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Elke Van Steendam, Anne Toorenaar,Journal of Writing Research 1(1), 53-83In this paper we discuss the role of observation in learning to write. We argue that the acquisition of skill in such a complex domain as writing relies on observation, the classical imitatio. An important phase in learning to write, at all ages, is learning to write by observing and evaluating relevant processes: writing processes, reading processes or communication processes between writers and readers.First, we present two practical cases: writing lessons in which observation and inquiry are amongst other key elements and where students participate in a community of learners. Then, we review research that may inspire and substantiate proposals for implementing observation as a learning activity in writing education. Two types of studies are discussed: studies in which learners acquire strategies by observing and evaluating writing and reading processes of peers, as a prewriting instructional activity, and studies in which learners are stimulated to 'pre-test' and then revise their first draft, as a post writing instructional activity. The paper closes with some recommendations for further research.

Assessing students' writing performance is essential to adequately monitor and promote individual writing development, but it is also a challenge. The present research investigates a benchmark rating procedure for assessing texts written by upper-elementary students. In two studies we examined whether a benchmark rating procedure (1) leads to reliable and generalisable scores that converge with holistic and analytic ratings, and (2) can be used for rating texts varying in topic and genre. Results support evidence that benchmark ratings are a valid indicator of text quality as they converge with holistic and analytic scores. They are also associated with less rater variance and less task-specific variance, leading to reliable and generalisable ratings. Moreover, a benchmark scale can be used for rating different tasks with the same reliability, at least when texts are written in the same genre. Taken together, a benchmark rating procedure ensures meaningful and useful information on students' writing.

The ability to read in a second language (L2) for academic purposes is essential for higher education students. Dutch colleges increasingly use materials in English or teach in English. This can be challenging for L2 readers, especially students entering higher education from vocational studies, who may have less experience with L2 academic reading. Teaching L2 reading programmes containing explicit instruction of reading strategies may benefit higher education students in L2 academic reading, particularly since reading strategies learned in the first language (L1) may not transfer to the L2. In this 7-week L2 reading strategy intervention, 801 first-year polytechnic students learned to use seven reading strategies that were effective according to a meta-analysis of L2 reading strategy studies. Data regarding students reading skills were collected over one academic year, from three treatment waves, using a regression discontinuity design. Three tests of equal difficulty were given to participants. In each wave students completed reading tests several weeks before the intervention, at the beginning and directly after the intervention. Results show that in all three waves the improvement in reading comprehension scores between the second and third measurement (due to the experimental course) significantly exceeded the increase between the first two measurement occasions. Although the intervention was shown to be effective, the effects were to some extent mediated by the previous education level. This study supports the explicit instruction of strategies in L2 reading for students in higher education and welcomes more research into L2 reading strategy interventions for students from vocational backgrounds.

In this study we examine process configurations in synthesis tasks. We study whether these configurations are students traits or vary within students per task. In a national survey with a representative sample of 658 Dutch upper-secondary school students, we collected writing tasks, registered students' writing behaviors (via keylogging) and their task perceptions and assessed the quality of their texts. Each participant completed two informative and two argumentative synthesis tasks. Writing process configurations were based on a preselected set of writing behaviors that proved to be related to text quality: time spent on sources and production activities, switching between sources and between sources and text production, and speed of production; with reference to the phase in the process (first, mid, final part). Latent profile analyses distilled four process configurations, some of which were more likely to occur with the informative genre. One process configuration, that is, "Fast text production," was related to qualitatively higher text quality scores than the others. Additionally, at the age of 16-18 a writing process configuration is not a student trait: in most instances, we observed two or more task configurations within students. Writers' task experiences such as topic knowledge and topic interest predicted the occurrence of certain process configurations which could indicate adaptivity. The finding that writing configurations of writers vary even between similar tasks has important implications for the generalizability of (synthesis) writing research on the basis of a single writing task and process per student.

