Teresa Limpo

Progress in Written Language Bursts, Pauses, Transcription, and Written Composition across Schooling.

Research on adult writers has shown that writing proceeds through bursts of transcription activity interspersed by long pauses. Yet few studies have examined how these writing behaviors unfold during early and middle childhood. This study traces the progress of bursts, pauses, transcription, and written composition in Portuguese students from Grade 2 to 7 and tests whether bursts and pauses are related to transcription, to writing fluency, and to text quality across grades and two genres (narrative vs. opinion essay). We found that increasingly automaticity of transcription allowed for more efficient composing processes, as reflected in longer bursts, shorter pauses, and greater fluency. Regardless of grade and genre, more automatic transcription contributed to longer bursts, which along with shorter pauses contributed to higher writing fluency and text quality. These results provide useful information on children’s language bursts and pauses, which may support the assessment and further training of their writing skills.

Tailoring Multicomponent Writing Interventions: Effects of Coupling Self-Regulation and Transcription Training:

Writing proficiency is heavily based on acquisition and development of self-regulation and transcription skills. The present study examined the effects of combining transcription training with a self-regulation intervention (self-regulated strategy development [SRSD]) in Grade 2 (ages 7–8). Forty-three students receiving self-regulation plus transcription (SRSD+TR) intervention were compared with 37 students receiving a self-regulation only (SRSD only) intervention and 39 students receiving the standard language arts curriculum. Compared with control instruction, SRSD instruction—with or without transcription training—resulted in more complex plans; longer, better, and more complete stories; and the effects transferred to story written recall. Transcription training produced an incremental effect on students’ composing skills. In particular, the SRSD+TR intervention increased handwriting fluency, spelling accuracy for inconsistent words, planning and story completeness, writing fluency, clause length, and burst length. Compared with the SRSD-only intervention, the SRSD+TR intervention was particularly effective in raising the writing quality of poorer writers. This pattern of findings suggests that students benefit from writing instruction coupling self-regulation and transcription training from very early on. This seems to be a promising instructional approach not only to ameliorate all students’ writing ability and prevent future writing problems but also to minimize struggling writers’ difficulties and support them in mastering writing.

Written Language Bursts Mediate the Relationship Between Transcription Skills and Writing Performance

It is established that transcription skills (handwriting and spelling) constrain children’s writing. Yet, little is known about the mechanism underlying this relationship. This study examined the mediating role of bursts and pauses on the link between transcription skills and writing fluency or text quality. For that, 174 second graders did the alphabet task and wrote a story using HandSpy. Path analyses indicated that writing fluency and text quality models were excellent descriptions of the data, with 80% and 46% of explained variance, respectively. Results showed that handwriting and spelling influenced writing fluency only indirectly via burst length and short pauses duration (full mediation); and that whereas only handwriting contributed to text quality directly, both handwriting and spelling contributed to text quality indirectly, via burst length (partial mediation). These findings suggest that better transcription skills allow students to write more words without pausing, which in turn results in more fluent and better writing.

Effects of Age, Gender, and Personality on Individuals' Behavioral Intention to Use Health Applications.

Health applications, aimed at helping people with or without diseases to monitor their health, are attracting the interest of researchers and consumers. The use of health applications may have a shortand long-term impact on people’s lives by creating early habits to use technology to monitor health, which may prompt the sustained use of this technology over time. This is especially important for elders as these applications offer them the possibility to manage their health autonomously. However, elders are resistant to use technology. One way to improve technology acceptance is by understanding how users’ behavioral intention is influenced by personal characteristics, preferably before entering in the elderly stage of life. This was the main aim of this study: we explored the effects of age, gender, and personality on the behavioral intention to use health applications in younger and older adults (18-39 vs. 40-65 years). Results showed that the effects of personality on individuals’ behavioral intention was moderated by age in older adults and by gender in younger adults. These findings seem relevant to promote the current and future use of health applications, helping people to improve their quality of life and stay healthy throughout the lifespan.

Examining Potential Sources of Gender Differences in Writing: The Role of Handwriting Fluency and Self-Efficacy Beliefs

A growing body of scholarship in the field of writing research from a cognitive perspective suggests that girls tend to outperform boys in particular writing tasks. Still, our understanding about gender differences continues to evolve. The present study specifically focused on gender differences in writing between students from Grade 4 to Grade 9. We examined differences in handwriting and self-efficacy, as well as in three measures of written composition across two genres (viz., spelling, text length, and text quality in stories and opinion essays). Moreover, we tested whether there were differences in written composition above and beyond handwriting and self-efficacy. Findings suggest that girls consistently outperformed boys in handwriting, self-efficacy, spelling, text length, and text quality. These effects were moderated by neither students’ grade nor text genre. In addition, after accounting for handwriting and self-efficacy, females still performed better than males in the three measures of written composition. Overall, findings confirmed the gender difference typically found in writing and indicated that potential explanatory variables for it may be handwriting and self-efficacy.

Short Scales for the Assessment of Personality Traits: Development and Validation of the Portuguese Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI)

The importance of quickly assessing personality traits in many studies prompted the development of brief scales such as the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), a measure of five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness). In the current study, we present the Portuguese version of TIPI and examine its psychometric properties, based on a sample of 333 Portuguese adults aged 18 to 65 years. The results revealed reliability coefficients similar to the original version (α = 0.39–0.72), very good 4-week test–retest reliability (n = 81, rs > 0.71), expected factorial structure, high convergent validity with the Big-Five Inventory (rs > 0.60), and correlations with self-esteem, affect, and aggressiveness similar to those found with standard measures of personality traits. Overall, our findings suggest that the Portuguese TIPI is a reliable and valid alternative to longer measures: it offers a promising tool for research contexts in which the available time for personality assessment is highly limited.