Studies of early writing recognize that learning to write is a complex process requiring students to attend to the composition of the text and the transcription of the ideas. The research discussed here examined six dimensions of early writing--text structure, sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, and handwriting--and how each…

Students in K-12 settings experience poor writing outcomes, with less than 30% of students writing at the proficient level. Coupled with the pressure to improve academic outcomes with limited resources, schools are in dire need of efficient, universally provided instructional activities that promote writing skills. Performance feedback on writing…

This case study shows how three Master's students engage affectively, behaviourally and cognitively with supervisor feedback on thesis drafts. The data sources are students' drafts, supervisor's oral and written feedback, and student interviews. Six themes of student engagement are identified in the data, namely (1) "gaining reassurance from…

Purpose: This article presents an analysis of empirical literature on classroom assessment of students' multimodal compositions to characterize the field and make recommendations for teachers and researchers. Design/methodology/approach: An interpretive synthesis of the literature related to practices and possibilities for assessing students'…

This work aims to characterize students' writing processes using keystroke logs and understand how the extracted characteristics influence the text quality at specific moments of writing. Earlier works have proposed predictive models characterizing students' writing processes and mainly rely on distribution-based measures of pauses obtained from…

This article provides three major contributions to the literature: we provide granular information on the development of student argumentative writing across secondary school; we replicate the MacArthur et al. model of Natural Language Processing (NLP) writing features that predict quality with a younger group of students; and we are able to…

Several empirical studies of Content-Based Instruction (CBI) have concluded that this approach has positive impacts in improving language learning skills including writing in foreign language learning environments. However, many of them carried out this approach within the traditional setting; face-to-face interaction instead of the e-learning.…

As a reflection of the value attached to interaction in L2 learning, pair and small-group activities have been integrated into different phases in the writing process. Focusing specifically on peer interaction during the planning and revision phases, this "In the Classroom" study explores the relationship between peer interaction and…

This study examines the implementation of "Criterion," an automated writing evaluation system developed by ETS, as a source of diagnostic feedback on learners' linguistic performance in a Vietnamese EFL writing classroom. Thirty-eight second-year English majors had access to "Criterion" for a five-month period. Data include…

Despite intensive essay writing courses at Saudi universities, ESL students are unable to develop their English writing skills. Finding an appropriate teaching approach, such as the process approach, may help them improve their writing abilities and enable them to do so more successfully. This research aims to find out how and what Saudi ESL…

Contribution: Demonstrates how to use experiential learning (EL) to improve argumentative writing. Presents the design and development of a natural language processing (NLP) application for aiding instructors in providing feedback on student essays. Discusses how EL combined with automated support provides an analytical approach to improving…

The purpose of this research was to analyze the effects of a writing strategy for text production among primary school students with different cognitive styles (CS) in the field dependence-independence (FDI) dimension. The writing strategy is based on collaborative work, autonomous work, and work integrating technology, which is referred to as…

In January 2023, UCAS announced their intention to reform the personal statement to a series of short questions. This built upon UCAS's work with students and providers in 2022/23, as well as academic literature that has documented the challenges and inequalities that surround the personal statement, including the Higher Education Policy Institute…

One of the important components in second language (L2) development is to produce clause-level units of form-meaning pairings or argument structure constructions. Based on the usage-based constructionist approach that language development entails an ability to use more diverse, more complex, and less frequent constructions, this study tested…

There is significant overlap between reading and writing, but no known standardized measure assesses these jointly. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the properties of a novel measure, the Assessment of Writing, Self-Monitoring, and Reading (AWSM Reader), that simultaneously evaluates both reading comprehension and writing. In doing so,…