In the Netherlands, the quality of the reading curriculum is currently under debate because of disappointing results on national and international assessments of students' reading skills and motivation. In a mixed-method study, we analyzed the content of Dutch textbooks for reading comprehension instruction (i.e., the implemented curriculum) and teachers' evaluation and use of these books (i.e., the enacted curriculum). A materials analysis of reading comprehension lessons (N = 80) in eight textbooks for grades 4 and 5 was complemented with semi-structured teacher interviews (N = 29) and lesson observations (N = 11), with a focus on the quality of reading strategy and text structure instruction in the curriculum. Main findings are (1) a lack of alignment between lesson goals, theory, and assignments, (2) a strong focus on practicing strategies, (3) limited declarative knowledge about strategies and text structure, (4) little opportunities for self-regulated strategy application. The teachers that were interviewed mention similar problems, but still hardly deviate from the textbook's content and pedagogical guidelines. We make recommendations to improve the quality of the curriculum.

Dialogical argumentation practice contributes positively to argumentative writing skills. Specifically, deliberative dialogues are effective in promoting argument and counterargument integration in students' essays. However, the potential of dialogic activities may be increased if they are combined with instructional practices. The primary objective of this research is to compare the impact of four intervention programs, aimed at improving argumentative synthesis writing from conflicting sources. The four programs resulted from the combination of two instructional components (Explicit Instruction through video modelling--EI, or a Procedural Guideline--G), while Deliberative Dialogues--DD--were a constant element. We conducted a pre-post quasi-experimental study in which 186 Spanish third grade secondary school students (aged 14-15) participated. We evaluated the quality of the syntheses by examining the level of argumentative coverage (the total number of arguments included in the synthesis) and the level of integration (the type and frequency of the argumentative strategies used in the syntheses). The results showed that the effectiveness of the instructional methods varies according to the synthesis quality indicator. Explicit instruction, in combination with deliberative dialogues, was especially helpful in improving the level of integration of syntheses. The procedural guideline, in combination with deliberative dialogues, contributed significantly to the coverage of arguments. The combination of these two elements did not favor the writing of synthesis as expected, probably due to the conditions in which the intervention was carried out. The findings of this study revealed that the coverage of arguments and integration processes are of different nature, follow different learning paths and require different instructional processes.

This paper presents a secondary analysis of data collected during an intervention study in which students learnt to synthesise pairs of texts presenting opposite views on controversial issues. The original intervention study included two treatments and examined the effects of two instruction conditions when instructional materials and tasks were held constant. The participants were 114 undergraduate psychology students. The object of the instruction was a guide on strategies for writing an argumentative synthesis text. However, the instruction varied between explicit strategy instruction, consisting of explaining each of the process's four phases (exploring and identifying arguments and counterarguments, contrasting positions, drawing an integrative conclusion, and organising and revising the final draft), modelled via videos, versus self-study of the written strategy guide. After the initial instruction session, the students in both groups practiced collaboratively writing synthesis texts over two sessions with access to the strategy guide. The primary study compared the individually written pre- and posttest syntheses and found statistically significant differences favouring explicit instruction in both dependent variables: the argumentation coverage and the level of integration. The secondary analysis reported in the current paper involved scoring additional written syntheses produced during two practice sessions and then analysing the data for all time points (pretest, posttest, and the two practice sessions) using structural equation modelling (SEM) to test whether explicit instruction directly or indirectly affected the two indicators of good argumentative synthesis texts--argument coverage and integration--via the following collaborative practice. The results suggested two different learning paths for both dependent variables: explicit instruction is effective for both variables, while collaborative practice only has an additional indirect effect on argument coverage.

The aim of this study was to test whether Cummins' Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis (LIH) might also apply to writing, by determining to what extent writers' text quality, source use and argumentation behavior are related in L1 and L2, how effective writers' behavior is and whether their L2 proficiency influenced the relations between them. To answer these questions, twenty students wrote four short argumentative source based essays each in L1 (Dutch) and four in L2 (English). A within-writer cross-linguistic comparison of their texts revealed that their L1 and L2 writing competencies appear to be related. Furthermore, writers' source use behavior differed to some extent between languages, but the strong positive correlations found between source use features suggest that in most cases this was more a person than a language effect. Similarly, for argumentation behavior, results showed some learner specific features (e.g. inclusion of titles and reference lists), but differences between languages for others (e.g. the inclusion of both arguments and counter-arguments). Effects of the different source use and argumentation features studied on text quality were limited and no clear effect of L2 proficiency on writers' behavior or their influence on text quality were found. Overall, in line with earlier research, these findings provide some additional support for Cummins' LIH and the idea that writers might have a common underlying source for writing related knowledge and practices which they can apply in multiple languages.

