The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of the prewriting activities of class discussion and paired-student-interaction on the voluntary writing decisions of fourth graders. The sample consisted of 355 subjects: 185 males and 170 females. All subjects were fourth graders and attended seven Schools randomly selected from all elementary schools in a midwestern city school system.Class discussion, paired-student-interaction, and a control condition of no prewriting experience formed the three levels of the independent variable. The dependent variable consisted of whether or -riot the subject chose to participate in a writing activity. Grade level placement, time of clay, writing stimulus, and length of prewriting activity were control variables. Subjects were randomly assigned to the three treatment groups.The chi-square (x2) test statistic for equality of three proportions was used to test each of the following null hypotheses at the .05 level of significance.H01: There is no statistically significant difference among the three proportionsH02: of subjects choosing the writing activity corresponding co the three treatment groups for the male subjects. There is no statistically significant difference among the three proportions cf subjects choosing the writing activity corresponding to the three treatment groups for the female subjects.Ho1 was not rejected. There was no significant difference among the proportions of males choosing to write from the three treatment groups. H02 was rejected (P<-05). Post hoc analyses comparing pairs of proportions for the female subjects indicated a significant difference between_ the class discussion treatment and the control condition. The proportion of girls in the Control Group choosing to write was significantly larger than the proportion of girls in the Class Discussion Group choosing to write.These results suggest that:1. Oral language prewriting experiences have a differential effect on the willingness and females to write.2. Class discussion and paired-student-interaction do not have an effect on the writing decisions of fourth grade boys.3. Class discussion has a negative effect on the willingness of fourth grade girls to write.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/177533 |
| Date | January 1982 |
| Creators | Lambert, Judy Crystal |
| Contributors | Drake, Suzanne V. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | vi, 112 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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