Cognitive-field psychology is discussed as an alternative to the behavioral model in planning and structuring instructional programs. Applications are discussed in the general area of instruction of adult students in technical writing. Various types of formal and informal approaches to self-assessment at the beginning of such courses are…

This report contains the results of a study of the writing of college-trained personnel that examined: (1) the importance of their writing abilities in the world of work and in situations other than work, (2) the types of writing done on and off the job and the composing processes used, (3) the media college-trained people use for writing, and (4)…

A course in advanced technical communication was developed at West Virginia University for upper-division students in engineering and the sciences and those planning careers in technical communication. The first four weeks of the semester are spent copy editing, with the students learning to use standard editing marks and keeping an editor's style…

A cognitive approach to the interrelation of writing and reading assumes that production and comprehension of written text depend upon cognitive and affective schemata used in concert by a writer or reader to produce or encode, store, and retrieve text information. Both comprehending and composing are basic, complex, interactive processes with…

Since attention to the issue of writing assessment is new, research and theory are described as still widely scattered among fields of inquiry and differing perspectives. The integration of available knowledge into a viable framework is recommended to prescribe current practice and determine future research. In a domain-referenced view of…

Researchers in many disciplines dislike writing and view it as an additional and unnecessary irritant. Teaching researchers to write for administrators who must make decisions about highly specialized topics, but who lack the specialist's knowledge, means inducing a change in the researchers' perspective. They have to learn that they are writing…

Much progress has been made in foreign language achievement testing during the past twenty years. Formative and summative evaluation have also received much attention. These measures yield information on student mastery of a course of study, student progress in the course, and on the goals and objectives of foreign language instruction itself.…

The format of the Instruction Dialogue Author Facility (IDAF) computer program has been applied to teaching clause analysis in college writing classes. The IDAF program exercises a great deal of control over a writing student's progression through lessons. Each of the writing lessons consists of one or more exchanges between the instructor and the…

Based on a review of the research and theory on cohesion in writing, it was hypothesized that developmental students could improve their writing competence and their use of cohesive ties by studying the mental process, meaning, mechanics, and rhetorical purposes of cohesive ties. To test this hypothesis, the persuasive and expository compositions…

The basic communication skills of prospective teachers at the University of Georgia were assessed with knowledge and performance instruments. The knowledge instrument was a criterion referenced test in communicative arts (logical reasoning, library research, composition, language, communications media and careers, literature, reading, and oral…

A two-part study manipulated structure demands (sequencing ideas, forming sentences, and complying with punctuation/spelling mechanics) in a persuasive writing task to measure the resulting effects on content operations (generating arguments/propositions). In part one of the study, 40 graduate students wrote preliminary and final drafts in one of…

A study examined the relationship between students' linguistic insecurity (writing apprehension) and writing performance. College students in three remedial and two freshman composition classes were administered a test of linguistic insecurity that included pronunciation items and choices of hypercorrect, colloquial, and nonstandard versions of…

This paper discusses variables influencing written composition quality and how they can best be controlled to improve the reliability of assessment of writing ability. The study aimed to concentrate on the effects of different imposed time limits on student performance in written composition at grade 10 level using methods of generalizability…

Reading and writing teachers can use visual compositions--a grouping of pictures, photos, or slides suggesting a unified story or theme--to help students understand style and organization in writing. Students who are categorized as language deficient, have difficulty with invention, or are influenced in language learning by visual/spatial input…

An area of current concern is that of the advantages and disadvantages of measuring writing proficiency directly via writing samples, and indirectly via objective tests. Much research has been completed documenting the correlation between direct and indirect measures. However, there had not yet been a systematic and detailed conceptual analysis…