The aim of this study was to provide insight into the current practice of writing instruction in Dutch primary education, as a stepping stone for designing and implementing sustainable innovations that could satisfy both practitioners and policymakers. We investigated the extent to which three domain-specific approaches--communicative writing, process writing, and writing strategy instruction--and general features of high-quality instruction were implemented in writing lessons in the upper grades of primary schools. We also examined the learning time for writing, teachers' views on writing and writing instruction, how efficacious they feel about teaching writing, and how skilled they are in the writing instruction domain. Lastly, we explored relations between classroom practices, learning time, and teachers' beliefs and skills through correlation analysis, to identify potential aids and constraints to guide innovations in writing education. Participants were 61 teachers of 45 primary schools in the Netherlands. Data were collected through questionnaires, stimulated recall interviews and over 100 lesson observations. Results indicated that the three domain-specific approaches for writing instruction were insufficiently implemented in Dutch classrooms, as were differentiating and the teaching of learning strategies. The allocated learning time was also insufficient, but the realized learning time and the extent to which teachers promoted active learning were satisfactory, providing a strong basis for curricular improvement. Several relations were found between teachers' classroom practices, learning time, and teachers' beliefs and skills in the domain of writing instruction. Finally, we discuss options for sustainable innovations of writing instruction in this national context.

In this study, the authors tested the effects of Tekster [Texter], a comprehensive strategy-focused writing instruction program, using a switching replication design with three measurement occassions. The program was implemented by fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers (N = 76) in 60 general education classrooms in the Netherlands. Students (n = 688) and teachers (n = 31) in Group 1 worked with Tekster during the first 8-week period, between the first and second measurement occasion. Students (n = 732) and teachers (n = 45) in Group 2 implemented Tekster during the second 8-week period, between the second and third measurement occasion. The intervention led to statistically significant improvements in the quality of students' writing. The effect size for the full sample was 0.32 and 0.40 for students who students who completed all 16 Tekster lessons. Gains shown by students in Group 1 were maintained after 8 weeks. Because writing quality was assessed in 3 genres, the findings are generalizable across students, classes, and writing tasks. Taken together, the results of this study demonstrate that a strategy-focused writing instruction program, such as Tekster, can be an effective way to improve upper-elementary students' written language skills.

In the present study, aspects of the measurement of writing are disentangled in order to investigate the validity of inferences made on the basis of writing performance and to describe implications for the assessment of writing. To include genre as a facet in the measurement, we obtained writing scores of 12 texts in four different genres for each participating student. Results indicate that across raters, tasks and genres, only 10% of the variance in writing scores is related to individual writing skill. In order to draw conclusions about writing proficiency, students should therefore write at least three different texts in each of four genres rated by at least two raters. Moreover, when writing scores are obtained through highly similar tasks, generalization across genres is not warranted. Inferences based on text quality scores should, in this case, be limited to genre-specific writing. These findings replicate the large task variance in writing assessment as consistently found in earlier research and emphasize the effect of genre on the generalizability of writing scores. This research has important implications for writing research and writing education, in which writing proficiency is quite often assessed by only one task rated by one rater.

Experimental studies demonstrate that contrast helps toddlers to extend the meanings of novel adjectives. This study explores whether antonym co-occurrence in spontaneous speech also has an effect on adjective use by the child. The authors studied adjective production in longitudinal speech samples from 16 children (16-36 months) acquiring eight different languages. Adjectives in child speech and child-directed speech were coded as either unrelated or related to a contrastive term in the preceding context. Results show large differences between children in the growth of adjective production. These differences are strongly related to contrast use. High contrast users not only increase adjective use earlier, but also reach a stable level of adjective production in the investigated period. Average or low contrast users increase their adjective production more slowly and do not reach a plateau in the period covered by this study. Initially there is a strong relation between contrast use in child speech and child-directed speech, but this relation diminishes with age.

