Children's cognitive effort and fluency in writing: Effects of genre and of handwriting automatisation

This study investigated the cognitive effort of 5th and 9th graders while writing a text. We manipulated genre (narrative text vs. argumentative text) and tested how level of handwriting automatisation contributes to cognitive effort and fluency in writing. The participants were 23 students from Grade 5 and 21 from Grade 9, who wrote two texts differing in genre while performing a secondary reaction time task. The results showed that cognitive effort interacted with genre. Cognitive effort decreased between Grades 5 and 9 only for writing argumentative text. Handwriting did not contribute to fluency in writing, but contributed to cognitive effort only in 5th-graders' writing of narrative text. The findings are discussed in light of the factors contributing to cognitive effort and fluency in writing.     

Do executive functions contribute to writing quality in beginning writers? A longitudinal study with second graders

Reading and Writing - Writing is an important activity that involves many demanding processes. Given the complexity and goal-directed nature of writing, this activity is heavily dependent on...     

An Experimental Study of the Development of Concepts of Relationship in Pre-school Children as Evidenced by their Expressive Ability

This study investigated how the effectiveness of verbal reinforcement is influenced by task interest and task usable performance feedback (UPF) in 18 fifth grade classes. Tasks of high, medium, and low interest, and high and low UPF were developed. A five-minute pretest was followed by one of three verbal reinforcement conditions: approval, disapproval, or a neutral statement. Students then took a five-minute posttest. Results revealed neither verbal reinforcement nor interaction between verbal reinforcement and task variables provided the motivation necessary to improve accuracy of performance. Students who took low UPF tasks completed more than those with high UPF tasks. Increased rate occurred when middle and low interest tasks were coupled with verbal approval, and when high interest tasks were coupled with disapproval.     

Relationship of Study Strategies and Academic Performance in Different Learning Phases of Higher Education in Hong Kong

The present study aims (1) to investigate the specific study strategies that may lead to a success in Matriculation as well as at University; and (2) to investigate whether these study strategies that are effective in Matriculation also work efficiently at University. A revised version of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI, ) was used and we found that there were significant differences between study habits of students with high academic achievement and those with low academic achievement in Matriculation. However, this was not the case at University. More importantly, we also found that those effective study strategies used in Matriculation may not work at University. These results are discussed in terms of the focus and the academic demand of different learning phases of higher education in Hong Kong.