Glaser C. & Brunstein J. C. (2007). Improving fourth-grade students' composition skills: Effects of strategy instruction and self-regulation procedures.Journal of Educational Psychology,99,p.297-310.
Literature Review
This article was chosen for review because it integrated improving composition skills with strategy instruction and self-regulation procedures. The article, written by Glaser & Brunstein (2007), extends the work of Graham & Harris (2003). The reason I chose this article is that it was set in Germany and demonstrates both the international interest in this topic and power of the strategy instruction and self-regulation procedures for improving complex cognitive tasks such as writing.
Problem
Many students struggle with writing. When we look at writing scores in state standards tests writing is often an area of weakness for many students. The hypothesis for this study is that strategy instruction combined with self –regulation procedures would (a) improve the effectiveness of writing strategies training (b) increase the maintenance of learned strategies across time; and (c) facilitate the generalization, or transfer, of the learned strategies across time. (Glaser & Brunstein, 2007 p. 298-299).
Methods
One hundred thirteen (113) fourth graders attending six classes in three elementary schools from middle-class neighborhoods in Germany were the participants in the study. The six classes were randomly assigned to three conditions. The students from two intact classes were assigned to each of the conditions: strategy plus self-regulation, (22 girls and 19 boys), strategy only (19 girls and 15 boys), and control conditions (15 girls and 23 boys).
The study involved a quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test, follow-up design. Writing instruction in 45 minute lessons was delivered in four weekly sessions. The mixed-ability experimental groups were taught by university graduate assistants while the control groups were taught by their regular teachers. Pre- and post-test materials were administered 1 week before and 3 days after the intervention. Maintenance probes were administered 5 weeks after the post-testing. The study controlled for maintenance by the all teachers agreeing to not assign story composition tasks for their students between post-test and probe.
Strategy instruction based on SRSD studies, (Harris & Graham, 1999; Harris & Pressley, 1991) were the techniques used in the strategy only and strategy and self-regulation groups. The techniques were: activation of background knowledge; direct instruction and group discussions of strategies; cognitive modeling of each step; reciting mnemonics to retrieve each step from memory; guided, collaborative and independent practice in drafting and rewriting stories; progress feedback on quality; and verbal scaffolding of instructional support.
The self-regulation procedures were explicitly taught and followed by guided and independent practice. The four procedures were (a) self-monitoring of strategic planning, (b) self-assessment of writing performance, (c) self-monitoring of revision activities, and (d) criterion setting and procedural goals.
Results
One hundred and thirteen students were available for statistical analysis. Both experimental groups out-performed the control group on the post-test. But only the strategy and self-regulation group maintained their learning at the maintenance probe 5 weeks after the intervention. At the end of the 5 week period the strategy only group relapsed to their pre-test levels in writing skills. The control group did not make significant gains in writing skill.
Discussion
Since both strategy and strategy and self-regulation groups out-performed the control it appears likely that the strategy only group could be used as a comparison as to the effectiveness of the combination intervention. Taken with the results that the students who received the didactic lessons showed limited improvement over the course of the study, it appears that extended practice on writing alone was not enough to make the difference.
Critique
The strength in this study is that it was able to isolate self-regulation learning from strategy instruction alone. The study was able to isolate the importance of self-reflective practices for the success of SRSD. The researchers were also able because of the three interventions to identify that self-regulation needs to be taught, that it does not automatically evolve when task specific strategies are taught.
The limitations of the study are acknowledged by the researchers. They were unable to identify if certain self-regulation strategies would be most effective with which part of the writing process. They also identified the lack of assessment of motivation variables between students within the 3 groups. One difference between the strategy and strategy and self-regulatory training group and the control group was that the control group was taught in their regular classes while the 2 other groups were taught in small mixed ability groups. This leads the authors to suggest that more work needs to be done to refine the instruction from small group to class size groups.
Theoretical Conclusions
The results from this study will provide further theoretical development and practical applications. This study presented a qualitative difference between strategy instruction alone and strategy instruction with self-regulation procedures. The power of the difference was in the maintenance of the learning within the writing process.
Methodological Conclusions
The authors of this study distinguished between strategy instruction alone and strategy and self-regulation procedures. Previous research had not made that discrimination. This then allows future researchers to test the generalizability of these results. It also opens the door to look at the effect of strategy and self-regulation instruction on different writing genre.
Practical Conclusions
Implementation of the self-regulation strategies will need to be attempted with larger groups of students and with different age groups. The research was conducted over a short interval and would benefit from a more extended time frame.
Reference
Glaser, C., & Brunstein, J. C. (2007) Improving Fourth-Grade Students’ Composition Skills: Effects of Strategy Instruction and Self-Regulation Procedures. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 297-310
