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Blakesley, David. "Directed Self-Placement in the University." Writing Program Administration 25 (2002): 9-39.

This article is one of few sources that directly relate to my research topic. However, it still seems a little general for what I was looking for. The article outlines what we should consider during the process of implementing a directed self-placement procedure for incoming freshmen. Concerns about the reactions and pressure from administrators, stakeholders, and academic advisors are presented throughout this work. Much of what Blakesley describes seems to relate to what the first-year writing committee has had to face this year. One problem that Blakesley describes is the ability to prove that this form of placement works or works better than what we have available now. Theoretically it works, but that isn't enough to convince those at the top or even those around us. He mentions looking at grade distribution and following particular remedial students as they move through college. But this will take time and funding that is not readily available. We want an answer now and a concrete answer so that we can make adjustments to this placement procedure if need be. Unfortunately, this article did not give me the answers I was hoping to find on this topic.

Willard-Traub, Margaret et al. "The Development of Large-Scale Portfolio Placement Assessment at The University of Michigan: 1992-1998." Assessing Writing 6 (1999): 41-84.

This article takes a look at the introduction of portfolio assessment for incoming freshmen at U of M. During the 6 years this placement procedure took place, writing program administrators came across great advancements and pitfalls in the system. I originally thought that high school students would have difficulty meeting the requirements for these portfolios, but according to the article 88% successfully submitted portfolios for placement. I can see how this form of placement would work at U of M because this school tends to recruit students from public schools that have strong academic programs. Eastern, on the other hand, does not attract the same type of student from the same school districts. Granted there are exceptions, but if Eastern were to use portfolio assessment for placement, I feel that students would have difficulty meeting the basic requirements. One thing I am unsure of is why U of M does not use this assessment for placement today. I can guess that time constraints, funding, and the lack of resources in other areas contributed to dropping this format of placing students in writing courses. The thing that I like about this method is that it, like GSP puts the student in more control of her academic future. Allowing for choices, whether it be through GSP or portfolio material seems to be essential in order for self-efficacy to be strong throughout the student body.

Lavelle, Ellen and Nancy Zuercher. 1999. "University Students' Beliefs about Writing and Writing Approaches." ERIC Document Reproduction Service, ED 434 541.

This study looks at the approaches students take toward writing and catagorizes them. Students were either elaborative, low self-efficacy, reflective-revisionist, spontaneous-impulsive, or procedural. Through a format of surveys and semi-formal interviews researchers explored the nature of students in freshman composition courses. This study was interesting because it gave me an idea of the sort of questions I may ask students in my research (if I do a survey, and I'm still unsure about that). These researchers asked questions like:
1) Who are you as a writer?
2) What types of writing tasks do you prefer? Why?
3) Describe your experience of writing. Does your thinking change in writing? Your interpretation of the task?
4) Are you concerned about how much time your writing task takes?
I wonder if student answers to these questions would correlate to their choices to enroll in English 120 or 121? And if asked these questions at the beginning and end of their first semester of composition, would the answers change much? This seems to be somewhat important to GSP because it emphasizes the importance of asking students to reflect on themselves as writers. The study does not talk about grades and whether students of one category of writer tend to succeed more than other students in a different category. I think I'm getting a little too off-track from my original research question here, though.

Campillo, Magda and Suzanne Pool. "Improving Writing Proficiency through Self-Efficacy Training." Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, 19-23 Apr. 1999 Montreal, Quebec.

This report shows the results of a pilot program that involved teaching self-efficacy to a group of "at-risk" students who failed the writing proficiency placement exam. They found that students in this test group, when asked to retake the placement exam at the end of the summer did better than those who weren't in the test group. They didn't find a cause-effect relationship, but they are interesting results. The problem I have with this study is that students were asked to reflect on homework assignments and practice placement tests to learn how to be more accurate in their writing self-concepts. This study seems to imply that students are not necessarily better writers at the end, but better judges of their abilities when it comes to practice tests. I wonder how many students would benefit from self-efficacy training at Eastern. Do we have more "at-risk" students than other schools? If so, will incoming students not previously trained in self-efficacy inaccurately place themselves in composition courses? This study does say that these students tend to think they are doing better than they actually are. Is it possible that a majority of our students (if "at-risk") will be the same way?

Pajares, M. Frank and Margaret J. Johnson. "Confidence and Competence in Writing: The Role of Self-Efficacy, Outcome Expectancy, and Apprehension." Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, 12-16 Apr. 1993 Atlanta, GA.

Pajares and Johnson study a group of undergraduate students who are on track to be elementary English instructors and how their writing self-efficacy impacts writing performance, among other things. Though they found correlations as they expected, they said that writing skills self-efficacy did not change throughout the one semester that these students were followed. They feel that because the course being taught was not a composition course per se where writing skills were focused on, it is no wonder that there were no changes in self-efficacy in this department. It would seem that self-efficacy can only be improved if instruction actively addresses the issue. If not asked to actively reflect on one's self-efficacy in writing, students have difficulty expressing their thoughts or accurately placing themselves at a level of self-efficacy that is representative of what they actually accomplish. This research further restates my concern that some students (who have not been actively instructed to think of themselves as writers) will have difficulty determining the composition course that is best for their skill level with GSP.