Defined as language, literacy and numeracy, and employability skills, foundation skills are essential for individuals to participate in further education, employment and wider society. Community education providers, such as community colleges, neighbourhood houses, faith-based organisations and adult learning associations, are key providers of…

Purpose: This paper aims to identify the difficulties postgraduate students face in writing the literature review for their thesis and dissertation. Methodology: Seventy postgraduate students from 9 faculties in one public university in the Klang Valley consented to participating in this study. They were 49 Masters candidates and 21 doctoral (PhD)…

Students live in an information and knowledge management economy in which the dissemination and analysis of information requires intellectual, technical and interpersonal skills. As a direct response to higher education's challenge to produce more engineers, scientists, and business professionals, universities have increased the numbers of…

This article examines evidence of academic skill development and transfer related to the taking of a first year Inquiry-based seminar course designed to enhance a range of self-directed learning skills and their transferability to other learning contexts. The study compares a sample of academic work from two groups of Social Sciences students, one…

The validity of current standardized competency tests for writing is in doubt as is the need for such testing at all. Some tests, especially those requiring little writing, may not be testing what they purport to test (content validity). Instructional validity (testing what has actually been taught) raises the issue that what is being tested is…

Describes research on how female language characteristics affect the writing processes and written products of female basic writers. (SR)

Eliminating errors is neither as simple nor as important as back-to-basics critics believe; however, correctness does need to be considered in composition instruction. Error affects a reader's judgment of writing quality and interferes with the communication between reader and writer. It may also hinder the composing process of some writers. Major…

Forty-three students in a developmental English course participated in a study to discover whether students' writing would improve and their satisfaction with the course would be increased if they were permitted to revise their papers after the papers were marked but before they were graded rather than after the papers were both marked and graded,…

This study was conducted to determine whether or not a lack of emphasis on grammar instruction and exercises would impede students' abilities to overcome basic writing deficiencies. Both groups of students (intensive grammar instruction and minimal instruction) showed significant improvement in correcting high frequency errors in grammar and…

Reports on a study of the use of sentence combining in developmental writing classes. (MKM)

This study investigated various reading and writing abilities among 25- and 35-year-old residents of Linkoping, Sweden, and assessed the extent to which these individuals' abilities could be regarded as satisfactory for their needs. In all, 377 subjects were tested on the following skills: alphabet recognition, copying ability, reading rate,…

Describes a case study of a basic writing student that was undertaken to examine the ways that low self-confidence can undermine a writer's voice and text. Emphasizes the important role basic writing instructors have in strengthening students' sense of self in addition to their intellectual competence. (MAB)

The relationship of traditional and nontraditional variables to grades achieved by University of Portland (Oregon) students in five different majors (business, liberal arts, education, nursing, and engineering) was studied. Traditional variables were: the college major; freshman writing class grade; California Aptitude Test (CAT) scores in…

In a study designed as a pilot project to test a taxonomy of noun phrases (NPs) and indicate results to be expected from a larger subsequent survey, 13 essays from a basic writing class and 10 essays from an advanced composition class were analyzed for four NP types: (1) those requiring earlier text information for full interpretation, (2) those…

Because of recent public demand that English teachers teach students basic writing skills to prepare them for employment, a study was conducted in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to determine what kinds of writing skills employers require of their workers. One hundred and sixty-four employers of the Association of Manufacturers and Commerce were sent a…