Background. Previous research has shown that observation can be effective for learning in various domains, for example, argumentative writing and mathematics. The question in this paper is whether observational learning can also be beneficial when learning to perform creative tasks in visual and verbal arts. Aims. We hypothesized that observation has a positive effect on performance, process, and motivation. We expected similarity in competence between the model and the observer to influence the effectiveness of observation. Sample. A total of 131 Dutch students (10th grade, 15 years old) participated. Method. Two experiments were carried out (one for visual and one for verbal arts). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions; two observational learning conditions and a control condition (learning by practising). The observational learning conditions differed in instructional focus (on the weaker or the more competent model of a pair to be observed). Results. We found positive effects of observation on creative products, creative processes, and motivation in the visual domain. In the verbal domain, observation seemed to affect the creative process, but not the other variables. The model similarity hypothesis was not confirmed. Conclusions. Results suggest that observation may foster learning in creative domains, especially in the visual arts. (Contains 17 tables, 3 figures, and 1 footnote.)

It is the consensus that, as a result of the extra constraints placed on working memory, texts written in a second language (L2) are usually of lower quality than texts written in the first language (L1) by the same writer. However, no method is currently available for quantifying the quality difference between L1 and L2 texts. In the present study, we tested a rating procedure for enabling quality judgments of L1 and L2 texts on a single scale. Two main features define this procedure: 1) raters are bilingual or near native users of both the L1 and L2; 2) ratings are performed with L1 and L2 benchmark texts. Direct comparisons of observed L1 and L2 scores are only warranted if the ratings with L1 and L2 benchmarks are parallel tests and if the ratings are reliable. Results showed that both conditions are met. Effect sizes ("Cohen's d") indicate that, while score variances are large, there is a relatively large added L2 effect: in the investigated population, L2 text scores were much lower than L1 text scores. The tested rating procedure is a promising method for cross-national comparisons of writing proficiency. (Contains 9 tables, 1 figure and 3 notes.)

Organizing and implementing telecollaboration projects in foreign language curricula is not an easy endeavour (Belz & Thorne, 2006; Guth & Helm, 2010), as pedagogical, organizational and technical issues have to be addressed before cross-cultural interaction sessions can be carried out (O'Dowd & Ritter, 2006; O'Dowd, 2011). These issues make many teaching practitioners reluctant to try to integrate telecollaboration in their teaching, as they are more aware of the burden such initiatives might impose than of the benefits they might have for language learners. Within the European project NIFLAR we have tried to study the added value that integrating synchronous collaboration projects through video-web communication or "Second Life" might have in language learning. The study presented in this paper measures the oral communicative growth of language students, who were allocated at random to one of three research conditions: (1) the VC experimental group carried out interactions with native peers through video-web communication; (2) the SL experimental group carried out the same tasks with native peers in "Second Life" and (3) the control group performed the tasks face to face with classroom peers and had no opportunity to interact with native experts. Communicative growth was measured by comparing oral pre- and post-tests across conditions. Results show significant differences, the experimental groups outperforming the control group.

In a previous study, we demonstrated that the experience of learning a new language positively influences the metacognitive awareness of young plurilingual children in terms of willingness to communicate and strategic competence. In the present study, we expanded the analyses of the observations of 101 children to examine two hypotheses. First, we hypothesized that the strategies reported by the children would group into a limited number of strategic clusters. Second, we predicted that the children's awareness of strategies would depend not only on the experience of learning a new language but also on age. The factor analysis of the strategies used indicated three clusters, which we termed Speaker, Hearer, and External orientations. The analyses showed a significant effect of learning a new language in a formal context and after the age of four years, abbreviated LLE, that is Language Learning Experience, on the Speaker orientation. In addition, age showed a linear effect on the three identified clusters of strategies. These findings are highly relevant as they may help to shed light into why young plurilingual learners use strategies differently. (Contains 4 tables, 3 figures, and 1 note.)

In recent years many countries have introduced authentic performance-based assessments in their national exam systems. Teachers' ratings of their own candidates' performances may suffer from errors of leniency and range restriction. The goal of this study was to examine the impact of manipulating the descriptiveness, balancedness, and polarity of the rating scales on the elevation and spread of the performance ratings. The study was conducted in the field setting of a (simulated) high-stakes national exam in Dutch pre-vocational education. A total of 55 teachers rated the performances of 652 candidates (aged [plus or minus]16) on four authentic performance-based tasks. Multivariate multilevel analyses found the psychometric quality of the teachers' performance ratings to be more favorable for positively unbalanced scales than for balanced scales. Positively unbalanced rating scales yielded the lowest (i.e., least generous) and most discriminative ratings. The descriptiveness and polarity of the rating scales were of lesser importance for the rating distributions. On the basis of the findings it was decided to introduce positively unbalanced scales in the national exams for pre-vocational education. (Contains 2 tables.)

