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Based on the curriculum of 2011 a new grading scale ranging from A-F was introduced in the Swedish upper secondary school system. Previous research on similar data have focused on the earlier grading scale, and its crucial that the new circumstances are addressed to understand the impact on grading. Using 348 essays from the national writing test this study investigates the use of automated essay scoring as a way of grading in this new setting. Using various classication methods the models for younger students outperform the corresponding models for older students. This implies that it is harder to predict grades on essays written by older students. Based on the current data the result shows that with the new grading scale the use of automated essay scoring should be used with caution.

In a southeastern state school district, 23.2% of the students did not meet the 80% passing requirement on the 2014 state’s writing assessment. Research for writing and grammar instruction is extensive, yet many teachers struggle with finding effective instructional strategies. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to explore the instructional strategies used at 7 schools to teach writing and grammar skills to Grade 5 students and to identify instructional gaps. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences and Lev Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development together provided a theoretical foundation that emphasizes constructive social learning strategies as well as attention to multiple intelligences. A simple review of background data was conducted on the district’s writing curriculum guide to outline instructional strategies and test data to document scores of the fifth grade students at the 9 elementary schools. The primary source of data came from semi-structured interviews of 6 teaching and learning specialist assistant principals and a fifth grade teacher, who altogether represented 7 of the 9 elementary schools. The interview questions elicited participant perceptions about current writing instructional strategies and resources used with Grade 5 students. Typological data analysis revealed 5 themes of collaboration of teachers, vertical teaming, test format, vocabulary, and writing across the curriculum. These instructional strategies were included in the resulting professional development project. This project has implications for positive social change by increasing the number of teachers at the lower performing schools improving implementation of instructional strategies, and improving students’ writing test scores.

Integrated writing tasks that combine reading, listening, and writing have become increasingly popular in assessing academic writing. These tasks are seen to offer more authenticity, improve fairness, and provide positive washback effects of the test on learning and teaching of English around the globe. However, the integrated nature of these tasks can pose some issues, such as construct-related validity and verbatim source use. Given that the inferences made from test scores depend upon the construct of the measure, it is important to have a working knowledge of how strategies are used on integrated writing tests as part of the process of construct validation. This study investigates the relationship between second language writers’ strategy use and performance on an integrated reading-listening-writing test using structural equation modeling and qualitative approaches. Data were collected from 161 non-native English-speaking students. The students first took an integrated reading-listening-writing test and followed by a strategy inventory on how they thought while completing the test. Twenty students, ten in the high-performance group and ten in the low-performance group, participated in a retrospective interview. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to identify the clusters of items based on three hypothetical factors: Rhetorical, Self-Regulatory, and Test-Wiseness Strategy Use. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was then utilized to test the hypothetical relations between observed and latent variables. Subsequently, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to model the relationship between students’ self-reported strategy use and their test performance. The data collected from retrospective interviews, an open-ended questionnaire, and planning sheets were analyzed to triangulate quantitative results and provide supplementary information in interpreting the quantitative data. The study illuminates the nature of integrated writing strategy use, the nature of integrated writing performance, and the relationship between strategy use and performance on an integrated reading-listening-writing test. The results of the study have implications for second language writing assessment and instruction as well as theory in second language academic writing. / text

