This research examined how sixth-grade students utilized evaluations and goals while revising their texts, to determine if those students who were identified as better writers also had more success when revising, and if specific types or configurations of operations lead to more successful revision. A coding system was developed to identify evaluations and goals according to the functions that they served during revision. Evaluations were categorized as either acceptance or rejection evaluations, depending on their judgment of the text. Goals were categorized as text strategy or guidance goals, depending on whether they instituted a specific strategy to counter a perceived problem in the text, or instituted a procedure or action that constituted management of the revision task. / Think-aloud protocols and drafts of compositions provided a trace of students' revision activity. Identification of evaluations and goals by the functions that they served during revision provided a method for monitoring the connection between the process students used in revising and the product (if any) that resulted. Revisions produced were categorized as surface or text-base, with both their accumulative and individual impact on the text assessed. The coding system identified all evaluations and goals, even those that did not result in text changes but that were associated with considerations and attempts. Therefore, all revising behaviors, including emerging skills, were acknowledged. / Results revealed that those students identified as better writers were not better revisors in terms of using evaluations or goals in a manner that resulted in the production of more sophisticated or more effective revisions. Students identified as low to high level writers all experienced various revision difficulties, as reflected by the absence of specific types of evaluations and/or goals that could have facilitated revision, yet were not used. Terminal revising was the common approach and involved reviewing a textual area only once, and setting a limited number of evaluations and goals to address a perceived problem. However, a sub-group of students who were identified as poorer writers did use an iterative revising strategy, which resulted in improved text quality. This strategy involved successive reviews of the text, resulting in the implementation of related multiple evaluations and goals addressing one textual area. / Educators can consider the revising strategies (i.e., terminal and iterative revising) and operations (i.e., functional evaluations and goals) specifically identified in this research to assess how students' revise and to determine what strategies and operations need to be encouraged to foster absent or underdeveloped revision skills. Collaborative student and teacher interactions designed to encourage the utilization of these specific strategies and operations have the potential to lead to more effective revising.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.34769 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Richard, Rhonda J. |
| Contributors | Bracewell, Robert (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001642795, proquestno: NQ44564, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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