Improving the Compositions of Students with Learning Disabilities Using a Strategy Involving Product and Process Goal Setting STEVE GRAHAM CHARLES MACARTHUR SHIRLEY SCHWARTZ VICTORIA PAGE- VOTH University ofMaryland
ABSTRACT: This study was conducted to determine i] a I,!allllillg and writing strategy would improve the essay writing ofstudents with learning disabilities, Four participants were taught a strategy designed tofacilitate the setting ofproduct and process goals, generation and organization of notes. continued planning during writing. and evaluation 0/ goa! ottoinmcnt. Training effects well' investigated using {/multiple probe design across subjects. Strategy instruction had (/ positive effect Oil students' essay writing pcrfonuance and knowledge of the writing process. and effects were maintained over lime.
D In recent years, one of the most intluential conceptualizations of the process of composing is that writing is a problem-solving task (Flower & Hayes, 1977). Most writing tasks that children are assigned in school, however, can best be described as ill-defined problems; the rules, or methods, for completing the task are often unclear to students and they may have no systematic way to tell whether a particular solution is correct. Two strategies that can be helpful in working with ill-defined problems are to break the problem into several subproblems or add more structure to the situation. To illustrate the first procedure, a writing assignment might be subdivided into several subproblems: (a) planning what to say in advance, (b) writing the paper, and (c) polishing it by making final changes. By treating the problem as several subproblems. students find it less overwhelming. The second procedure involves limiting or restricting the possible solutions to the problem. For example, a writer could conduct a meansends analysis figuring out what the final form of the paper will look like (product goals) and the 322
means that will be used to reach the selected "ends" (process goals). By adding more structure to the problem, It becomes better defined and more manageable. In the present study, students with learning disabilities, who were poor writers. were taught to use a planning and writing strategy based on both procedures. The strategy was structured around a means-ends analysis; the student set product goals for what the paper would accomplish and contain and further articulated process goals for how this would be accomplished. The writing task was also broken down into several related subproblems designed to facilitate accomplishment of the goals: • Generate product and process goals. •
Develop notes.
• Organize notes. • Write and continue planning. • Evaluate success in ohtaining goals. A strategy of this nature should be particularly effective with students with learning disabilities for several reasons. First, goal-setting is not only February 1992
a critical component of effective writing (Hayes & Flower, 1986), but the beneficial effects of setting goals on task performance is one of the most robust and replicable findings in psychological research (Locke, Shaw, Saari, & Latham, 1981). Goals affect students' performance by influencing what is attended to, mobilizing effort, increasing persistence, and motivating the development and use of strategies for accomplishing the target goals. Thus, goal setting appears to be especially beneficial for students with learning disabilities, who are often described as unable or unwilling to make active academic responses and deficient in strategy deployment (Harris, 1982). A second reason that the strategy should be successful is that it provides students with a mechanism for executing and managing many of the mental operations considered important to planning and writing text (Graham & Harris, 1989a). Specifically. students set goals aimed at generating, framing, and planning text; and the strategy provides a mechanism for regulating the writing process. Students with learning disabilities often have difficulty with each of the processes. In terms of content generation, these students do not appear to be especially successful in employing strategies for self-directed memory search. Thomas, Englert, and Gregg (1987) found that students with learning disabilities were unable to produce multiple written statements about familiar topics, whereas others (Graham, 1990; MacArthur & Graham, 1987) have noted that students with learning disabilities possess much more knowledge than is reflected in their written products. Students with learning disabilities also appear to have some difficulty in using genre-specific knowledge to retrieve and frame relevant information. '(hey frequently fail to include critical elements such as how a story ends (Graham & Harris, 1989b; Nodine, Barenbaum, & Newcomer, 1985) or the premise and conclusion to their essays (Graham, 1990). Furthermore, their planning of prose can best be described as what Scardarnalia and Bereiter (J 986) term "knowledge telling": simply converting the writing assignment into a question-answering task. telling whatever comes to mind and then terminating their response or answering in short choppy phrases (Englert & Raphael, 1988; Thomas et al., 1987). Finally, Englert, Raphael, Fear, and Anderson (1988) found that students with learning disabilities were less aware than their normally achieving counterparts of how to monitor the Exceptional Children
quality of text or control and regulate the writing process. Strategy training has become a popular means for attacking the academic problems of students with learning disabilities, especially in the area of writing (Wong, Harris, & Graham, in press). In addition to our program of research (see Graham & Harris, 1989a), Deshler and his colleagues have developed writing strategies for adolescents with learning disabilities (Schumaker, Deshler, Alley, & Warner, 1983); and Englert and hercolleagues have field tested a writing-strategies curriculum with elementary students with learning disabilities (Englert et aI., in press). The strategy examined in this study differs from our previous work and that of the other investigators in that the strategy is primarily structured around the goalsetting process. In learning the strategy. students in this study were first taught to use it when writing argumentative essays; however, generalization to story production as well as maintenance over time were also investigated. Data were further collected on changes in students' written products (especially in terms of the target goals selected), approach to writing, knowledge about composing, attitudes toward writing, and self-efficacy. In addition, evidence concerning students' use of the strategy and social validity were obtained. Finally, students did all of their composing on a word processor.
