The study investigated media effect of text, teacher-as-reader, and television on the quality of students' writing, when stimulus stories were presented prior to writing episodes. Media effect was measured within subject sample and within levels of student writing ability. Secondary questions were related to difference by medium in (1) carry-over to student writing of stimulus story vocabulary and textual or narrative content, (2) incidence of statements containing overt action, and (3) length of compositions. Once weekly for three weeks, three comparable groups of 30 randomly selected fifth-graders from a Southwest Georgia school system received the same three stimulus stories, but via different media and in different order. Following each stimulus, subjects wrote from assignments designed to elicit expressive writing patterned after the stimulus story. Interviews about writing processes were conducted with 26 randomly selected subjects from subgroups by race, sex, and predicted writing ability. Correlated t-tests revealed no significant differences in quality of writing or in composition length, as a result of different media. Significantly more statements based on textual or narrative content of stimulus stories appeared, however, after televised stimuli. Descriptive data revealed some strong patterns of writing behavior which corroborated findings of previous studies. These included: (1) planning briefly before writing; (2) composing stories while writing; (3) encountering few problems with writing; (4) making few changes; (5) reading over stories not at all or to check for mechanics; (6) finding difficulty beginning stories; (7) verbalizing about writing processes in generalizations. An unusual finding was that students enjoyed writing these stories. Implications are: (1) literary models, regardless of the medium of presentation, help fifth-grade / students to write; (2) literature can have a positive effect on students' attitudes toward writing; (3) television can be an effective medium for presenting literary works as writing stimuli; (4) television may be more effective than independent reading or listening in impressing stimulus story textual or narrative content on students for later use in composing their own stories. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: A, page: 3832. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

This is an experimental study to find out what kinds of revisions are made by students at three grade levels and to test a major tenet of the textbook lore about revision: that students should allow time to elapse between their drafting and revising. Randomly assigned groups of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders (178 subjects) wrote a first draft in response to an essay topic and, then, after varying periods of elapsed time--one day, three days, and a week--wrote a final version. All writing sessions were 50-minute class periods. Draft-to-draft revisions were coded; first drafts and final versions were holistically scored. A chi-square distribution-free test was run to determine main effects of and interactions between grade level and elapsed time. / The 8th graders made significantly more total revisions and significantly more surface-level (mechanics, usage, etc.) and low-level (word and phrase) revisions. Subjects who rewrote a week later made significantly more low-level revisions. Less than a third of all revisions for all groups were surface-level revisions. There were more substitutions than any other nonsurface revision; over half of the substitutions were clause and multiclause revisions. Text-level revisions (radically altered final versions) accounted for 16.3% of the sample. Of all final versions, 58.9% received a higher score than that awarded the first draft. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: A, page: 3830. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

This study was conducted to determine the effects of divorce on the expressive and receptive language development of 3-5 year old nursery school children. Independent variables were: parental absence, duration of divorce, educational level of parents, family size, sex, and income level of families. The dependent variable was language development (expressive and receptive). / The sample for the study consisted of 70, 3-5 year old nursery boys and girls (30 from divorced and 40 from non-divorced families) who were randomly drawn from four randomly identified nursery schools--one from each geographical area--among the population of 65 public and private nursery schools of Leon County, Florida, during the 1979-80 school year. A questionnaire developed by the investigator was administered to the parents of participating children to seek information regarding the children's family background. Two language tests designed to measure receptive and expressive responses of children were administered to each child. These instruments were: (a) Carrow Elicited Language Inventory (C.E.L.I.) as an expressive test and (b) Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language (T.A.C.L.) as a receptive test. / Multiple linear regression (MLR) was utilized to explore the hypotheses of the study. A significant level for rejecting the null hypotheses was set at (alpha) = 0.05. The results were as follows: (1) There was a statistically significant difference between the receptive and expressive language of children from divorced and non-divorced families. Children from non-divorced families scored consistently higher in both receptive and expressive tests than children from divorced households. (2) Related to sex as a variable, no significant difference was found between receptive and expressive language of boys and girls from divorced families. Further investigation, however, showed that receptive and expressive language scores of girls from intact families were significantly higher than the expressive and receptive language scores of girls from divorces families. (3) The overall test showed no statistically significant difference between family income and the receptive and expressive language of children. But simple main effect showed that children who come from homes with incomes of $12,000-$17,999 (level 3) had significantly higher scores in receptive and expressive language than children whose family income was $0-$5,999 (level 1). (4) There was no statistically significant difference between family size and the receptive and expressive language development of children. But a statistically significant difference was obtained at (alpha) = 0.1. (5) There was no statistically significant difference between the receptive and expressive language development of father-absent and mother-absent children due to divorce. (6) There was no statistically significant relationship between the receptive and expressive language of divorced families' children and duration of divorce. (7) There was no statistically significant difference between the educational level of divorced parents and the receptive and expressive language of their children. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-08, Section: A, page: 3461. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

