| 2.2
WRITTEN LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE |
| The
frequency distributions and mean levels of performance on all variables
of the writing task are presented in the tables at the end of this
section. |
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| (i)
Deeper Features |
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(a)
Impact/Purpose
Students in both year groups demonstrated a high incidence of personal
voice in their writing (22% at Year 4, 37% at Year 8). Wider differences
in writing performance across the year groups emerged however, when
structural, lexical and grammatical features of writing were examined
in detail. |
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(b)
Content/Ideas
Student success in keeping completely to the assigned writing topic
was found to be similar across both year groups. At both Year 4 and
Year 8 level over 60% of students produced work that closely addressed
the task purpose in terms of content. Year 8 students were, however,
markedly better at developing the ideas in their writing and expanding
their ideas in interesting ways in relation to their chosen topic.
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(c)
Structure / Organisation
In terms of writing structure and organization, and aspects of language
features, Year 8 students showed an increased mastery of written forms
over their younger counterparts. Year 8 students were found to have
more success at crafting their writing and giving it overall coherence
than Year 4 students. The writing of the older students showed greater
variety in both sentence openings and sentence structures. While the
majority of Year 4 students (80%) used little or no variety in their
sentence structures, this figure was virtually halved at Year 8 level
where only 40% of students used little or not variety in their sentence
structure. There were also significant overall gains by the older
students in terms of the incidence of developing supporting detail
in their writing and this aspect was statistically significant (t
= 3.3, DF = 129, p< .01). The evidence of increased variety in sentence
construction at Year 8 was also statistically significant (t = 4.8,
DF = 129, p < .001), as was the improvement in the overall way in
which Year 8 students crafted their writing when compared to the Year
4 group (t = 3.9, DF = 129, p < .001). |
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(d)
Language
The incidence of vivid language was found to be significantly greater
in the writing of the older students. A greater proportion of Year
8 students used a range of figurative and descriptive language in
their writing than did their younger counterparts. This was statistically
significant (t = 4.5, DF = 129, p <.0001). The use of adjectives also
increased markedly across the two age groups. On a straight adjective
count, Year 8 students used significantly more adjectives than the
younger students in their writing (t = 3.6, DF = 129, p = < .001).
|
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(ii)
Surface Features of Writing
Analysis of surface features of writing (handwriting, punctuation,
syntax) suggested that performance distributions across Year 4 and
Year 8 students were not dissimilar. |
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(a)
Handwriting
There was no appreciable difference in the standard of handwriting
production across either year group, gender or ethnicity. There was
no evidence to suggest that older students paid increasing attention
to the secretarial aspects of their writing, or that the younger students
were more likely to produce clearly legible work than their older
counterparts. The standard of handwriting was judged to be largely
similar across year groups. Just over one third of students at each
year level (42% at Year 4 and 40% at Year 8) produced handwriting
writing that was coded as poor. |
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|
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(b)
Punctuation
Analysis of punctuation also showed that while Year 8 students were
more successful in their correct use of punctuation than the Year
4 students this was not a statistically significant difference. (19%
of Year 4 and 30% of Year 8 students demonstrated consistent accuracy
in their use of punctuation.). However, there was evidence of a decrease
in the number of students who produced writing that was devoid of
punctuation among the older students (30% at Year 4, 4% at Year 8).
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(c)
Syntax
Consistent use of correct syntax in writing was another area where
the performance gap between year groups was relatively small. 42%
of Year 4 students, as compared with just 48% at Year 8, demonstrated
consistent mastery of the syntactical structures they employed in
their writing.
A comparison
of overall writing performance across Year 4 and Year 8 students
revealed an increase in overall mastery of writing skills and expertise
as students get older. This positive growth in mastery of the forms
of written prose was common to both males and females. This suggests
that students' writing skills are continuing to develop as they
progress through the upper primary years. A positive correlation
was found between high achievement in the surface features of writing
(punctuation, syntax and handwriting) and high overall achievement
in writing, at both year levels. Students who scored highly across
this group of surface features tended to achieve better overall
writing scores than the rest of the sample. This finding was statistically
significant at chi2 = p <.0001 for both Year 4 and for Year 8. While
at Year 8 the spread of total writing scores was wider for males
than for the females at Year 8, this was not found to be statistically
significant. This result suggests that the method of analysing student
writing over a range of surface and deeper features may eliminate
aspects of gender bias. |
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|
Table
4: Frequency Distribution and Mean Levels of Written Language Performance
by Year Group |
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|
Year
4 |
Year
8 |
| |
Variables |
high |
|
|
low |
x |
high |
|
|
low |
x |
|
Deeper
Features |
Impact/Purpose
|
| Impact |
6 |
27 |
38 |
30 |
|
13 |
33 |
43 |
10 |
|
| Personal
Voice |
22 |
56 |
22 |
^ |
2.0 |
37 |
45 |
18 |
^ |
1.8 |
|
Content/Ideas |
| Content |
61 |
27 |
6 |
6 |
1.5 |
64 |
28 |
7 |
0 |
1.4 |
| Justification |
19 |
52 |
28 |
1.5 |
2.1 |
33 |
60 |
7 |
0 |
1.7** |
Structure/Organisation |
| Sentence
Constr. |
1.5 |
19 |
80 |
^ |
2.7 |
13 |
45 |
41 |
^ |
2.3**** |
| Overall
Shape |
1.6 |
30 |
69 |
^ |
2.6 |
15 |
46 |
40 |
^ |
2.2*** |
Language |
| Vividness
of Language |
0 |
22 |
78 |
^ |
2.7 |
10 |
45 |
45 |
^ |
2.3*** |
| Adjective
Count |
8 |
13 |
50 |
30 |
3.0 |
22 |
25 |
39 |
13 |
2.4*** |
|
Surface
Features |
Presentation
|
| Punctuation |
19 |
39 |
30 |
13 |
2.3 |
30 |
31 |
34 |
4 |
2.1 |
| Handwriting |
17 |
41 |
42 |
^ |
2.2 |
24 |
37 |
39 |
^ |
2.1 |
| Syntax |
42 |
42 |
16 |
0 |
1.7 |
48 |
24 |
24 |
4 |
1.8 |
*
p < .05 **p < .01 ***p< .001 ****p< .0001
^ For these items there were only three categories
on the coding sheet
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