METHODS Participants Participants were four fifth-grade students with learning disabilities (Merry, Sam, Pippin, and Frodo) receiving resource room services in an inner-city elementary school in the northeastern United States. These four participants were the only fifth-grade students in the resource room that met the following stepwise criteria: identification as learning disabled by the school district, IQ scores between 85 and 115 on an individually administered intelligence test (WISC-R or Slosson Intelligence Test), achievement at least 2 years below age or grade level in one or more academic areas as measured by the Woodcock Johnson Psychoeducational Battery (W1), absence of any other disability, and interviews with teachers indicating that significant composition problems were evident. The Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests from the Test of Written 323
Language (TOWL) were also administered to each subject; each subtest has a mean standard score of 10 and a standard deviation of 3 (Hammill & Larsen, 1983). The first participant, Merry, was age II years, 10 months, at the start of the study; she had previously been retained in the first grade. Her fullscale score on the WISC-R was 100. and her reading achievement score on the WJ was 2 years below her age level. Merry's standard scores on the Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL were 8 and 7, respectively. Sam, the second participant, was age II years, 2 months; and his score on the Siosson Intelligence Test was 87. Furthermore, his reading achievement score on the WJ was 2 years below age level, while he scored 6 and 9 on the Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL, respectively. The third participant, Pippin. was age 12 years, 6 months; and he held been retained in both the first and fourth grade. His full-scale score on the WISC-R was 98, and his reading achievement score on the WJ was 2 years below his age level. His standard scores on the Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL were 3 and 8, respectively. The fourth participant, Frodo, was 13 years old, and he had been retained in the third and fourth grade. His full-scale score on the WISC-R was 90, and his reading achievement score on the WJ was 3 years below his age level. On the Vocabulary and Thematic subtests from the TOWL, he scored a 3 and a 5, respectively.
essays that contained all the basic parts. Instruction was not started for the next participant until Merry's posttreatment essay performance reached a criterion level of at least one and a hal f times the mean number of elements produced during baseline. Identical procedures were followed when introducing and terminating treatment with the third and fourth participants.
•
Posttreatment essay probes. Three to four posttreatment essay probes were administered immediately following instruction.
•
Maintenance probes. For the first participant, Merry, maintenance writing probes were collected -
~
0
en
12 10
c:
8 6
CD 0
2
0
~.
CJ
en
-
Pippin
•
•
• •
•
•
Booster
4
a
'iii 0
t-
12
Frada
10 8 6 4
2
a
•
3
Story Writing
Merry's baseline story was only 33 words long, stories written after training were 50 words long; following the booster session, they averaged 4l words per story. Sam's baseline stories averaged 22 words, but his story following instruction was 78 words long; stories completed after the
330
Probes
booster session were approximately 85 words in length. Pippin had the longest baseline stories, averaging 79 words in length. Nonetheless, his story following instruction was 115 words long, and stories following the booster session averaged 155 words. Frodo wrote baseline stories that
February 1992
averaged 42 words. His posttreatment stories increased to an average of 79 words.
