This paper reports the findings of an action research that was carried out to measure the effectiveness of integrating a social networking website "Edmodo" in students' writing performance in an EFL classroom at Arab Open University (Oman Branch). The participants were 25 students studying English in the Foundation Programme. Along with…

Purpose: This study is a quantitative exploration of a new construct the authors label as "academic culture (AC)." Treating it as generalized latent variable composed of academic press (AP), disciplinary climate (DC), and teachers' use of instructional time, the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of this construct to be a…

With the increased use of digital materials, undergraduate writers in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts have become more susceptible to plagiarism. In this study, the researchers designed a blended English writing course with an online writing tutorial system entitled "DWright." The study examined the effectiveness of the…

This research investigated on the first language interference in learning the English language among three cultural groups -- the Ilocano, the Ibanag, and the Itawes. The subject of the study were sixty sophomore students from the College of Education and the College of Business Entrepreneurship, and Accountancy who are officially enrolled at…

These maps are representing State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) passing rates for each AISD campus, for grades 3 through 12 in school year 2012-2013.

Within the current political and educative context, where high-stakes standardized assessments create a pressure-filled experience for teachers to "teach to the test," time spent on writing instruction that supports students in transferring their learning between classroom and assessment contexts is crucial. Teachers who must use prompts to…

Early identification of students at risk for writing disabilities is an important step in improving writing performance. Kindergarten students (n = 84) were administered a set of researcher-developed writing tasks (letter writing, sound spelling, word spelling, and sentence writing) and school-administered reading tasks ("Dynamic Indicators…

Automated essay scoring is a developing technology that can provide efficient scoring of large numbers of written responses. Its use in higher education admissions testing provides an opportunity to collect validity and fairness evidence to support current uses and inform its emergence in other areas such as K-12 large-scale assessment. In this…

Writing is an important teaching and learning tool that fosters active and critical thinking. There are multiple pressures for disciplines outside the humanities and social sciences to integrate writing in their courses. The shift from teaching solely discipline-specific skills to including writing in a meaningful way can be a daunting process. An…

The main purpose of this study was to see the effect of a Balanced Literacy program on the students' academic achievement (the 8th Grade NYS ELA exams) between the years of 2005, 2006, and 2007. This study analyzed the effects of Balanced Literacy on student achievement scores at the 8th grade level. In addition, the effect of teacher's training…

This study surveys the learning characteristics of non-traditional students aged 24 years and older. Since the California State University (CSU) system enrolls a significant non-traditional student demographic, understanding the needs of this student base is a critical component to its success. This dissertation seeks to gain a deeper…

The present study seeks to investigate the role of portfolios in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) writers' metacognition as well as their writing skill. Therefore, the participants were assigned to two groups (experimental and control). The students in both groups received a writing test, a researcher-made Metacognitive Writing Questionnaire…

Although fluency and automaticity of handwriting have been recognized as important research topics for 30 years, empirical data on respective developmental courses among typically developing children as well as clinical samples have remained very limited. To fill this gap, this study investigates the development of handwriting automaticity…

The purpose of this study was to develop an English grammar teaching material for Indonesian learner with a linguistics approach consisting of error and contrastive analysis. This was a research and development study which applied five steps: 1) analysis, 2) design, 3) development, 4) implementation and 5) evaluation. Some experts were involved in…

Kelly Gallagher writes that "wide swaths of students are not developing their writing skills--skills we know to be foundational to their literate lives." In this article, he explains how school districts can go about developing students' writing skills in all content-area classrooms. He highlights five reasons why students should write…