While understanding the concept of audience is an important step in learning to write, few studies have explored how student writers conceptualize audience in academic and nonacademic settings. This dissertation explores how college students enrolled in a first-year composition course conceptualize and operationalize audience and examines how the…

The present study adopted the structural equation modeling approach to examine Chinese university students' metacognition, critical thinking skills, and academic writing. In particular, this research explored whether awareness in metacognition can foster critical thinking and, thus, lead to enhancement in academic writing. The measure for…

Writing is a critical skill that is considered important for employment, further education, civic participation, health, and personal fulfillment. For example, a substantial percentage of nearly all jobs that non-college graduates possess, require some type of writing. Workers are increasingly required to use their writing skills for memos,…

Writing is a critical skill that is considered important for employment, further education, civic participation, health, and personal fulfillment. For example, a substantial percent of nearly all jobs that non-college graduates possess require some type of writing. Workers are increasingly required to use their writing skills for memos, reports,…

This qualitative study investigated the influence of Metawriting, or "writing about writing," on fifth-grade students' knowledge of writing and proficiency in composing informative essays. Using a Think-TalkWrite model, students explored their existing writing knowledge and experiences, analyzed their essays using genre-specific tools,…

This article draws on examples of student interviews incorporating multiple modalities to explore the writing lives of students as part of a larger project focusing on participants' experiences of writing within and beyond the university. We explain this innovative, iterative research method combining multiple texts and maps, characterizing it as…

This article is an expanded version of my presentation to Division 15 (Educational Psychology) of the American Psychological Association for the Career Achievement Award for Distinguished Psychological Contributions to Education in 2019. It provides an overview of research conducted by colleagues and I that examined the following four topics: (a)…

Student writing outcomes in the U.S. are dismal, and this has been an area of concern for decades, yet schools and teachers are not implementing evidence-based practices (EBP) in writing instruction. Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) is an EBP in writing yet the administrator's role in implementing EBPs in writing has not been studied.…

While research demonstrates the important role parents play in facilitating children's literacy development, little is known about the knowledge that underpins these exchanges. Here, we examined the association between parents' reading-related knowledge (phonological awareness, knowledge of syllable patterns, and identification of regular and…

Self-regulating strategy development (SRSD) writing instruction is an evidence-based approach that has been shown to increase students' writing performance and knowledge of writing. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether early elementary students' story writing performance and knowledge of writing would change following 5 weeks of…

The present study evaluated the effects of web-based training on Spanish pre-service and in-service teacher knowledge and implicit beliefs on learning to write. A sample of pre-service teachers and in-service teachers from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, and Spain participated in the online course. Findings suggest that teachers may improve…

What aspects of writing are doctoral students metacognitive about when they write research articles for publication? Contributing to the recent conversation about metacognition in genre pedagogy, this study adopts a qualitative approach to illustrate what students have in common, across disciplines and levels of expertise, and the dynamic…

The effect of writing strategy instruction on three middle school students' narrative writing performance in actual classrooms was investigated. The results indicated that the writing strategy instruction improved writing performance of students with and without disabilities, as well as students who were English language learners when provided…

We investigated writing performance and knowledge of writing before and after a persuasive writing intervention for ethnically diverse elementary school students in a low socio-economic community in Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ). We used a one-group pre-post design. The participants (n = 24) were year 5 and 6 students (ages 9-11) from the same…

A core tenet of the model of domain learning is that learning is shaped by cognitive and motivational forces. In writing, these catalysts include learners' knowledge, motivation, strategic behaviors, and skills. This study tested this proposition at two time points (Fall and Spring) with 179 fifth-grade students (52% were girls), examining if…