cognitive processes, learning to write is even more challenging for students with disabilities than it is for typically developing students. Nonetheless, writing research in the field of education and special education lags behind that of many other academic subjects. The body of…

The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) 2011, documented that seventy-three percent of students in grades 4th thru 12th are performing below the proficiency level for writing in the United States. Writing in the 21st century has become an essential part of middle and high schools' students' curriculum (NAEP, 2011). In order for…

Written expression is a complex and critical skill that many students in the U.S. struggle to master (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). Meanwhile, the COVID pandemic has expedited the need to find feasible interventions that support students writing in a virtual landscape (The National Association of School Psychologists, 2020).…

Only limited research has been completed that examines the impact of teaching outlining on improving ADHD students' writing skills and perceptions about writing. An abundance of research demonstrates high school students with ADHD struggle with writing and organization skills. This study investigated the impact of using the POW + TREE outlining…

This study investigated the efficacy of behavioral skills training (BST) and interteaching in enhancing the American Psychological Association (APA) formatting skills of online graduate learners. Writing skills are foundational to academic success and professional competency, particularly in online graduate programs characterized by learners with…

Writing is an essential skill for academic success. Evidence shows students with writing difficulties experience lower overall academic performance (Graham & Perin, 2007). The development of fluent writing is particularly important, as it has been shown to be a strong predictor of global writing quality (Malecki & Jewell, 2003). Limited…

The purpose of this comparative study is to determine whether the linguistic input approach based on Krashen's (1989) comprehensible input (CI) and supported by Kolb's (2015) experiential learning (ELT) and Siemens' (2005) connectivism theory (CT) to improve eighth graders' Spanish speaking and writing linguistic proficiencies. Previous research…

This study investigated multilingual writers' prior L2 writing knowledge transfer and how it relates to multilingual writers' metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. Specifically, this study aimed to 1) explore how multilingual writers transfer their prior L2 writing knowledge, 2) investigate multilingual writers' metacognitive…

With changes to placement testing and many students being able to self-place into college-level courses, first-year community college students are often entering English composition classes without a strong academic skillset. Tutoring can be a way to support students, but many do not attend tutoring. At a rural community college, students in two…

The new Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (ACRL, 2016) highlights the ability to synthesize ideas from multiple sources of information as one of the key knowledge practices as students navigate an increasingly complex information landscape. With the introduction of this new document, there is a strong need for evidence-based…

Multilingual college students often struggle with writing and revising for academic purposes. This dissertation explored the effectiveness of a Concept-Based Language Instruction (C-BLI) approach to teaching revision processes to college-level multilingual writers. Although a significant body of research exists on effective feedback on…

In an era of widespread automation--from grocery store self-checkout machines to selfdriving cars--it is not outrageous to wonder: can teachers be automated? And more specifically, can automated computer teachers instruct students how to write? Automated computer programs have long been used in summative writing evaluation efforts, such as scoring…