Dolores Perin

A meta-analysis of writing instruction for adolescent students

There is considerable concern that the majority of adolescents do not develop the competence in writing they need to be successful in school, the workplace, or their personal lives. A common explanation for why youngsters do not write well is that schools do not do a good job of teaching this complex skill. In an effort to identify effective instructional practices for teaching writing to adolescents, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of the writing intervention literature (Grades 4-12), focusing their efforts on experimental and quasi-experimental studies. They located 123 documents that yielded 154 effect sizes for quality of writing. The authors calculated an average weighted effect size (presented in parentheses) for the following 11 interventions: strategy instruction (0.82), summarization (0.82), peer assistance (0.75), setting product goals (0.70), word processing (0.55), sentence combining (0.50), inquiry (0.32), prewriting activities (0.32), process writing approach (0.32), study of models (0.25), grammar instruction (- 0.32).

Facilitating Student Learning through Contextualization: A Review of Evidence.

This is a review of evidence for contextualization, defined here as an instructional approach connecting foundational skills and college-level content. Two forms of contextualization are identified, contextualized and integrated instruction. Despite methodological limitations, the available studies suggest that contextualization has the potential to accelerate the progress of academically underprepared college students.

What We Know, What We Still Need to Know: Teaching Adolescents to Write

This article examines what we know about effective adolescent writing instruction and what we still need to know. What we know is established by bringing together the findings from three sources: a comprehensive meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies (Graham & Perin, 2007), a meta-analysis of single-subject design studies (conducted as part of this article), and an analysis of reoccurring themes from qualitative studies examining effective schools and teachers (conducted as part of this article). Recommendations for what we still need to know are linked to these three analyses but extend beyond them, specifying directions for future research and the need to contextualize research-based writing interventions.

Effects on Science Summarization of a Reading Comprehension Intervention for Adolescents with Behavior and Attention Disorders

Sixty-three adolescent boys with behavioral disorders (BD), 31 of whom had comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), participated in a self-regulated strategy development intervention called Think Before Reading, Think While Reading, Think After Reading, With Written Summarization (TWA-WS). TWA-WS adapted Linda Masons TWA intervention by adding written summarization, focusing on self-monitoring, and using only science text. TWA-WS participants showed significantly greater gains than a matched comparison group, which practiced literacy tasks with the same text, on reading comprehension as measured through written summarization (η2 = .42). The increases for TWA-WS generalized both to social studies text and to a more complex composing-from-sources task. Effects of comorbid ADHD appeared on generalization and maintenance (d = 0.73 to 1.49) but not posttest measures.

The Location of Developmental Education in Community Colleges: A Discussion of the Merits of Mainstreaming vs. Centralization:

This study compares mainstreaming and centralizaton, two ways in which community colleges organize developmental education. Based on previous literature, the two models are compared in terms of instructional quality, ancillary services, teacher characteristics, student reactions, and reputation of remediation. Pending empirical evidence for the superiority of one model to another, recommendations are offered to college administrators and state policy makers for maximizing the effectiveness of each one.

A Comparison of Text Structure and Self-Regulated Writing Strategies for Composing From Sources by Middle School Students

This study compared two techniques for teaching middle school students to compose from expository text sources, a common but difficult academic writing task. Classroom social studies content was used. Text structure instruction (TSI), which focused on text characteristics using graphic organizers, was compared with PLAN & WRITE for Summarization (PWS), a self-regulated strategy development intervention adapted from De La Paz (1999), which taught note-taking, composing, editing and revision, and self-monitoring. Compared to a traditional instruction control, each technique had unique impact, PWS on writing quality and content knowledge, and PWS on inclusion of main ideas in the written summary.

