Writing has been identified as a challenge for students with reading difficulties. This study contributes to previous research by exploring argumentative writing in L1 (Swedish) and L2 (English) in a group of students with reading difficulties in upper secondary school. Participants were 19 students with typical reading, 19 students with poor decoding, and 9 students with poor comprehension. A majority of students attended vocational programmes. Written text quality was assessed by using an adapted version of Jacobs et al.’s (1981) analytic scoring scheme including content, organisation, cohesion, vocabulary, language use, spelling, and punctuation. Students with reading difficulties (regardless of reader subgroup) were found to perform poorly in all categories in both L1 and L2, with spelling being particularly challenging in L1, and cohesion, language use, spelling, and punctuation in L2. Significant differences were found between students with poor comprehension and students with typical reading in cohesion, language use and spelling in L2. Few other significant differences were identified possibly due to an overall poor writing outcome also for students with typical reading. This general poor outcome in writing is discussed in relation to previous studies on writing among students with reading difficulties and writing in vocational programmes.

No abstract

We explored gender stereotypes among Swedish university students (N = 101) who were studying a course in psychology, using a matched-guise experimental design. The gender identity of a speaker in a dialogue, manifested by voice, was digitally manipulated to sound male or female. Responses to the recordings indicated that a speaker with a male voice was rated as significantly less conscientious, agreeable, extraverted, and open to experience than was the same speaker with a female voice. Regarding social behavior, there was a tendency for the speaker with a male voice to be rated as more hostile than was the same speaker with a female voice. The study findings suggest that stereotype effects, rather than real behavioral differences, may have an impact on perceived gender differences.

In a case study a University class undertook a translation from Swedish to English in a keystroke logging environment and then replayed their translations in pairs while discussing their thought processes when undertaking the translations, and why they made particular choices and changes to their translations. Computer keystroke logging coupled with peer-based intervention assisted the students in discussing how they worked with their translations, and enabled them to see how their ideas relating to the translation developed as they worked with the text. The process showed that Computer Keystroke logging coupled with peer-based intervention has potential to (1) support student reflection and discussion around their translation tasks, and (2) enhance student motivation and enthusiasm for translation.

This study explores how stereotypical preconceptions about gender and conversational behaviour may affect observers’ perceptions of a speaker’s performance. Using updated matched-guise techniques, we digitally manipulated the same recording of a conversation to alter the voice quality of “Speaker A” to sound “male” or “female.” Respondents’ perceptions of the conversational behaviour of Speaker A in the two guises were then measured with particular focus on floor apportionment, interruptions and signalling interest. We also measured respondents’ explicit stereotypical gender preconceptions of these aspects. Results showed that respondents perceived the male guise as having more floor apportionment and interrupting more than the female guise. Results also indicated that the respondents had explicit stereotypes that matched these patterns, i.e. that interrupting and taking space were deemed to be stereotypically male behaviour, while signalling interest was deemed to be a female feature. The study suggests that stereotypical preconceptions about gender and conversational behaviour may skew perceptions of similar linguistic behaviour.