https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/12/04/writing-study-finds-quality-assignment-and-instruction-not-quantity-matters
Author: Colleen Flaherty
Date: December 4, 2015
This article summarizes a study titled “The Contributions of Writing to Learning Development: Results from a Large-Scale Multi-Institutional Study,” which set out to find whether less, but highly focused, essay writing is more effective in terms of writer-ly growth than constant writing and multiplicity of assignments.
Statistics were gathered through 70,000 freshman and senior surveys across 80 institutions. The survey “examin[ed] the relationship between the responses to the 27 writing practice-based questions and questions on the standard questionnaire regarding two sets of established survey constructs: participation in ‘deep approaches to learning,’ or more-than-surface-level understanding of content, and ‘perceived gains in learning and development.’ The latter means students’ self-reported intellectual growth and personal satisfaction over time.” Results were somewhat marginal–but the lean was decidely towards quality:
How many pages students were asked to write appeared to have minimal impact. The bivariate correlations between writing quantity and deep approaches — meaning the relationship gets stronger as the value approaches 1, from 0 — was 0.15 to 0.27 for first-year students, and 0.11 to 0.22 for seniors.
The correlations between effective interventions and deep approaches, meanwhile, were 0.20 to 0.42 for first years and 0.19 to 0.41 for seniors. Meaning-making assignments seemed to have the biggest positive impact. The authors call the correlations “moderate,” but meaningful.
What does this mean when you have Gordon breathing down your neck? Not a lot. But certainly something to consider when he’s not around.