USD $144.00
Search Results
Series:
Studies in Writing, Volume: 40
This book takes a fresh look at the challenge of setting up educational writing intervention studies in authentic class contexts. In four sections, the book offers innovative approaches on how to conceptualize, design, implement, and evaluate writing interventions for research purposes. Hot topics in the field such as professional development for scaling up writing interventions, building research practice partnerships, implementation variation and fidelity, and response to intervention are addressed. To illustrate the proposed approaches for writing promotion, the book showcases a wide variety of writing interventions from around the world, ranging from single-participant designs to large-scale intervention studies in writing.
Series:
Studies in Writing, Volume: 40
This book takes a fresh look at the challenge of setting up educational writing intervention studies in authentic class contexts. In four sections, the book offers innovative approaches on how to conceptualize, design, implement, and evaluate writing interventions for research purposes. Hot topics in the field such as professional development for scaling up writing interventions, building research practice partnerships, implementation variation and fidelity, and response to intervention are addressed. To illustrate the proposed approaches for writing promotion, the book showcases a wide variety of writing interventions from around the world, ranging from single-participant designs to large-scale intervention studies in writing.
Abstract
Valid conclusions about the effectiveness of writing interventions depend for a large part on how students’ writing proficiency is assessed. Researchers have to make many choices when designing a writing assessment, all of which may impact a valid interpretation and use of the assessment scores. This chapter aims to support researchers in thinking through the inferences and assumptions underlying these choices and the extent to which they can ultimately claim a valid interpretation of the effectiveness of the intervention on the basis of students’ writing assessment performance. To that aim we will use Kane’s argument-based approach to validity and apply it to the context of writing intervention research. This framework discerns five inferences, or steps, in the claim from the observed writing performance to decisions on the effectiveness of the intervention: selecting (writing) tasks that represent the central construct of writing in the intervention, scoring students’ performance on the writing tasks, generalizing scores to the defined writing construct, extrapolating scores to the broader domain of writing, and making decisions about the effectiveness of the intervention. To support researchers in justifying each of these inferences, we bring together existing research on writing interventions and writing assessment. This results in specific guidelines for researchers on how to make evidence-based choices when designing the writing assessment in their intervention study, and hence, to support the validity of their decisions about the effects of the intervention.
Abstract
To date, a variety of research method books across different research fields were published. Given the specificity of each research field, the importance of having methodology guidelines aligned with the specificity of each field becomes increasingly important. In the field of writing research, a research method book outlining methodological guidelines for conducting high-quality intervention research in writing was lacking. With this new volume we aim to move the field of writing research further along by discussing methodological issues researchers may face when conceptualizing, designing, implementing, and evaluating writing interventions in various educational contexts. Across four sections, we provide innovative theoretical and practical solutions to these methodological issues, which are illustrated by recent and inspiring writing interventions. This volume is not only beneficial to writing researchers, but also to researchers in other educational fields, as it addresses crucial methodological issues and approaches and consequently support researchers in setting up a methodologically sound research plan for conducting high-quality writing intervention research.