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Responses to Written Work: thepossibilities of utilizing pupilsperceptionsBarrie Wade aa Faculty of Education , University of BirminghamPublished online: 06 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Barrie Wade (1978) Responses to Written Work: thepossibilities of utilizing pupils perceptions, Educational Review, 30:2, 149-158, DOI:10.1080/0013191780300208

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Educational Review, Vol. 30, No. 2, 1978

Responses to Written Work: the possibilities ofutilizing pupils perceptions

BARRIE WADE, Faculty of Education, University of Birmingham

ABSTRACT Most of the literature of assessment is concerned with issues ofreliability. Other factors, such as the relationship between writer and audience asperceived by teacher and by student, have received less attention. The earlier sectionsexamine this aspect of written work in learning and testing of learning and review someof the features which influence and distort the teacher's perceptions of written work. Itis then suggested that use of pupils' perceptions about writing, taken together withother information, can increase the reliability and validity of assessments.

Introduction

The assessment of pupils' written work by their teachers is as much taken for grantedas is the place of assessment in education generally, and there is an enormous bodyof literature (e.g. Pidgeon & Yates, 1969; Thyne, 1974; Hudson, 1973) whichexplores the details of testing with a main focus on reliability. The main questionsasked are "How can we assess more accurately?" and "How can we grade and putthese pupils into an order of merit?" Sometimes there are no other questions askedand, consequently the vast majority of the literature of assessment seems to holdthree assumptions: firstly, that assessment will fairly accurately and objectivelyreveal how well a pupil has learned from a particular set of experiences andopportunities; secondly, that the whole point of any assessment is to make judgementsabout pupils and their learning, not about the teaching they have received; and,thirdly, the grading and ranking of pupils is a matter for public concern and scrutiny.

The Assessment of Writing

It might be felt that these assumptions are warranted with specific reference only toexternal examinations taken by pupils (though even here there will be doubts aboutreliability, for example). However, recent research (Britton et ah, 1975) concernedspecifically with written work done by 11-18-year-old pupils as a natural part oftheir classroom studies showed that pupils may well treat their teachers simply asexaminers of their work. About 50 % of all the work Britton examined fell into thiscategory where the writing was treated as a product rather than a process of learning,where emphasis was put on testing what learning had taken place rather than

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encouraging any dialogue between teacher and learner. In some subject areas(Geography 81%, Science 87%) the percentage approached the total amount ofwriting done by a pupil.

So it appears that emphases and assumptions in the literature on assessmentreflect reasonably accurately the assumptions and attitudes of practising teachers,certainly many of those whose style might be characterized as 'transmitting' learning(e.g. Barnes, 1974) and then testing it. However, some caution must be appliedin generalizing from Britton's results since more than half the sample of 2,122scripts were taken from Grammar, Direct Grant or Independent Schools and only331 scripts came from Comprehensive Schools. Further, as the team's reportfrankly admits, the project team members and teacher assessors had difficulty inassigning writing to the chosen categories in more than half the cases.

Teachers' assessment of writing was not a major concern of the Developmentof Writing Abilities 11-18 team but the project suggests an enormous implication forlearning, i.e. that large numbers of pupils perceive their relationships with theirteacher as candidate-examiner relationships and see their submissions of writingas summative assessments of learning accomplished.

This tendency to view the majority of writing done in school as final drafts forassessment by the teacher not only sees writing as a product rather than a processof learning, it also by-passes several important questions such as the following:What are the purposes of assessing written work? Is the way written work is assessednecessarily the best way? What effects does assessment have on a writer's progressand on the relationship between the teacher and the learner-writer? How is assess-ment linked to other aspects of teaching, for example to diagnosing difficulties inlearning? These aspects have not been explored so fully as issues of reliability.Even the London Writing Research Unit considered aspects of the process of writingsuch as 'conception', 'incubation' and 'production' stages, attempting a psychologicalinterpretation without empirical observations of writers at work. When these'writing processes' are encapsulated in the teaching-learning process two furtherstages become necessary which I will call 'response' (by the teacher) and 'reception'of these responses (by the writer). While there are occasional Papers (e.g. Stratta,1969) written on responding, very little is known of the ways pupils receive thesemarks, comments and criticisms, yet clearly they have a crucial effect on motivationand the pupil's capacity to learn both from his experience of writing and from havinghis work commented on.

