"Writing Helps Me Share My Ideas": Using NAEP Data to Examine Student Attitudes About Writing

• In Event: 66.057 - Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 66.057-8 - Serious Writing: Preteen to Adolescent Writing Attitudes and Processes

Abstract

This study uses survey results from a screened-admission, urban high school to examine the relationship between formative feedback (explanatory variable) and student attitudes about writing (outcome variable). The researcher relied on an existing survey tool for data collection: the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Student Background Questionnaire that accompanied the Computer-Based Assessment in Writing in 2011. Just under 200 low-income, urban adolescents participated, representing a population not often seen in the feedback or writing literature. Results indicate a small but potentially meaningful relationship between formative feedback and student attitudes about writing, particularly for peer feedback. Results do not support a relationship between type of feedback (surface versus content) and student attitudes about writing.

Author

• Eva Ostrum, The Graduate Center, City University of New York