The purpose of the current study was to develop and validate a measure of motivation for use with basic college writers that would measure self-efficacy, achievement goals, beliefs, and affect. As part of a design research project on curriculum for community college developmental writing classes, 133 students in 11 classes completed the motivation scales at the beginning and end of the semester along with measures of writing quality. Single factors were found for self-efficacy and affect. For goal orientation, factors were found for mastery, performance, and avoidance goals. For beliefs, factors were found for beliefs related to the content of writing and to conventions. Anticipated patterns of correlations among the factors were found. The validity of the scales was further supported by significant differences in the anticipated direction between higher and lower level classes on five of seven factors. In addition, significant changes were noted from pretest to posttest in the anticipated direction on six of seven factors.

This study examined a naturalistic, districtwide implementation of an automated writing evaluation (AWE) software program called MI Write in elementary schools. We specifically examined the degree to which aspects of MI Write were implemented, teacher and student attitudes towards MI Write, and whether MI Write usage along with other predictors like demographics and writing self-efficacy explained variability in students’ performance on a proximal and distal measure of writing performance. The participants included 1935 students in Grades 3–5 and 135 writing teachers from 14 elementary schools in a mid-Atlantic school district. Findings indicated that though MI Write was somewhat under-utilized, teachers and students held positive attitudes towards the AWE system. Usage of MI Write had a mixed and limited predictive effect on outcomes: The number of essays written had a small predictive effect on state test performance for Grades 3 and 5; gain on revision had a moderate predictive effect on posttest writing quality and a small predictive effect for Grade 5 state test performance. Students’ average AWE scores showed consistently moderate to large predictive effects for all outcomes. Interpreted in light of the underlying architecture of MI Write, findings have implications for other school districts considering implementing AWE as well as the design of AWE systems intended to support the teaching and learning of writing.

The purposes of this study were to investigate the reliability and construct validity of measures of reading component skills with a sample of adult basic education (ABE) learners, including both native and nonnative English speakers, and to describe the performance of those learners on the measures. Investigation of measures of reading components is needed because available measures were neither developed for nor normed on ABE populations or with nonnative speakers of English. The study included 486 students, 334 born or educated in the United States (native) and 152 not born or educated in the United States (nonnative) but who spoke English well enough to participate in English reading classes. All students had scores on 11 measures covering five constructs: decoding, word recognition, spelling, fluency, and comprehension. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test three models: a two-factor model with print and meaning factors; a three-factor model that separated out a fluency factor; and a five-factor model based on the hypothesized constructs. The five-factor model fit best. In addition, the CFA model fit both native and nonnative populations equally well without modification, showing that the tests measure the same constructs with the same accuracy for both groups. Group comparisons found no difference between the native and nonnative samples on word recognition, but the native sample scored higher on fluency and comprehension and lower on decoding than did the nonnative sample. Students with self-reported learning disabilities scored lower on all reading components. Differences by age and gender were also analyzed.