Den här studien handlar om vilka samband som kan urskiljas mellan barns läsintresse och skrivutveckling. Har de barn som gillar att läsa mycket böcker någon fördel i sin skrivutveckling jämfört med de barn som läser betydligt mindre? Tidigare forskning visar att läsa och skriva är nära sammankopplade och det återspeglas även av resultatet som framkommit i denna studie. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ metod där semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts tillsammans med två olika skrivtest, för att kunna mäta respondenternas skrivutveckling. De teorier som ligger till grund för arbetet är kognitiva teorin och sociokulturella teorin, då det är två teorier som är nära sammankopplade med läs- och skrivutveckling. Resultatet visar att samtliga respondenter utvecklas i sin skrivutveckling. Det finns två respondenter som sticker ut från mängden, en av dem besitter en skrivkompetens men ett lästest visar att eleven behöver mer träning i ordförståelse, den andra respondenten kunde inte alla bokstäver i alfabetet vid första skrivtestet men skrev berättelser hemma. / This study is about the connections that can be discerned between children's interest in reading and their writing development. Do the children who enjoy reading books have an advantage in their writing development compared to the children who read considerably less? Previous research shows that reading and writing are closely associated and this is also reflected in the results of this study. The study is based on a qualitative method where semi-structured interviews have been conducted together with two different writing tests, in order to measure the respondents' writing development. The theories underlying the work are cognitive theory and sociocultural theory, since these theories are closely linked to the development of reading and writing. The result shows that all respondents become more proficient in their writing development. There are two respondents who stand out from the crowd, one of them possesses writing skills but a reading test shows that the student needs more training in word comprehension, the other respondent could not write all letters of the alphabet at the first writing test but wrote stories at home.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-03-23T13:07:58Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernanda Martin Sbroggio.pdf: 3938406 bytes, checksum: ed17726e5744b1933c87f6537eb3acb6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-23T13:07:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernanda Martin Sbroggio.pdf: 3938406 bytes, checksum: ed17726e5744b1933c87f6537eb3acb6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation is linked to the Reading, Writing, and Portuguese Language Teaching line of research and focuses on the relation between thematic composition, mobilization of cognitive abilities to select, relate, organize, and interpret, and the construction of argumentative route and of the proposals of intervention in ten argumentative essays elaborated for the writing test of Enem 2013. Based on theoretical lines linked to cognitive, interactionist, and rhetorical argumentative sciences, this research aims at verifying, with the analysis of these essays, the role of the thematic proposal, as well of the cognitive abilities in the construction of argumentative route and in the elaboration of the proposal of intervention in Enem writing test. For this purpose, the analysis of the writing test’s thematic composition is performed, as well as the verification of how the abilities to select, relate, organize, and interpret facts and opinions are mobilized in the development of arguments, the identification of the argumentative route built by the student, and the identification and evaluation of the proposals of intervention presented. At the end of this route, it is possible to observe that both the thematic proposal and the mobilization of cognitive abilities interfere with the meeting of competencies III and V, which refer to construction of argumentative route and elaboration of the proposal of intervention, respectively. If, on the one hand, the composition of the thematic proposal interferes more directly with the meeting of competency V, on the other hand, the development of cognitive abilities is crucial to the construction of a consistent, persuasive argument, which dialogs with the proposal of intervention. This finding supports the conclusion that extra caution is necessary in the elaboration of the thematic sentence, in order to ensure that it dialogs completely with the reference matrix, instead of being a complicating factor to the meeting of the competencies analyzed in this study, as well as greater attention to these students’ basic education, which must intensify the exercise and development of thinking, in order to create citizens who are capable of mobilizing the most diverse cognitive abilities in order to accomplish a specific purpose. Given the importance of Enem in the national scenario, it is believed that the conclusions obtained by this research may be useful to expand understanding about the written test in the exam, as well as to offer a diagnosis of how understanding about the essay and the cognitive abilities necessary for its composition remain developed in the students who have already completed or are about to complete high school. This research may, as well, serve as basis to new and more detailed studies in this field / Esta dissertação está vinculada à linha de pesquisa Leitura, Escrita e Ensino de Língua Portuguesa e focaliza a relação entre a composição temática, a mobilização das habilidades cognitivas de selecionar, relacionar, organizar e interpretar e a construção do percurso argumentativo e da proposta de intervenção em dez textos dissertativo-argumentativos produzidos em atendimento à prova de redação do Enem 2013. Embasada em linhas teóricas vinculadas às ciências cognitivas, interacionistas e retórico-argumentativas, a pesquisa busca verificar, a partir da análise desses textos, o papel da proposta temática e das habilidades cognitivas na construção do percurso argumentativo e na elaboração da proposta de intervenção em redações do Enem. Para tanto, é feita a análise da composição temática da prova de redação, a verificação de como as habilidades de selecionar, relacionar, organizar e interpretar fatos e opiniões são mobilizadas no desenvolvimento da argumentação, a identificação do percurso argumentativo construído pelo educando e a identificação e a avaliação da proposta de intervenção apresentada. Ao final desse estudo constata-se que ambas, proposta temática e mobilização das habilidades cognitivas, interferem no atendimento às competências III e V, que se referem, respectivamente, à construção do percurso argumentativo e à elaboração da proposta de intervenção. Se, por um lado, a composição da proposta temática interfere mais diretamente no atendimento à competência V, por outro, o desenvolvimento das habilidades cognitivas é decisivo no desenvolvimento de uma argumentação consistente, persuasiva e em diálogo com a proposta de intervenção. Essa constatação conduz à conclusão de que se faz necessário um maior cuidado na elaboração da frase temática, a fim de garantir que ela dialogue completamente com a matriz de referência e não seja, por si só, um dificultador do atendimento às competências aqui estudadas, e de que é preciso uma maior atenção à formação básica desses estudantes, a qual deve intensificar o exercício e o desenvolvimento do pensamento a fim de formar cidadãos capazes de mobilizar as mais diversas habilidades cognitivas para cumprirem um determinado propósito. Em função da importância do Enem no cenário nacional, acreditamos que as conclusões obtidas nesta pesquisa podem ser úteis para ampliar o entendimento da prova de redação do Exame e também para oferecer um diagnóstico de como a compreensão sobre o texto e as habilidades cognitivas necessárias à sua composição se encontram desenvolvidas nos alunos que já concluíram ou estão concluindo o ensino médio. Esta pesquisa ainda pode servir como ponto de partida para novos e mais aprofundados estudos nessa área