One of the main objectives of the European Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research (NIFLAR) project is to make foreign language learning and teaching processes more relevant and rewarding for reaching intercultural communicative competence. This is realized by offering foreign language learners and pre-service teachers opportunities to engage in meaningful interaction with each other through video-web communication (VC), according to the requirements set by relevant interaction tasks. In this article, we present the actions taken in the project to enhance students' motivation and the effect VC sessions have on motivation, as measured by pre-, mid-, and post-questionnaires participants filled in prior and after virtual interaction sessions. Significant effects were found particularly for beginner level students on those dimensions measuring aspects related to willingness to interact with native speakers. (Contains 2 figures, 3 tables and 5 notes.)

Current theory about writing states that the quality of (meta)cognitive processing (i.e. planning, text production, revising, et cetera) is, at least partly, determined by the temporal distribution of (meta)cognitive activities across task execution. Put simply, the quality of task execution is determined more by "when" activities are applied than by "how often" they are applied. "Planning" and "revising" are two extreme writing styles, in which (meta)cognitive activities are temporally differently distributed across the writing process. Planners are writers who generate plans before text production. Revisers use text production as a means to arrive at a content plan. The present study investigates the question whether the online (meta)cognitive processing of secondary school students during writing tasks, as measured by think aloud techniques and keystroke logging, can be predicted by their responses to an offline questionnaire which measures to what degree students considered themselves to be planners and revisers. It was expected that different reported writing styles would entail different temporal distributions of six (meta)cognitive activities: reading the assignment, planning, text production, reading own text, evaluating own text and revising. This hypothesis was partly confirmed. The results show that the online temporal distributions of reading the assignment and planning are different for different degrees of reported writing styles. On the basis of these results, the validity of both the questionnaire and the concept of planner and reviser styles are discussed. (Contains 4 figures, 4 tables, and 2 footnotes.)

This semi-longitudinal study examined the development of narrative writing quality of young Turkish second language learners in mainstream Dutch-only education, and the impact of student-level and classroom-level predictors of narrative writing quality, using hierarchical linear modelling. Writing samples of 106 third graders and 111 fourth graders of seven Flemish primary schools were collected at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Measures included one holistic primary trait judgement, and six objective indices of text quality. Student-level predictors included age, SES and home language, while the classroom-level predictor focused on the home language pattern of the classroom. There was a significant mean growth for each index in each grade, but effect sizes differed from quite large for content and word level indices over moderate for sentence level indices to small for the text level index. Home language (Turkish) had a significant negative effect on all but one variables, particularly in Grade 4, while the negative effect of low SES was much more limited. A supplementary negative effect was found for homogeneity of classroom population. Implications of the study highlight the importance of student and classroom characteristics in writing achievement as well as the need to consider the poor performance of Turkish children. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

In order to ascertain which school characteristics can explain the differences in effectiveness between schools, important methodological choices have to be made in school effectiveness research. One of these choices relates to the criterion or criteria the researcher wishes to use to compare schools. Should, for example, a school be deemed effective if it achieves high performances in mathematics, or in mother tongue or in both? In order to safeguard the construct validity of the concept "school effectiveness" this type of research should include multiple effectiveness criteria and thus reduce the risk of "mono-operation bias". In that case two analysis strategies can be used: a series of univariate analyses (one for each output measure); or a multivariate model in which different dependent variables are modelled at the same time. In this methodological review we will examine what the implications of these different analysis methods are for research results. The dataset is derived from a large-scale effectiveness study conducted into technical and vocational secondary education in Flanders. Based on the results of this study we will make methodological suggestions for researchers in the field of educational effectiveness and school leadership. (Contains 9 tables and 2 figures.)