Quality Ratings. Merry, Sam, Pippin, and Frodo's mean holistic quality rating for baseline stories was 2.5, 2.3, 4.4, and 3.3, respectively. Modest carryover effects following instruction were noted for three students. Merry, Sam, and Frado's scores rose to 4.0, 3.0, and 4.5, respectively. While Pippin had the highest quality ratings on baseline stories, he evidenced a decrease to 3.5 on the story completed following instruction. Following the booster session, Merry's average quality rating remained about the same at 4.1. The quality of Sam and Pippin's stories increased, however: Sam's average quality rating was 4.8, and Pippin's was 5.8.
Prewriting Time. Each student spent less than 5 s of prewriting time on baseline stories with the exception of two probes (25 and 112 s long). Following instruction, only two students evidenced an increase in prewriting time; Merry averaged 10 min per story, while Frado averaged approximately 3 min of prewriting time per story. Once the booster session was initiated, prewriting time increased to about 5 min for Merry, 8 min for Sam, and 5 min for Pippin.
Total Composing Time. With the exception of Frodo, the students evidenced increases in total composing time following instruction. Merry's baseline performance of9 min rase to 13 min following instruction and leveled alit at II min after the booster session. Sam spent only 6 min composing baseline stories, but following instruction and again following the booster session averaged 22 and 21 min of composing time, respectively. While Pippin averaged 20 min of time composing baseline stories, his performance rase to 31 min following instruction and jumped again to 44 min per story following the booster session. In contrast, Frodo averaged 19 min of composing time before and after instruction, '"
Strategy Usage Each student evidenced use of all or most of the strategy steps when writing posttreatment or maintenance essays. Merry consistently used all of the strategy steps except on the last two maintenance essays; she did not overtly test her goals Exceptional Children
on one essay, and just made and organized notes on the last one. Sam consistently completed all steps but one; he did not overtly test to see if goals were met. Pippin showed the most variability in overt strategy usage. On two essays, he clearly used the complete strategy. On two other essays, he made and organized notes. On another essay, he set some goals, made notes, organized the notes, and tested goals. Finally, Frodo overtly used all of the steps except for setting process goals for meeting the selected product goals. Following instruction, only two students showed any overt evidence in using the strategy to write stories. Similar to his performance on essay writing, Frodo used the full procedure except for the setting of process goals. Merry, on the other hand, just made and organized prewriting notes. Following the booster session, Merry, Sam, and Pippin consistently used some, if not most, of the strategy steps. Sam and Pippin, for example, used the full strategy, except that they provided no overt evidence that they tested their product goals. Merry initially used the whole strategy just following the booster session but reverted back to first making and organizing notes on subsequent story probes.
Metacognitive Interview In response to the query concerning what good writers do, three students (Sam, Pippin, and Frodo) changed their baseline responses, which centered totally on production factors or the mechanics of writing (indent, start on red line, write in sentences, etc.) to substantive concerns (look to see what they want, organize it, etc.). On the question pertaining to the kinds of things that can be done to help plan and write a paper, these same students initially mentioned generation of content as their primary planning strategy. Following instruction, however, Sam and Pippin responded with all of the basic components included in the target strategy (set goals, make notes, etc.), while Frodo's response primarily remained unchanged. In relation to the question asking what can you do if you are having difficulty, all four students initially concentrated on seeking help from others. After instruction, Men)' and Frado expanded their respective repertoire by suggesting things they could do (keep on writing or go to the library). On the attitudinal items, all of the students, with the exception of Frodo, had positive attitudes toward writing. Merry, Sam, Pippin, and Frodo's mean score on the attitudinal items was 4.2, 4.0, 3.0, and 1.7, respectively. Following instruction, all but 331
Frodos attitudinal score remained the same or rose just slightly. Frodo, in contrast, evidenced a sizable increase on the attitudinal items, from J.7 to 3.0. Students' perceived competence in responding to common school writing tasks showed considerable variation. MelTY, who evidenced little confidence in her ability to adequately respond to common school assignments, was slightly more confident following instruction (1.3) than during baseline (1.0). The trend for the other three students was in the opposite direction. Sam (4.3), Pippin (3.0), and Frodo (2.0) were more confident of their abilities before instruction than after; Sam, Pippin, and Frodo 's posttraining scores dropped to 3.7, 2.7, and 1.0, respectively. With the exception of Sam, all of the students were initially confident of their ability to execute the cognitive strategies considered central to effective writing. Merry, Sam, Pippin. and Frodo's mean item scores were 4.3, 2.3, 4.0, and 4.4, respectively. Following instruction, Merry's score remained the same, while Sam became more confident (3.4). In contrast, Pippin and Frodo's perceived confidence dropped to 2.3 and 3.3, respectively.
