What Works in Teaching Composition: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Treatment Studies
| Autor: | George Hillocks |
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| Rok vydání: | 1984 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | American Journal of Education. 93:133-170 |
| ISSN: | 1549-6511 0195-6744 |
| Popis: | As one part of a comprehensive review of research related to the teaching of composition, I have conducted an integrative review or meta-analysis of experimental treatment studies completed from 1963 through 1982. Among many researchers in the field of composition, such studies are currently in disrepute. Cooper and Odell (1978, p. xiii) claim that the authors included in their Research on Composing share "one audacious aim-that of redirecting and revitalizing research in written composition." Their aim was to redirect research away from the kind of experimental studies summarized by Braddock, LloydJones, and Schoer in 1963. They argue that the Braddock et al. review was based on the assumption that "We already had a thorough understanding of written products and processes" (p. xiv), an assumption that Cooper, Odell, and their co-authors see as unwarranted. They believe that "ultimately, comparison-group research may enable us to improve instruction in writing" (p. xiv), but not before such research is "informed by carefully tested theory and by descriptions of written discourse and the processes by which that discourse comes into being" (p. xiv). Emig (1982) sees much less promise for "comparison group" studies. Her attack is launched against the whole "positivist" research "paradigm," by which she apparently means testing hypotheses in experimental designs in or out of laboratories. The most vituperative attack against experimental studies was launched by Graves (1980). He claims that such research in writing is "an exercise for students to apply courses in statistics to their dissertations" (p. 914). Referring to experimental studies conducted between 1955 and 1972, Graves claims that most of this research "wasn't readable and was of limited value. It couldn't help teachers in the classroom" |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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