Due to existing demographic trends, language minority students comprise an increasing proportion of students in the Southwest and in urban areas. For these language minority students, the lack of strong writing skills impedes academic performance at the university level and then later in the workplace. To test writing attitudes, a study involved…

Used writing samples, informal observations, and formal interviews and observations over 6 weeks to document a 4-year-old's emergent writing process. Found that the subject made the transition from the pre-phonetic to the semi-phonetic writing stages at an early age. Also found that young children's low tolerance level for frustration has…

Originally developed as part of a project for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on writing apprehension and the writing process is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes an overview of the project; a comprehensive search of the ERIC…

This study identified courses associated with improvements in the writing skills of 455 first semester, freshman undergraduates at a large research university. Secondarily, faculty who taught these courses were interviewed to explore their teaching practices, course designs, and evaluation techniques. The same group of students was invited back…

This dissertation presents the construction and development of a thesis that investigates links between discourses of gender and the production of writing by girls at primary school. The research took place over three years in a one-teacher rural school in country Victoria (Australia). The girls were aged from four to twelve. The research…

Describes a study of the attitudes toward writing and self-evaluation of writing skills of 78 allied health students. Reports negative attitudes toward the writing process and skills deficiencies. Advocates incorporating writing into science course curriculum. (PAA)

A study investigated the effectiveness of a program for increasing students' abilities to self-assess writing. The targeted population consisted of a class of second-grade students in an upwardly mobile community located in the suburban Chicago area of Arlington Heights, Illinois. The inability to self-assess writing was documented through teacher…

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,…

The continuation of an earlier study examined to what extent students change in their use of evaluative criteria in writing between the fifth and sixth grade. Twenty-five students were interviewed in fifth and sixth grade. In the fifth grade, all students were taught writing by the same teacher who emphasized student choice of topic, recursive…