An examination of the nature and range of the English teaching profession's concern with media, this study reviewed the literature of English education from 1961-1978, with emphasis on four journals of the National Council of Teachers of English (Elementary English/Language Arts, English Journal, College English, and College Composition and Communication). A major purpose of the study was to discover the extent to which the media movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's was supported by rationales for the study and use of electronic and artistic media in English programs. The journals were the basis of a tally in which the profession's concerns with media were categorized, quantified, and analyzed. Other resources--methods texts, other journals, books from related subject areas--were also consulted, especially when the journals failed to treat some aspect of media adequately. / The categories of media-related materials found in the journals were, in order of frequency of inclusion: Referential (brief citations), Theoretical, Practical, Mechanical (media hardware), Quantitative (dealing with effects of media on students and society) and Analytical. The number of media-related articles (1,799 in all) showed a continuing pattern of growth between 1961 and 1978. / The examination of the categories revealed several points of interest, including a strong tendency for writers of Analytical articles to use the terminologies and methods of literary criticism when analyzing materials in non-print media. However, a smaller number of writers did use medium-specific approaches, criticizing the application of inappropriate tools of analysis. The Mechanical articles revealed the profession's persisting but unfocused concern with hardware aspects of media. Film hardware was seldom described in the journals. The tape recorder was the machine most frequently treated, usually in Practical articles. Computers were often cited for their potential for influencing instruction but were not seen as adequate tools for teaching most important skills and concepts. Several Practical articles uncovered theoretical concepts, such as transmediation, which refers to student translation of ideas from one medium (e.g., print) to another (e.g., a collage). Another such concept is focused perception, in which students react to a direct experience (e.g., a physical object) as if it were artistically mediated (e.g., a painting). / Theoretical materials in the journals generally took the form of briefly stated rationales, which were subcategorized and analyzed. The subcategories included media for their own sake; media as motivators; media as expedients; media as vehicles for traditional goals of English instruction; English and media in learning theory contexts; and English and media as bases for broader disciplines. The broader disciplines included humanities, general semantics, visual literacy, communications, semiotics, and aesthetic education. / The most powerful Theoretical rationales, both in the journals and other sources, were the infrequent explorations of media and English in relation to communication theory, semiotics, and learning theory. The last of these focused largely on Piagetian psychology, whole-brain education, and James Moffett's theories. Theoretical models that supported these rationales were presented and analyzed, and the author presented an original four-part theoretical model for media in English, bringing together the most useful theoretical statements and previous theoretical models. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: A, page: 1037. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-09, Section: A, page: 4933. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

This study treats several areas of composition theory, giving special attention to the presence of inductive procedures in each approach. The Neo-classical approach, the Pre-writing approach, Free Writing, dramatism, and tagmemic theory. Two theories are analyzed in special depth: (a) the dramatism of Kenneth Burke, and (b) the tagmemic theory of Kenneth Pike. / In the last part of the study attention is given to pedagogical applications of certain inductive methods identified earlier in the study. The procedures suggested by Burke and Pike are again developed in greater detail than other methods discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-05, Section: A, page: 1988. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

The primary purpose of this study was to ascertain if sentence combining (SC) activities had an effect on the reading and listening comprehension of seventh grade students. Further purposes were to investigate correlations among reading, listening, and mean T-unit length and to determine what attitudes toward various SC activities would develop among the experimental subjects. / This twelve-week study involved eighty-seven students in four seventh grade classrooms at Belle Vue Middle School in Tallahassee, Florida. The experimental and control groups were each divided into regular and advanced language arts classes by reading ability. Each of the two teachers taught an experimental and control class. The treatment consisted of one and a half hours per week of open and closed, written and oral SC exercises as well as SC-cloze activities. / The data for reading comprehension were gathered from a pre- and posttest administration of the comprehension subtest of Science Research Associates Achievement Series, Level E, Forms 1 and 2. Listening comprehension scores were taken from a pre- and posttest administration of the listening comprehension subtest of the Stanford Achievement Test, Intermediate Level II, Forms A and B. Syntactic fluency data were calculated from pre- and posttest free writing samples in the narrative mode. A two-way analysis of variance of gain scores yielded results indicating no significant differences between the experimental and control groups, ability groups, or sexes for reading or listening comprehension. There were no significant changes among reading, listening, and mean T-unit length correlations from pre- to posttest. The analysis of the SC attitude inventory showed enjoyment of both SC activities and reading with the open and oral SC exercises achieving highest popularity. / Conclusions from this study were that a-contextual SC instruction was not found to be an effective means of increasing reading or listening comprehension among seventh grade students. The SC treatment, however, was evaluated as enjoyable by the majority of the experimental students, particularly in its oral and open aspects. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: A, page: 2545. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

