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The Written Composition Study

1983–1988

The study examined teaching and learning of written composition in the schools in order to identify the beliefs and conventions associated with written composition. The study also endeavored to find factors explaining differences and patterns in the performance of written composition and other outcomes, with particular attention being paid to cultural background, curriculum, and teaching practices. Six types of writing were assessed (reflective, personal, philosophic, argumentative, persuasive, and literary) on four dimensions: style and tone, overall impression, content, and organization. The data were collected in 1985.

Target Population

The study included three populations: students near the end of primary schooling, students near the end of compulsory schooling, and students near the end of academic secondary school.

Participating Educational Systems

Chile, England, Finland, Hamburg-Germany (FRG), Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden, Thailand, United States, Wales.

Key Findings

  1. The construct “written composition” was found to be sited in a cultural context and so cannot be considered a general cognitive capacity or activity. Marked variation across the countries existed in both ideology of the teachers and in instructional practices. Written performance was also found to be task dependent.
  2. Good compositions from different countries shared common qualities of handling of content and appropriateness of style, but these qualities had their national or local characteristics in organization, use of detail, and other aspects of rhetoric.
  3. Students across educational systems had in common a sense of the importance of the written product and its surface features. Beneath that commonality, however, there was national variation in the perception of what is valued.
  4. In most of the countries, girls were treated differently than boys in the provision of writing instruction and in the rating of writing performance, particularly at the primary and lower secondary school levels where women largely provided instruction. In such a milieu, the most successful students were girls, and gender itself, or gender in combination with certain home variables, was the most powerful predictor of successful performance, particularly on the more “academic” tasks.
  5. Differences between the ratings of student writing were not explained by differences in instruction. They were, however, accounted for by factors involving the characteristics of the home, the reinforcement provided by parents, and the cultural values of the community.  

Major Publications

 

Gorman, T.P., Purves, A,, & Degenhart, R.E. (Eds.). (1988).

The IEA Study of Written Composition I: The International Writing Tasks and Scoring Scales.

Oxford: Pergamon Press.

 

Purves, A.C. (Ed.). (1992).

The IEA Study of Written Composition II: Education and Performance in Fourteen Countries.

Oxford: Pergamon Press.

 

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