Social Validity Interviews All four students indicated that the strategy helped them to write better. Comments suggested that the strategy helped them write more and provided a helpful device for organizing content. Similarly, all students thought the strategy should be taught to their friends because it was fun and would improve their writing. Likewise, the resource room teacher indicated that learning the strategy had a positive impact on the students' writing; and the teacher was enthusiastic about its use with other students with learning disabilities. She also reported that training had a positive carryover effect to the students' classroom.
DISCUSSION In the present study, students with leaming disabilities received instruction in using a general writing strategy when composing argumentative essays. Strategy instruction had a significant and meaningful effect on the essays the students produced; their performance following instruction improved in each of three areas in which they practiced setting goals: to include all the basic components, to increase the length of papers, and to be convincing. In comparison with baseline pa332
pers, posttreatment essays included approximately two times as many structural elements and were four times more likely to include all of the basic parts of an essay. Essays written after instruction were also two to three times longer and were judged to be qualitatively superior, or more convincing. The participating students were able to maintain these gains over time; and they reported, as did their teacher, that use ofthe strategy improved writing performance. In addition to changes in students' writi ng, instruction in the use of the strategy resulted in a number of cogni tive and affecti ve changes, as well. One notable change involved the way in which students approached the task of writing. Before instruction, students appeared to do all of their planning as they wrote, and the instructors reported that there was no overt evidence that they used common writing strategies such as notetaking, outlining, and so forth. Following instruction, however, students appeared to plan both in advance of and during writing. Evidence collected during the course of the experiment revealed that students spent about 8 min planning their posttreatment essays in advance of writing by using part or all of the PLANS substrategy. In addition, an informal analysis of the posttreatment essays following the completion of the experiment showed that students continued the process of planning as they wrote. Ninety percent of all essays generated after instruction included additional details and ideas that were not included in students' preplanning notes. Other cognitive changes that were noted following instruction in the strategy included students' responses to the questions on the metacognitive interview. For three of the students, their perceptions of what good writers do shifted from a concentration on the mechanical aspects of producing text to emphasizing substantive procedures for planning and content generation. In addition, the repertoire of planning and writing strategies identified by two of these students expanded to include all of the basic procedures incorporated in the target strategy. Two students also extended their answers following strategy instruction by indicating that not only can adults serve as a source of assistance when writing difficulties are encountered, but that students can help themselves. Because the process of goal setting has been shown to facilitate self-evaluation (Schunk, 1989), we expected that the students' perceptions of their writing competence (self-efficacy) would be more accurate following mastery of the stratFebruary 1992
egy. A growing body of research indicates that students with learning disabilities have difficulty predicting or assessing their capabilities (Alvarez & Adelman, 1986; Graham & Harris, 1989b; Graham et aI., 1989). In the present study, three of the four students clearly overestimated their abilities to execute cognitive processes considered central to effective writing, while two students were overconfident of their capabilities to respond successfully to common writing tasks; their responses were equal to or higher than those of students without disabilities, of the same age (Graham et al., 1989). For the most part, instruction in the use of the strategies resulted in changes in the self-efficacy of these students in the predicted direction. A slight decline was found in the confidence of the two students who initially overestimated their abilities to respond to common writing tasks. Furthermore, two of the students who were overconfident in their abilities to execute important writing processes were much more realistic following strategy instruction. It is interesting to note that instruction in the strategy had a significant effect on only one of the participating students' attitudes toward writing; this student became more positive about writing. The other students were initially positive and remained equally so after learning how to use the target strategy. Nonetheless, strategy instruction resulted in a substantial increase in the amount of effort exerted by students; total amount of time spent composing essays increased by almost 170% following instruction. The present study also examined generalization of instructional effects to a second genre, story writing. While the strategy used in this investigation W
ABSTRACT: This study was conducted to determine i] a I,!allllillg and writing strategy would improve the essay writing ofstudents with learning disabilities, Four participants were taught a strategy designed tofacilitate the setting ofproduct and process goals, generation and organization of notes. continued planning during writing. and evaluation 0/ goa! ottoinmcnt. Training effects well' investigated using {/multiple probe design across subjects. Strategy instruction had (/ positive effect Oil students' essay writing pcrfonuance and knowledge of the writing process. and effects were maintained over lime.
