To improve the writing performance
of secondary school students
in chemistry assessments, a set of activities was developed. First,
through document analysis of written tests, five categories of frequent
mistakes in answers were identified: poor punctuation (capital letters,
periods), missing key answer components (omitting concepts necessary
to answer the question), incomplete reasoning (logical steps are missing),
unclear use of antecedents (meanings of pronouns such as “it”
are difficult to discern), and poor connectives (words like “because”
are lacking or used incorrectly). After this, five strategies were
formulated: focus on punctuation, repeat key question components,
show complete reasoning, minimize use of references, and check use
of connectives. Second, a two-part intervention study was conducted.
In Part A, a written prompt (arrow symbol with the word “LANGUAGE”)
placed in front of context-based questions was implemented to find
out if that could help students avoid making any of those mistakes.
Following promising effects on the performance of 99 students, the
intervention was extended with a Part B to find out if, in addition
to the prompt, bonus points (for each prompt question one bonus point
was awarded if the answer was formulated correctly in terms of language
use) and language support (prompt card listing the five strategies,
and supportive assignments) could be of extra help to students. The
findings suggest that the writing performance of students can be improved
by increasing students’ awareness through a simple written
prompt, providing language support, and awarding bonus points for
properly formulated answers to chemistry test questions.