College Students' Writing: An Assessment of Competence

Abstract

The following 3 focuses were identified in this study: (a) analyzing the characteristics of students' writing that most contributed to their passing or failing the Subject A Examination, an evaluation of student writing competence required by the University of California; (b) designing instruction to help college-bound students develop their writing with respect to criteria essential for competent writing; and (c) assessing the effectiveness of the instruction in (b) above. First, 250 Subject A Examinations that had been scored holistically were evaluated according to an analytic scoring guide with the following 5 components: issue, position, support, macrolevel skills, and microlevel skills, Second, the instruction given to Grade 11 honors English students was designed to improve writing, particularly with regard to position and support. The writing consisted of the following types: (a) examples of previously scored Subject A Examinations and introduction of the scoring guide, (b) summary writing and summarization techniques, (c) synthesis writing, and (d) argument writing. Third, the effects of instruction were assessed. Results of the nonorthogonal repeated measures of analysis of variance indicated that instruction in summarization was effective for improvements to position, support, macrolevel skills, and microlevel skills. The effect for issue approached significance. The results for synthesis instruction were less impressive.