D In recent years, one of the most intluential conceptualizations of the process of composing is that writing is a problem-solving task (Flower & Hayes, 1977). Most writing tasks that children are assigned in school, however, can best be described as ill-defined problems; the rules, or methods, for completing the task are often unclear to students and they may have no systematic way to tell whether a particular solution is correct. Two strategies that can be helpful in working with ill-defined problems are to break the problem into several subproblems or add more structure to the situation. To illustrate the first procedure, a writing assignment might be subdivided into several subproblems: (a) planning what to say in advance, (b) writing the paper, and (c) polishing it by making final changes. By treating the problem as several subproblems. students find it less overwhelming. The second procedure involves limiting or restricting the possible solutions to the problem. For example, a writer could conduct a meansends analysis figuring out what the final form of the paper will look like (product goals) and the 322
means that will be used to reach the selected "ends" (process goals). By adding more structure to the problem, It becomes better defined and more manageable. In the present study, students with learning disabilities, who were poor writers. were taught to use a planning and writing strategy based on both procedures. The strategy was structured around a means-ends analysis; the student set product goals for what the paper would accomplish and contain and further articulated process goals for how this would be accomplished. The writing task was also broken down into several related subproblems designed to facilitate accomplishment of the goals: • Generate product and process goals. •
Develop notes.
• Organize notes. • Write and continue planning. • Evaluate success in ohtaining goals. A strategy of this nature should be particularly effective with students with learning disabilities for several reasons. First, goal-setting is not only February 1992
a critical component of effective writing (Hayes & Flower, 1986), but the beneficial effects of setting goals on task performance is one of the most robust and replicable findings in psychological research (Locke, Shaw, Saari, & Latham, 1981). Goals affect students' performance by influencing what is attended to, mobilizing effort, increasing persistence, and motivating the development and use of strategies for accomplishing the target goals. Thus, goal setting appears to be especially beneficial for students with learning disabilities, who are often described as unable or unwilling to make active academic responses and deficient in strategy deployment (Harris, 1982). A second reason that the strategy should be successful is that it provides students with a mechanism for executing and managing many of the mental operations considered important to planning and writing text (Graham & Harris, 1989a). Specifically. students set goals aimed at generating, framing, and planning text; and the strategy provides a mechanism for regulating the writing process. Students with learning disabilities often have difficulty with each of the processes. In terms of content generation, these students do not appear to be especially successful in employing strategies for self-directed memory search. Thomas, Englert, and Gregg (1987) found that students with learning disabilities were unable to produce multiple written statements about familiar topics, whereas others (Graham, 1990; MacArthur & Graham, 1987) have noted that students with learning disabilities possess much more knowledge than is reflected in their written products. Students with learning disabilities also appear to have some difficulty in using genre-specific knowledge to retrieve and frame relevant information. '(hey frequently fail to include critical elements such as how a story ends (Graham & Harris, 1989b; Nodine, Barenbaum, & Newcomer, 1985) or the premise and conclusion to their essays (Graham, 1990). Furthermore, their planning of prose can best be described as what Scardarnalia and Bereiter (J 986) term "knowledge telling": simply converting the writing assignment into a question-answering task. telling whatever comes to mind and then terminating their response or answering in short choppy phrases (Englert & Raphael, 1988; Thomas et al., 1987). Finally, Englert, Raphael, Fear, and Anderson (1988) found that students with learning disabilities were less aware than their normally achieving counterparts of how to monitor the Exceptional Children
quality of text or control and regulate the writing process. Strategy training has become a popular means for attacking the academic problems of students with learning disabilities, especially in the area of writing (Wong, Harris, & Graham, in press). In addition to our program of research (see Graham & Harris, 1989a), Deshler and his colleagues have developed writing strategies for adolescents with learning disabilities (Schumaker, Deshler, Alley, & Warner, 1983); and Englert and hercolleagues have field tested a writing-strategies curriculum with elementary students with learning disabilities (Englert et aI., in press). The strategy examined in this study differs from our previous work and that of the other investigators in that the strategy is primarily structured around the goalsetting process. In learning the strategy. students in this study were first taught to use it when writing argumentative essays; however, generalization to story production as well as maintenance over time were also investigated. Data were further collected on changes in students' written products (especially in terms of the target goals selected), approach to writing, knowledge about composing, attitudes toward writing, and self-efficacy. In addition, evidence concerning students' use of the strategy and social validity were obtained. Finally, students did all of their composing on a word processor.
