Effects of electronic outlining on students' argumentative writing performance

Abstract

This study examined the effect of electronic outlining on the quality of students' writing products and how outlining affects perceived mental effort during the writing task.Additionally, it was studied how students appropriate and appreciate an outline tool and whether they need explicit instruction in order to engage in planning. To answer these questions, the writing products and self-report data from 34 tenth-grade students of a Dutch pre-university school were analyzed. Students wrote two similar argumentative texts with or without an outline tool. Results show that electronic outlining improves the quality of students' argumentative texts and decreases mental effort. Answers to a retrospective questionnaire showed that a short instruction on the outline tool was sufficient for students to understand its working and that most students experienced the tool as beneficial. Finally, results indicate that without specific instruction on text planning, students hardly devote any time to this important aspect of writing.Keywords: Electronic outlining, outline tool, argumentative text, writing, text structure, mental effort, writing process, writing performance Outlining and Argumentative Writing 3 Effects of Electronic Outlining on Students' Argumentative Writing PerformanceDuring the last twenty years, personal computers have taken on an ever increasing role in education. Students regularly use general and specific computer tools to search, represent and process information. Those tools are often readily available in standard software that is installed on their computer (e.g., word processor, spreadsheet, internet browser). In fact, most computers include so many tools that many of them remain unused or unknown, even when they are potentially helpful (Collins & Halverson, 2010).One might think that tools which could significantly impact academic performance and learning would be used in educational settings either by students or their teachers.Moreover, one might think that educators would include instruction on how to use these tools in the regular school curriculum. Unfortunately, this is not the case.Although today's students are often considered to be 'digital natives ' (Prensky, 2001), "it appears they do not recognize the enhanced functionality of the applications they own and use" (Bullen, Morgan, Belfer, & Qayyum, 2008; p. 7.7). Margaryan, Littlejohn, and Vojt (2010) reported that when used for learning, technology is mostly for passive information consumption (e.g., Wikipedia ® ) or for downloading lecture notes. Furthermore, teachers are often not very digitally literate and/or do not know how to use available tools in an educational setting. Säljö (2010) noted that "digital curriculum materials and multimedia resources have not been able to assert themselves as part of regular educational practices to the extent that some predicted they would" (p. 54). Teachers rarely integrate computer tools into their education and thus students are not introduced to the wide range of their computer's possibi...

Electronic outlining as a writing strategy: Effects on students' writing products, mental effort and writing process

“…Results from previous studies (De Smet, Brand-Gruwel, Broekkamp, & Kirschner, 2012;De Smet, Broekkamp, Brand-Gruwel, & Kirschner, 2011) suggest positive effects of electronic outlining on the quality of students' argumentative texts. The tool helped students better present their texts' structure and decreased perceived mental effort.…”

“…Based on the theoretical notions and prior studies on (electronic) outlining described above (De Smet et al, 2011;2012;Kozma, 1991;Walvoord et al, 1995) it is expected (H1) that electronic outlining leads to better structured texts. Second, it is hypothesised (H2) that electronic outlining decreases perceived mental effort while writing (cf.…”

“…The maximum score for Structure Presentation was 14 points (see Appendix A). The validity and reliability of this assessment instrument has been established by De Smet et al (2011) who used the protocol for the same population and the same text genre. Moreover, to calculate interrater reliability for the present study, a random sample of 20 texts (i.e.…”

Write between the lines: Electronic outlining and the organization of text ideas

“…Regarding the reliability of this assessment protocol, de Smet et al (2011) reported an interrater reliability of q = .84 for Total Text Structure and q = .87 for Structure Presentation. Regarding the reliability of Hierarchical Elaboration of Arguments, 10 random argumentative texts were rated by two researchers.…”

Writing Aid Dutch - Supporting Students’ Writing Skills by Means of a String and Pattern Matching based Web Application

“…Despite the fact that such a design has minimal internal validity and no external validity (Sytsma, 2002), we have chosen this design because of time restrictions of the project. A within-subjects design does not require a placement test that cancels out possible differences in competencies between participants (de Smet et al, 2011). A total number of minimal 60 students of university as well as college institutions will be tested.…”