Abstract R & D Background Purpose & Design Action Plan Findings & Analysis Implications Remarks
> Findings & Analysis

Looking at the post test data, we found that students・ performance improved in all three aspects:
Content, Language and Organisation. Below shows the marking scheme for the pre-test and post test.

Marks Content Language Organisation
4
  • Provide interesting and imaginative ideas with supporting details.
  • The description is very clear and coherent.
 /
  • Organise ideas in paragraphs with supporting details.
  • Has effective beginning, middle and end.
  • Very coherent link within/between paragraphs using a small range of cohesive devices appropriately.
3
  • Provide a factual account of the story with supporting details.
  • The description is clear and coherent.
  • Use a small range of vocabulary, sentence patterns and verb forms fairly appropriately with few/no grammatical and spelling mistakes.
  • Organise ideas in paragraphs.
  • Has beginning, middle and end.
  • Use some cohesive devices appropriately.
2
  • Provide some brief ideas only.
  • The description is quite clear.
  • Use a small range of vocabulary, sentence patterns and verb forms fairly appropriately with some grammatical and spelling mistakes.
  • More than one idea organised into one paragraph.
  • Use a few cohesive devices appropriately.
1
  • Attempt to write a story by giving very limited information / ideas only.
  • Use very limited range of vocabulary and verb forms.
  • Make many grammatical and spelling mistakes.
  • Organise ideas into sentences. Ideas may be unorganized or difficult to follow at times.
0
  • Provide totally irrelevant ideas or practically make no attempt at all.
  • A zero for content would suggest a zero for language.
    OR
  • Practically make no attempt at all.
  • No organisation of ideas. Random words and/or phrases.

 

 

The bar charts above show the comparison of students・ performance in the pre-test and post-test. We
observed an improvement trend moving from the left to the right. The percentage of students scoring
0 and 1 marks decreased and at the same time, more students scored 3 and 4 marks. It was
particularly encouraging to see that there was a significant increase (20%) in the percentage of
students who scored 3 marks in organisation in the post test. The figures proved that the four-step
approach did help students brainstorm, organise and present ideas more effectively. It is important to
note that after the introduction of the graphic organiser, students were able to produce better organised
work at both paragraph and text level. The improvement shown in content and language in turn also
serves as evidence for the effectiveness of the scaffolding activities done at the pre-writing stage.

The number of words that students were able to produce also gives us some hints about how confident
they are with doing individual writing. In order to ascertain whether there was any correlation between
the number of words that students produced and their performance, we took a closer look at the
performance of the eight students who wrote more than 120 words in the post test.

Number of words produced in the post test
Content Language Organisation
From 121 to 140 words
Student 1
4
3
4
Student 2
4
3
4
Student 3
4
3
3
Student 4
3
3
3
Student 5
3
3
2
Student 6
2
2
2
More than 140 words
Student 7
3
2
2
Student 8
3
1
2

 

We noted that they could achieve 3 or 4 marks in content; most of them achieved 3 in language, and 3
or 4 in organisation. Therefore, it is sensible to believe that the strategies used could foster motivation
and confidence. We also wanted to know if these students・ performance in the pre-test was already
satisfactory. The sources below show the pre-test and post test of Student A. We can see that the
number of words written increased from 82 to 132. Appropriate paragraphing was observed with clear
main idea presented in each paragraph. A wider range of vocabulary was used, such as ．surprised・.
More complex ideas were expressed and cohesive devices were employed to link ideas. The ending
was also more creative and with more elaboration in the post test.

  END OF PAPER