This study examined writers' use of their first language (L1) while writing in their second language (L2). Twenty students each wrote four short argumentative essays in their L1 (Dutch) and four in their L2 (English) under think-aloud conditions. We analysed whether L1 use varied between writers and tasks, and whether it was related to general writing proficiency, L2 proficiency, and L2 text quality. The analysis focused on the occurrence of a number of conceptual activities, including Generating ideas, Planning, and Metacomments. Results indicate that all participants used their L1 while writing in their L2 to some extent, although this varied among conceptual activities. In addition, L2 proficiency was directly related to L2 text quality but was not related to the occurrence of conceptual activities either in L1 or L2. General writing proficiency, on the other hand, has a negative influence on L1 use during L2 writing and a positive effect on L2 use during L2 writing. L1 use during L2 writing is negatively related to L2 text quality, at least for Metacomments. Finally, L2 use appears to be positively related to L2 text quality for Goal setting, Generating ideas, and Structuring, but negatively related to L2 text quality for Self-instructions and Metacomments. The theoretical relevance of these findings is also discussed. (Contains 7 tables.)

This study attempts to reliably measure literature reading and creative writing ability, and subsequently to determine whether a relationship exists between the two abilities. Participants were 19 eleventh-grade students: 11 were known to be good readers of literature, whereas 8 were known to be poor readers of literature. Each participant read 4 literary texts and wrote 5 creative texts. Texts concerned two genres: poems and short stories. The transcriptions of reading responses and writing products were rated by different panels of 7 and 8 independent expert judges, respectively. Multilevel analyses indicated that agreement among judges was high and that individual student performance relative to other students was fairly consistent among tasks, both for reading and writing tasks. Moreover, average reading and average writing performance appeared to be related even when the a priori selection was taken into account. The results support our hypothesis that a positive relationship exists between literature reading and creative writing ability. Moreover, it shows that both constructs can be measured in reliable ways. Implications for further research and for the position of creative writing within the literature curriculum are discussed. (Contains 4 tables and 3 footnotes.)

Psycholinguistic data are often analyzed with repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVA), but this paper argues that mixed-effects (multilevel) models provide a better alternative method. First, models are discussed in which the two random factors of participants and items are crossed, and not nested. Traditional ANOVAs are compared against these crossed mixed-effects models, for simulated and real data. Results indicate that the mixed-effects method has a lower risk of capitalization on chance (Type I error). Second, mixed-effects models of logistic regression (generalized linear mixed models, GLMM) are discussed and demonstrated with simulated binomial data. Mixed-effects models effectively solve the "language-as-fixed-effect-fallacy", and have several other advantages. In conclusion, mixed-effects models provide a superior method for analyzing psycholinguistic data. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

In this article, we propose to link the study of writing-to-learn to the theory of aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI). In an experimental study we examined the effects of a course on ''Writing-to-learn about literary stories'' consisting of writing tasks adapted to either a planning or a revising writing strategy. We hypothesized that the effects of writing-to-learn tasks depend on the interaction between students' preferred writing strategy and the type of writing instruction, matching or mismatching students' writing strategy. Our match hypothesis was in the main confirmed: results indicated that adapting writing tasks to students' writing strategies increases their learning in the field of literature. (Contains 6 tables and 2 figures.)

The claim that writing facilitates students' learning, although widely accepted, has little support from empirical research. A possible explanation for the lack of empirical evidence is that writing-to-learn research has disregarded that students use different writing strategies. The purpose of the present experimental study is to test whether it is effective to adapt writing-to-learn tasks to different writing strategies when teaching literature. A course "Learning to write argumentative texts about literature" was developed in two different versions: one adapted to a planning writing strategy, the other to a revising writing strategy. Participants were 113 tenth-grade high school students in the Netherlands. Our hypothesis is an adaptation hypothesis: we expect that the more a student will use a planning writing strategy, the more the student will profit from the lessons in the planning condition, and that the more a student uses a revising writing strategy, the more beneficial the revising condition will be. However, results show that for improving literary interpretation skill, a course adapted to the planning writing strategy is more effective for almost all students. (Contains 9 tables, 2 figures and 2 notes.)

In this study, we examined why observational learning positively affects learning outcomes of new writing tasks. In this study, we focused on the effects of observational learning on the temporal organization (i.e., orchestration) of writing processes and on the subsequent influence on text quality. An experiment was set up in which participants (N = 52; 8th-grade students) were assigned to 1 of 2 observational-learning conditions or a control (CO) condition. In the observational-learning conditions, participants learned by observing peer models' writing processes and in the CO condition by performing writing tasks. To measure the orchestration of writing processes, the participants performed posttest-writing tasks under think-aloud conditions.