METHODS Participants Participants were four fifth-grade students with learning disabilities (Merry, Sam, Pippin, and Frodo) receiving resource room services in an inner-city elementary school in the northeastern United States. These four participants were the only fifth-grade students in the resource room that met the following stepwise criteria: identification as learning disabled by the school district, IQ scores between 85 and 115 on an individually administered intelligence test (WISC-R or Slosson Intelligence Test), achievement at least 2 years below age or grade level in one or more academic areas as measured by the Woodcock Johnson Psychoeducational Battery (W1), absence of any other disability, and interviews with teachers indicating that significant composition problems were evident. The Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests from the Test of Written 323
Language (TOWL) were also administered to each subject; each subtest has a mean standard score of 10 and a standard deviation of 3 (Hammill & Larsen, 1983). The first participant, Merry, was age II years, 10 months, at the start of the study; she had previously been retained in the first grade. Her fullscale score on the WISC-R was 100. and her reading achievement score on the WJ was 2 years below her age level. Merry's standard scores on the Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL were 8 and 7, respectively. Sam, the second participant, was age II years, 2 months; and his score on the Siosson Intelligence Test was 87. Furthermore, his reading achievement score on the WJ was 2 years below age level, while he scored 6 and 9 on the Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL, respectively. The third participant, Pippin. was age 12 years, 6 months; and he held been retained in both the first and fourth grade. His full-scale score on the WISC-R was 98, and his reading achievement score on the WJ was 2 years below his age level. His standard scores on the Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL were 3 and 8, respectively. The fourth participant, Frodo, was 13 years old, and he had been retained in the third and fourth grade. His full-scale score on the WISC-R was 90, and his reading achievement score on the WJ was 3 years below his age level. On the Vocabulary and Thematic subtests from the TOWL, he scored a 3 and a 5, respectively.
essays that contained all the basic parts. Instruction was not started for the next participant until Merry's posttreatment essay performance reached a criterion level of at least one and a hal f times the mean number of elements produced during baseline. Identical procedures were followed when introducing and terminating treatment with the third and fourth participants.
•
Posttreatment essay probes. Three to four posttreatment essay probes were administered immediately following instruction.
•
Maintenance probes. For the first participant, Merry, maintenance writing probes were collected -
~
0
en
12 10
c:
8 6
CD 0
2
0
~.
CJ
en
-
Pippin
•
•
• •
•
•
Booster
4
a
'iii 0
t-
12
Frada
10 8 6 4
2
a
•
3
Story Writing
Merry's baseline story was only 33 words long, stories written after training were 50 words long; following the booster session, they averaged 4l words per story. Sam's baseline stories averaged 22 words, but his story following instruction was 78 words long; stories completed after the
330
Probes
booster session were approximately 85 words in length. Pippin had the longest baseline stories, averaging 79 words in length. Nonetheless, his story following instruction was 115 words long, and stories following the booster session averaged 155 words. Frodo wrote baseline stories that
February 1992
averaged 42 words. His posttreatment stories increased to an average of 79 words.
