And the beat goes on...

Matzen, Richard N. and Jeff E. Hoyt. "Basic writing placement with holistically scored essays: Research evidence." Journal of Developmental Education 28 (2004): 1, 2-4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 34.

This study focuses on using time-based essays to place students into first year composition courses. It compares the accuracy of placement between time-based and the formerly used multiple choice test format. They found that while the time-based essay format was better, it could not replace the multiple choice format and would be best used in addition to the original format. My problem with this study is that it was conducted with a small number of students (far from the size of a new freshman class). Even though the researchers mention this, they do not discuss the implications of cost or time with respect to using the time-based essay placement strategy. Sure it works with 400 or so students, but what about a number many times the size of that? Should only small universities benefit from effective placement strategies? Ideally if there was more communication between university and secondary ed. instructors/administrators the problem could be aleviated. Unfortunately, it is easier said than done.


Holmsten, Vicki. "Report from the Invisible: A Teacher-Research Project in Evaluation in a Community College Basic Writing Classroom." Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English Conference on College Composition and Communication. Atlanta, GA 24-27 Mar. 1999.

This report on a teacher-research project looks at possible ways to judge when a student is ready to move on to a regular college writing class. Though her research focuses mainly on basic/remedial college writers, the most interesting part is that her students did have a sense of their own writing skills early on. You would think that it would be difficult for remedial writers to accurately assess themselves about their level of writing because they tend to struggle with writing itself. Yet, Holmsten does say that there was a correlation between her thoughts of where her students should go next and thoughts her students had about where they should go. Not only did the students accurately determine their readiness for the next level, but a majority passed the next writing course with grades of Cs or better. The only thing I wonder is whether the fact that she mentioned her study at the beginning of the semester had an effect on her results. If students knew that she was thinking in this direction, they may have been more conditioned to be self-reflective, which led to a good sense of direction by the end of the semester. What happens if students are asked to place themselves and they have never been asked or taught to be self-reflective about their writing? I see this being a problem for students who are coming from secondary schools where it is still sometimes like Friere's "banking concept" of instruction.