A 35·item questionnaire concerning writing habits, experiences of writing and productivity was sent to 228 full·time, U.K. domiciled, social science research students. One hundred and one complete responses were received. Cluster analysis was used to identify three distinct groups of students in terms of the strategies they used when writing: "Planners", who planned extensively and then made few revisions. "Revisers", who developed content and structure through extensive revision, and "Mixed Strategy" writers. who both planned before starting to write and revised extensively as part of their writing processes. The Planners reponed higher productivity than both the Revisers and Mixed Strategy Writers. Planners and Revisers did not differ significantly in how difficult they found writing to be; Planners found writing less difficult than did the Mixed Strategy Writers. We conclude that working from a plan can be an effective writing strategy for some, but that planning is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for writing success.Academic writing is difficult. It requires a complex combination of generating ideas, selecting the ideas that are appropriate to the writing task, translating these into text and polishing the text to produce a presentable document. In doing this the writer has to attend not only to his or her own thoughts, but also to the content and style conventions of the community for whom the piece is being written.For all but the simplest writing task, it is probably not possible to manage this number of constraints simultaneously (Bereiter 1980). Writing most documents will only be possible if the task is first divided up into more manageable sub-tasks. These sub-tasks may then be performed in series (rather than concurrently) to produce a finished piece of text. For the purposes of this paper we will call the way in which a particular writer partitions and sequences the writing process his or her "writing strategy". This paper examines the writing strategies of graduate research students with a view to exploring the relationship between writing strategy and success at thesis writing. Few new research students will have had previous experience of writing a document as long or as complex as a research thesis. Also, more so than with most undergraduate writing, a thesis should be written in a style that conforms to that expected by the academic audience at which it is aimed. It is likely, therefore, the process of writing a thesis will present a major challenge to most research students, and research suggests that an appreciable number of students find thesis writing very difficult (Rudd 1985;Torrance, Thomas and Robinson 1992). Despite this, however, writing instruction for graduate research students is often afforded a low priority within doctoral degree courses. StUdying the writing strategies of research students is interesting, therefore, for two reasons. It offers insight into the writing
Strategy-focused writing instruction: just observing and reflecting on a model benefits 6th grade students Fidalgo, R.; Torrance, M.; Rijlaarsdam, G.C.W.; van den Bergh, H.; Álvarez, M.L. General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. A B S T R A C TThree groups of typically-developing 6th grade students (total N = 62) each completed strategy-focused writing training. Using a combined lagged-group and cross-panel design we assessed the effectiveness of a sequence of four different instructional components: observation and group reflection on a mastery model, direct (declarative) instruction, peer feedback and solo practice. Cumulative effects on written product and writing process were assessed at baseline and after each component. Findings supported the effectiveness of strategy-focused intervention: All three groups showed gains, relative to controls, in the quality of their written products assessed by both holistic and text-analytic measures, and a more structured and goal-focused planning processes. These effects were associated almost exclusively with the modelling and reflection component. Improved performance was sustained through other instructional components but there was no strong evidence that they provided additional benefit. This finding was replicated in all three groups, and across two different text-types.
Objective: We investigated the physical attributes of an object that influence the difficulty of its assembly. Identifying attributes that contribute to assembly difficulty willprovide a method for predicting assembly complexity. Background: Despite object assembly being a widespread task, there has been insufficient research into information processing and cognition during assembly. The lack of research means that the variables that affect the performance of procedural assembly tasks with illustration only instructions are unknown. Method: In Experiment 1, seven physical characteristics (task variables) of assembly objects were systematically varied in a balanced fractional factorial and orthogonal design to create 16 abstract assemblies, which were assembled by 12 participants (6 men and 6 women aged 18-56). A second experiment (20 participants, 8 men and 12 women aged 18 to 52) involved scaled-down models of 8 real-world assemblies. Results:A clear relationship between the task variables and assembly difficulty was found in both studies, and the regression model from the first experiment was able to predict the assembly difficulty timings in Experiment 2. Conclusion: The proposed task variables are associated with assembly difficulty, and the regression analysis has shown four of the task variables to be significant predictors of difficulty. Application: Applications of this research include the use of the regression model as a tool to evaluate the difficulty of assemblies or assembly steps defined by instructions. The task variables can also be used to produce guidelines to ensure that assemblies or assembly steps are manageable.
Background.Writing is an important skill required in all graduate employment but we lack information on the most effective ways to write, and how to foster writing expertise in students. It is widely held that writers evolve characteristic patterns of working (strategies), and that these strategies are important for writing success and ef ciency. Most of the available data on the writing strategies of expert writers, however, consist of questionnaire responses produced some time after writing itself, and it would be helpful to have more direct information on writing strategies and their effects. Aims.To establish whether student writers develop stable writing strategies, and to examine the relation, if any, between writing strategy and writing success.Sample. Twenty-ve rst year undergraduate students studying for a degree in psychology.Methods. Records of their writing activities were completed by students concurrently with writing each of two essays (term papers).Results. Analysis of the records identi ed patterns of working which differed across individuals. Nearly three-quarters of the students displayed the same pattern of writing behaviour (strategy) for both their essays. The strategies identi ed from the activity records were broadly consistent with the descriptions of writing behaviour derived from previous questionnaire studies. There was, however, no signi cant association between writing strategy and essay mark. Conclusion.Many students evolve stable writing strategies, which may differ across students. Most of these strategies seem adequately effective in terms of producing course essays. Consequently, unless a student complains of writing dif culties, then tolerance of a range of approaches may be desirable in writing instruction.While the ability to write clearly and uently is undoubtedly one of the more important skills required of graduates it is disappointing to nd that we know relatively little about the most effective ways to foster writing expertise. There is, of course, much
Although fluency is an important subconstruct of language proficiency, it has not received as much attention in L2 writing research as complexity and accuracy have, in part due to the lack of methodological approaches for the analysis of large datasets of writing-process data. This article presents a method of time-aligned keystroke logging and eye-tracking and reports an empirical study investigating L2 writing fluency through this method. Twenty-four undergraduate students at a private university in Turkey performed two writing tasks delivered through a web text editor with embedded keystroke logging and eye-tracking capabilities. Linear mixed-effects models were fit to predict indices of pausing and reading behaviors based on language status (L1 vs. L2) and linguistic context factors. Findings revealed differences between pausing and eye-fixation behavior in L1 and L2 writing processes. The article concludes by discussing the affordances of the proposed method from the theoretical and practical standpoints.
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