Quality Ratings. Merry, Sam, Pippin, and Frodo's mean holistic quality rating for baseline stories was 2.5, 2.3, 4.4, and 3.3, respectively. Modest carryover effects following instruction were noted for three students. Merry, Sam, and Frado's scores rose to 4.0, 3.0, and 4.5, respectively. While Pippin had the highest quality ratings on baseline stories, he evidenced a decrease to 3.5 on the story completed following instruction. Following the booster session, Merry's average quality rating remained about the same at 4.1. The quality of Sam and Pippin's stories increased, however: Sam's average quality rating was 4.8, and Pippin's was 5.8.
Prewriting Time. Each student spent less than 5 s of prewriting time on baseline stories with the exception of two probes (25 and 112 s long). Following instruction, only two students evidenced an increase in prewriting time; Merry averaged 10 min per story, while Frado averaged approximately 3 min of prewriting time per story. Once the booster session was initiated, prewriting time increased to about 5 min for Merry, 8 min for Sam, and 5 min for Pippin.
Total Composing Time. With the exception of Frodo, the students evidenced increases in total composing time following instruction. Merry's baseline performance of9 min rase to 13 min following instruction and leveled alit at II min after the booster session. Sam spent only 6 min composing baseline stories, but following instruction and again following the booster session averaged 22 and 21 min of composing time, respectively. While Pippin averaged 20 min of time composing baseline stories, his performance rase to 31 min following instruction and jumped again to 44 min per story following the booster session. In contrast, Frodo averaged 19 min of composing time before and after instruction, '"
Strategy Usage Each student evidenced use of all or most of the strategy steps when writing posttreatment or maintenance essays. Merry consistently used all of the strategy steps except on the last two maintenance essays; she did not overtly test her goals Exceptional Children
on one essay, and just made and organized notes on the last one. Sam consistently completed all steps but one; he did not overtly test to see if goals were met. Pippin showed the most variability in overt strategy usage. On two essays, he clearly used the complete strategy. On two other essays, he made and organized notes. On another essay, he set some goals, made notes, organized the notes, and tested goals. Finally, Frodo overtly used all of the steps except for setting process goals for meeting the selected product goals. Following instruction, only two students showed any overt evidence in using the strategy to write stories. Similar to his performance on essay writing, Frodo used the full procedure except for the setting of process goals. Merry, on the other hand, just made and organized prewriting notes. Following the booster session, Merry, Sam, and Pippin consistently used some, if not most, of the strategy steps. Sam and Pippin, for example, used the full strategy, except that they provided no overt evidence that they tested their product goals. Merry initially used the whole strategy just following the booster session but reverted back to first making and organizing notes on subsequent story probes.
Metacognitive Interview In response to the query concerning what good writers do, three students (Sam, Pippin, and Frodo) changed their baseline responses, which centered totally on production factors or the mechanics of writing (indent, start on red line, write in sentences, etc.) to substantive concerns (look to see what they want, organize it, etc.). On the question pertaining to the kinds of things that can be done to help plan and write a paper, these same students initially mentioned generation of content as their primary planning strategy. Following instruction, however, Sam and Pippin responded with all of the basic components included in the target strategy (set goals, make notes, etc.), while Frodo's response primarily remained unchanged. In relation to the question asking what can you do if you are having difficulty, all four students initially concentrated on seeking help from others. After instruction, Men)' and Frado expanded their respective repertoire by suggesting things they could do (keep on writing or go to the library). On the attitudinal items, all of the students, with the exception of Frodo, had positive attitudes toward writing. Merry, Sam, Pippin, and Frodo's mean score on the attitudinal items was 4.2, 4.0, 3.0, and 1.7, respectively. Following instruction, all but 331
Frodos attitudinal score remained the same or rose just slightly. Frodo, in contrast, evidenced a sizable increase on the attitudinal items, from J.7 to 3.0. Students' perceived competence in responding to common school writing tasks showed considerable variation. MelTY, who evidenced little confidence in her ability to adequately respond to common school assignments, was slightly more confident following instruction (1.3) than during baseline (1.0). The trend for the other three students was in the opposite direction. Sam (4.3), Pippin (3.0), and Frodo (2.0) were more confident of their abilities before instruction than after; Sam, Pippin, and Frodo 's posttraining scores dropped to 3.7, 2.7, and 1.0, respectively. With the exception of Sam, all of the students were initially confident of their ability to execute the cognitive strategies considered central to effective writing. Merry, Sam, Pippin. and Frodo's mean item scores were 4.3, 2.3, 4.0, and 4.4, respectively. Following instruction, Merry's score remained the same, while Sam became more confident (3.4). In contrast, Pippin and Frodo's perceived confidence dropped to 2.3 and 3.3, respectively.
