Background: Developmental education (DE) has been critiqued because of its high cost, the inconclusive evidence as to its effectiveness, and the overrepresentation of underrepresented minority students required to take it. Because Black and Hispanic students are more often referred to developmental courses and may require more levels of…

Multimodal pedagogy is increasingly accepted among composition scholars. However, putting such pedagogy into practice presents significant challenges. In this profile of Washington State University's first-year composition program, we suggest a multi-vocal and multi-theoretical approach to addressing the challenges of multimodal pedagogy. Patricia…

This article examines the presumption that library research workshops will increase the quality, quantity and diversity of sources students use. This study compares bibliographies of research papers written by freshman composition students who received a library research session to those of students who did not receive any library instruction. Our…

This document is intended to be a companion piece for a report entitled "What Happens When Colleges Broaden Access to Transfer-Level Courses? Evidence from California's Community Colleges." It contains the technical appendices as follows: (1) College Profiles; (2) Additional Insights from our Interviews; (3) Data and Methods; (4) Caveat…

Although an increasing number of first-generation students are beginning tertiary education, many are not completing their degrees. In an attempt to improve retention and graduation rates, learning communities responsive to the unique needs of first-generation students are becoming more common. This paper explores the implementation of ePortfolios…

We examined the role of six psychosocial factors (PSFs) in explaining gender gaps in English Composition (n = 8,633) and College Algebra (n = 2,261) using data of first-year female (55%) and male students from 42 colleges. Using a multilevel model and controlling for prior achievement, we found that PSFs mediated between 3% and 41% of the gender…

This article details a collaboration between the fyw program and the library at the University of Nevada, Reno. The departments share a goal of helping students develop better research-writing skills; however, institutional and disciplinary boundaries presented well-known challenges. To surmount these challenges, the cross-disciplinary team…

Researchers at Brigham Young University studied first-year students' information evaluation behaviours of open-access, popular news-based, non-academic source material on a variety of subjects. Using think-aloud protocols and screen-recording, researchers coded most and least used evaluation behaviours. Students most used an article's sources,…

Annmarie Guzy teaches honors composition at the University of South Alabama. This essay discusses her observation that students who took her class were more likely to complete the honors program, which led to her wondering what elements of her course might give students an edge in honors program completion. As an English professor with training in…

As new media technologies emerge and evolve rapidly, the need to make informed decisions about using these technologies in teaching writing increases. This dissertation research study aimed at achieving multiple purposes. The first purpose was to catalog the new media technologies writing teachers use in teaching first-year composition classes.…

Even though a first-year writing course remains a near-standard component of the college experience, its "content" and the "path" students take to enroll in it are not so standard. Two recent changes at a public, land-grant institution with a selective admission policy and an undergraduate population of approximately 10,000…

Most higher education institutions lack a program that promotes students' transfer--that is, reapplication or repurposing--of writing skills and knowledge across the curriculum, a phenomenon that research shows does not tend to happen without deliberate sustained support. This article introduces an online instrument, the Writer's Individualized…

Collaborating with teaching faculty is a well-established method of making library instruction more meaningful and engaging to students, and learning communities provide an excellent opportunity to work closely with both teaching faculty and a cohort of students. A typical learning community brings students together around a similar discipline or…

Collaborative learning theory points to knowledge construction as an outcome of peer interaction, justifying widespread implementation of collaborative activities (like small group discussion) that scaffold toward individual writing projects. This article offers a qualitative investigation into the process of collaborating with peers and the…

This essay revisits and expands on Gary A. Olson and Joseph M. Moxley's 1989 article "Directing Freshman Composition: The Limits of Authority" by looking at revised notions of writing program administrators' work and authority in 2012. Whereas the original essay surveyed only department chairs, our study includes data from both…