Departing from a realistic classroom context, this study focuses on the relationship between students' perception of task demands and their learning performance. History teachers (N=20) and their 11th-grade students (N=375) rated the relative importance of sections of an instructional text on which teachers would be giving a test. In addition, test grades were collected. It was hypothesized that the degree of correspondence between ratings of individual students and those of their teacher would reflect the accurateness of students' perception of task demands and therefore would be positively related with test grade. Multilevel analysis revealed partly support for this hypothesis. Students with higher grades more consistently showed a relative close correspondence with their teacher than students with lower grades. Nonetheless, a substantial number of students who showed a relatively close correspondence with their teacher, obtained a low test grade. This suggests that a more accurate perception of task demands did not guarantee a higher test performance. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 7 notes.)

This study examined the effects of similarity in competence between model and observer on the effectiveness of observational learning in argumentative writing. Results are consistent with the similarity hypothesis: weak learners learn more from focusing their observations on weak models, whereas better learners learn more from focusing on good models. (Author)

Presents a study, focusing on 15-year old students, that demonstrates how an experimental reading program improved students' abilities using four reading activities: (1) looking for key fragments, (2) paying attention to structure marking elements, (3) making up questions, and (4) mapping important information from a text. Demonstrates an improvement in the students' first language (Dutch). (CMK)

In a national assessment program, 57% of Dutch ninth-grade students had a positive attitude towards the environment and 35% were prepared to make sacrifices for the environment. Student knowledge about environmental problems, however, was fragmentary and often incorrect. Environmentally responsible behavior was more strongly connected with the willingness to make sacrifices than with attitude toward the environment. Contains 38 references. (Author/PVD)

Examines relationships between writing instruction and functional composition performance of third-year secondary education Dutch students. Finds that, of 36 instructional characteristics, effective ones included instruction and exercises in writing functional texts, writing for a specific purpose, tailoring to a particular audience, global rating of students writing by the teacher, and frequent evaluation of Dutch language proficiency through teacher-made tests. (RS)

National assessments yield a description of the proficiency level in a domain while accounting for differences between tasks. For instance, in writing assessments the level of proficiency is typically evaluated with a variety of topics and multiple tasks. This enables generalizations from specific tasks to a domain. In (quasi-)experimental research, however, writing skills are often evaluated with a single task. Yet, conclusions about the effectiveness of the treatment are formulated on the level of the domain, which is, euphemistically put, quite a stretch. Although conclusions drawn about the effect of the treatment are specific to the task administered, they are often generalized to the domain without any form of reservation. This raises the question whether we can use the results of national assessments about differences between tasks in the analyses of experimental studies. In this paper, we demonstrate how the information of a baseline data set can be used as a kind of control condition in the analysis of an experimental study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, 590 third graders from 12 Dutch schools took 32 tests indicating 16 semantic Structure-of-Intellect (SI) abilities and 1 of 4 reading comprehension tests, involving either multiple-choice or open-ended items. Results indicate that item type for reading comprehension is congeneric with respect to SI abilities measured. (TJH)

Inflectional morphology causes persistent difficulties for second language (L2) learners (Montrul, Silvina & Kim Potowski. 2007. Command of gender agreement in school-age Spanish-English bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingualism 11(3). 301–328; Montrul, Silvina, Israel de la Fuente, Justin Davidson & Rebecca Foote. 2013. The role of experience in the acquisition and production of diminutives and gender in Spanish: Evidence from L2 learners and heritage speakers. Second Language Research 29(1). 87–118). Learners operate with a default gender value, and overgeneralize the masculine forms of determiners and modifiers (White, Lydia, Elena Valenzuela, Martyna Kozlowska-Macgregor & Ingrid Leung. 2004. Gender and number agreement in nonnative Spanish. Applied Psycholinguistics 25(1). 105–133; Schlig 2003). 111 essays written were collected containing 799 correct uses and 281 errors from Dutch students whose written ability in Spanish is A2 (Common European Framework). The results show that singular masculine nominal agreement marking at the determiner is significantly better produced by Dutch L2 learners of Spanish than when the marking of nominal agreement is plural, feminine or at the adjective. This study corroborates the previous results where learners operate with a default gender value and overgeneralize the masculine forms of determiners. Also these results show that L2 learners of Spanish are significantly less accurate in gender agreement with adjectives than with determiners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]