The purposes of this study were to (a) develop a two-part Table of Cultural Descriptors as a tool to evaluate the cultural content of ESL reading texts, (b) determine the most widely used ESL reading texts used in adult intensive English language courses in the United States, (c) determine the interjudge reliability of the Table of Cultural Descriptors, and (d) evaluate the cultural content of the 25 most widely used ESL reading textbooks using the validated Table. Of the 329 intensive English programs contacted, 151 or 45.9% responded, giving the titles of reading textbooks they use. From the 300 titles reported, the 25 most widely used were evaluated using the Table. The Table was inspired by Nostrand's Emergent Model. The Table consists of three main sections: the Culture, the Society, and the Individual. The Society section, following Nostrand, is subdivided into 13 units (family, religion, etc.). There are a number of descriptors under each division or subdivision taken from the Outline of Cultural Materials (Murdock, et al, 1971). Part II of the Table consists of brief descriptions of characteristics of American culture, using Hsu's (1969) postulates and characteristics developed by Nostrand (1967). Each text was read and culturally relevant material noted in the Table using values of 1, 2 or 3 to indicate extent of coverage. Interjudge reliability was determined by having three experienced ESL teachers evaluate 15 text samples of 5,000 words each, then ranking the samples. The rankings were tested for agreement using Kendall's coefficient of concordance, W. The evaluators reported significant problems in using Part II of the Table and this was confirmed by applying measurements of W to results using Part I, and Parts I and II combined. W with results from Part I and II combined was .607 at the .05 level of probability. W was .687 at the .025 level of / probability with the results from Part I only. Thus, Part II was not used in the evaluation by Seale of the 25 most widely used texts. High and significant values for W suggest that there is substantial agreement among experienced and trained teachers of ESL as to what is, and is not, culturally instructive material. No relationship was found between the extent to which a text was used and its cultural content. The procedures used in this study do not produce absolute values for textbooks, but relative ones for comparison. The procedure also yields information concerning the number of culturally relevant items in a text and the average extent of coverage of those items. These procedures compell a close, critical examination of the cultural content of a textbook. This study did not evaluate the pedagogical value of the texts as to teaching reading skills. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4340. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

The findings of recent studies in Error Analysis and the acquisition sequence reveal that familiarity with the types of errors students actually make and their degree of difficulty can tell us more about the types of variables that most strongly influence second language (L2) learning. This in turn may have some implications for determining the sequence and emphasis of instruction for individual learners, in addition to providing information about the nature of L2 acquisition process in general. The objective of this study was to investigate the sources of errors made and the difficulty order followed by adult Iranian students in their learning of certain grammatical structures of English. The general difficulty order found here was in many ways similar to the orders reported in other L2 studies for adult ESL learners indicating that adults follow a natural and similar sequence in learning the grammatical structures of English and also that the structural difficulty order might be universal for all adults learning a second or foreign language. However, the results of a further analysis revealed that EFL adults and ESL children follow different developmental sequence in learning the grammatical structures of English, although previous studies have found similar orders for ESL adults and ESL children (Krashen, 1976; Fuller, 1978). Furthermore, insignificant correlation found between the difficulty order of this study and the order obtained for children learning English natively indicated that the difficulty order followed by adult (and child) learners of English is different from the order that children follow in learning English as their first language. The results of the error analysis showed that in each proficiency group (elementary, intermediate, and advanced) the subjects' reliance on developmental strategy was greater than on the strategy of native / language transfer and that, regardless of the type of error, the frequency of occurrence of errors is directly proportional to the proficiency level of the learner. That is, the learner's errors of any type will decrease with his progress in the target language. However, it may be the case that differences in language learning situations, i.e., ESL and EFL, and in the type of testing instrument used may be responsible for the occurrence of different types of errors and also for their distributions within the proficiency level of the individual learners. Furthermore, the findings of this study, while providing strong support for the claim that interference from the mother tongue is not the only source of errors adult L2 learners make, but rather a large number of errors made by these learners can be explained due to interference from the target language, indicate that in addition to these two major sources of errors, other factors such as teaching and testing materials and techniques, type of language exposures available to the learner, transfer from a third or more languages known by the learner, and so on, should also be evaluated as the causes of errors in L2 learning. On the basis of these findings, therefore, a systematic approach to the problem of errors and their possible sources as predictors of areas of difficulty in L2 learning should include the information gained from the results of both Contrastive- and Error Analysis studies. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-01, Section: A, page: 0139. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

This study is an investigation of the transfer of relative pronoun functions (RP functions) from Farsi to English. The purpose of the study was (a) to determine the extent of native language transfer in relative clause productions of Iranian subjects, and (b) to find out whether there is a hierarchy among English RP functions in the amount of transfer they are likely to allow from Farsi. / First, data was collected from the performance of 120 Farsi-speaking subjects on four tests of English RP functions. The frequency analysis of the data indicated a high incidence of native language transfer in the English relative clause productions of Iranian students. This finding contradicts the results of current relativization studies that assign a nonsignificant role to L1 transfer in the process of L2 acquisition. / Second, a multivariate statistical analysis of the data was carried out to determine a hierarchy among the RP functions. The analysis showed a causal relationship between transfer and RP functions. The subject function was shown to be less conducive to transfer from Farsi than the direct object, object of preposition, and genitive functions. The results, however, did not indicate a significant difference among the latter group of functions in promoting transfer. / In sum, the study showed (a) an abundance of Farsi features in the English relative clause productions of Farsi speakers, and (b) a difference among English RP functions in promoting transfer. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-04, Section: A, page: 0917. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.