Literacy Skills Among Academically Underprepared Students

A review of studies published from 2000 to 2012 was conducted to describe the literacy skills of underprepared postsecondary students, identify teaching approaches designed to bring their skills to the college level, and determine methods of embedding developmental instruction in college-level course work. The studies pinpointed numerous weak areas in students’ skills, but it was found that certain reading and writing processes have been overlooked in the literature. Thirteen studies of the effects of instruction were found, most of which focused on strategy instruction or “meaning-making.” The research tended to lack rigor, but five instructional studies reporting relatively robust data were identified. The main finding of the review is that, because of the lack of a sustained research agenda to date, as well as methodological flaws in existing studies, there is still much to be learned about the literacy skills of underprepared students. Eight areas for future investigation are suggested.

Curriculum and Pedagogy to Integrate Occupational and Academic Instruction in the Community College: Implications for Faculty Development

Students in community college programs designed expressly for career training are often academically under-prepared. Yet traditional academic courses may be ineffective for them because the content tends to be general rather than focused on career topics. The separation of academic and career-related content minimizes the likelihood of generalization of learning across the two contexts, so that, for example, writing skills developed in freshman composition class may not be applied in an allied health class. Further, given their educational histories and learning styles, students whose main objective is to prepare for a career may not see the value of general education (Grubb, Badway, Bell, & Kraskouskas, 1996) and may avoid taking academic courses altogether. A way around these problems is to integrate occupational and academic education. (By occupational education we mean associates and certificate programs leading to career entry or advancement.) Emanating from Dewey’s (1916) philosophy, integrated instruction makes academic courses more occupational and occupational education more academic. Academic-occupational integration is the fusion of reading, writing, English language, math, and/or critical thinking skills with career-related instruction. Integration is accomplished by linking or clustering courses, infusing academic instruction into occupational courses or vice versa, or adding components such as authentic assessment, career exploration, and work-based learning to traditional career-related education (Badway & Grubb, 1997). For the community college, integrated instruction promises both curricular and pedagogical reform. Curricular reform is possible through the synthesis of two normally disparate areas, and pedagogical reform occurs when teacher-centered instruction is replaced with more stimulating student-centered teaching. This Brief is drawn from a case study of seven community colleges that used curriculum and pedagogy to integrate academic and occupational education. The colleges were in urban, suburban, and rural areas in four states, two in the Northeast and two in the Midwest. The sites were selected based on the following criteria: (1) the institution was offering one or more integrated occupational courses; (2) the college considered the course(s) to be good examples of integration; (3) and the course(s) exemplified one of the curriculum integration models identified by Badway and Grubb (1997) or the Illinois Task Force on Integration (1997). Neither the colleges nor the states in which they are located constitute a representative sample. A total of 33 classes participated, of which 25 were observed. In addition, students in 23 classrooms completed an anonymous survey, and 137 individuals were interviewed, including 77 students, 40 instructors and chairs, 13 administrators, and 7 other personnel.

Academic Progress of Community College Nursing Aspirants: An Institutional Research Profile

The community college is a major site preparing students for nursing careers, an important role at a time of a national shortage. However, many of the low socioeconomic status (SES), minority students who aspire to associates degrees in nursing display low levels of academic preparedness. An analysis of 3-year institutional data from a single community college showed that a cohort of nursing aspirants were similar to students in other majors, but developmental-education outcomes differed for successful and unsuccessful students. To address serious difficulties in retention and academic performance found for the group as a whole, a nursing-specific tutoring, advisement, and counseling intervention is recommended.

A Contextualized Curricular Supplement for Developmental Reading and Writing

Two experiments were conducted with developmental education students to investigate the impact of a contextualized intervention focusing on written summarization and other reading and writing skills. In experiment 1 (n = 322), greater gain was found for intervention than comparison participants on three summarization measures: proportion of main ideas from the source text, accuracy, and word count (ES = 0.26–0.42). In experiment 2 (n = 246), results were replicated for several summarization measures (ES = 0.36–0.70), but it was also found that intervention participants copied more from the source text at posttest than did the comparison group. Further, intervention participants using science text outperformed students receiving generic text on two summarization measures (ES = 0.32–0.33), providing moderate support for contextualization.