Social Validity Interviews All four students indicated that the strategy helped them to write better. Comments suggested that the strategy helped them write more and provided a helpful device for organizing content. Similarly, all students thought the strategy should be taught to their friends because it was fun and would improve their writing. Likewise, the resource room teacher indicated that learning the strategy had a positive impact on the students' writing; and the teacher was enthusiastic about its use with other students with learning disabilities. She also reported that training had a positive carryover effect to the students' classroom.
DISCUSSION In the present study, students with leaming disabilities received instruction in using a general writing strategy when composing argumentative essays. Strategy instruction had a significant and meaningful effect on the essays the students produced; their performance following instruction improved in each of three areas in which they practiced setting goals: to include all the basic components, to increase the length of papers, and to be convincing. In comparison with baseline pa332
pers, posttreatment essays included approximately two times as many structural elements and were four times more likely to include all of the basic parts of an essay. Essays written after instruction were also two to three times longer and were judged to be qualitatively superior, or more convincing. The participating students were able to maintain these gains over time; and they reported, as did their teacher, that use ofthe strategy improved writing performance. In addition to changes in students' writi ng, instruction in the use of the strategy resulted in a number of cogni tive and affecti ve changes, as well. One notable change involved the way in which students approached the task of writing. Before instruction, students appeared to do all of their planning as they wrote, and the instructors reported that there was no overt evidence that they used common writing strategies such as notetaking, outlining, and so forth. Following instruction, however, students appeared to plan both in advance of and during writing. Evidence collected during the course of the experiment revealed that students spent about 8 min planning their posttreatment essays in advance of writing by using part or all of the PLANS substrategy. In addition, an informal analysis of the posttreatment essays following the completion of the experiment showed that students continued the process of planning as they wrote. Ninety percent of all essays generated after instruction included additional details and ideas that were not included in students' preplanning notes. Other cognitive changes that were noted following instruction in the strategy included students' responses to the questions on the metacognitive interview. For three of the students, their perceptions of what good writers do shifted from a concentration on the mechanical aspects of producing text to emphasizing substantive procedures for planning and content generation. In addition, the repertoire of planning and writing strategies identified by two of these students expanded to include all of the basic procedures incorporated in the target strategy. Two students also extended their answers following strategy instruction by indicating that not only can adults serve as a source of assistance when writing difficulties are encountered, but that students can help themselves. Because the process of goal setting has been shown to facilitate self-evaluation (Schunk, 1989), we expected that the students' perceptions of their writing competence (self-efficacy) would be more accurate following mastery of the stratFebruary 1992
egy. A growing body of research indicates that students with learning disabilities have difficulty predicting or assessing their capabilities (Alvarez & Adelman, 1986; Graham & Harris, 1989b; Graham et aI., 1989). In the present study, three of the four students clearly overestimated their abilities to execute cognitive processes considered central to effective writing, while two students were overconfident of their capabilities to respond successfully to common writing tasks; their responses were equal to or higher than those of students without disabilities, of the same age (Graham et al., 1989). For the most part, instruction in the use of the strategies resulted in changes in the self-efficacy of these students in the predicted direction. A slight decline was found in the confidence of the two students who initially overestimated their abilities to respond to common writing tasks. Furthermore, two of the students who were overconfident in their abilities to execute important writing processes were much more realistic following strategy instruction. It is interesting to note that instruction in the strategy had a significant effect on only one of the participating students' attitudes toward writing; this student became more positive about writing. The other students were initially positive and remained equally so after learning how to use the target strategy. Nonetheless, strategy instruction resulted in a substantial increase in the amount of effort exerted by students; total amount of time spent composing essays increased by almost 170% following instruction. The present study also examined generalization of instructional effects to a second genre, story writing. While the strategy used in this investigation W