Some Factors Influencing Assessment

Even if writing is normally not regarded as a way of learning through puttinglanguage to use, written work appears to provide a permanent record so that theteacher can confidently and publicly assess whether learning has taken place. Such aview is challenged, for example, by Martin et al, (1973), who demonstrate how apupil can sometimes successfully manipulate concepts without understanding them.Additionally there is a growing body of work to suggest that many factors influencethe objective response to writing. A study by Garwood, (1976) shows that first namescreate expectations and influence results; and recent work (Bull & Stevens, 1976)suggests how the physical appearance of a student influences a marker. In a small-scale experiment which is not fully reported the same essay was presented in differentways (typed, in good handwriting, in poor handwriting and with attached photographs

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of attractive and unattractive males and females) to seventy-two teacher and studentexaminers, half of whom were male. Unfortunately, there are problems in general-izing from this kind of study which the writers admit, but it appears that (in thisinstance at least) women writers are 'judged more on attractiveness than are men'.For example, the highest two overall marks for the same essay go to women (attractive/good handwriting and unattractive/typed scoring highest of all); but the two lowestmarks also go to unattractive women in both the good handwriting and poorhandwriting categories. It is likely that some examiners are influenced by the mode ofpresentation as well as by the 'attractiveness' of the writer and there are, in any case,notorious difficulties in assessing essays. It has been'suggested that a structuredmarking scheme such as that used here is no more reliable than an overall impressionmark. It would seem important also to control for sex of examiner and for thefunctions of language in the essay itself. Nonetheless, the study draws attention tothe complex relationship which exists between physical attractiveness, presentationand the sex of the writer and the expectations about essay content that these externalfeatures can set up in an examiner.

An attractive nubile blond and a boy named Cecil may not have equal chances withmale assessors. The position is of course complicated by individual reactions. Mostpeople would place a Birmingham accent lower in a status scale than, say, Cockney,or affected received standard pronunciation (Giles, 1971), but a snob-hating, Spark-brook resident with a prejudice against Londoners might not conform. Differentteachers are likely to respond in different ways to split infinitives, omission offullstops and misspellings of their and there. Such variation causes additionalproblems for the pupil who has to discover through practice exactly what a particularteacher's rule system for written work is. Many of these prejudices refer not to thecontent of writing but features such as syntax, spelling, punctuation and presentation.

A small-scale experiment to discover how far teachers are influenced by pupils'handwriting is reported by Briggs (1971). Ten essays written by first-year secondarypupils on the same subject were each copied in ten different handwriting styles andwere given impression marks by panels of primary and secondary English teachers.Variations between groups by up to 32 marks out of 100 suggest that handwritingstrongly influences assessment of the quality of essays. An essay written in a hand-writing style at the top of a scale of teacher preferences receives almost double themarks awarded to the same essay written in a style which teachers do not favour.Since least variation occurs with the best essays, the study suggests that the childwhose ability in writing essays is least, is likely to be most penalized for bad hand-writing. Further, this penalty is likely to be more severe in the secondary schoolsince 'secondary teachers seem to be more influenced by bad handwriting' (p. 172)than primary teachers. If this is so, then a further implication which is not exploredby Briggs is that a poor student with good presentation may be 'over achieving' interms of marks received. Although this may help the pupil's motivation, clearlythe teacher needs to be on his guard to ensure that mere neatness does not maskdifficulties in learning and does not interfere with the diagnostic aspect of assessment.

Because of the small and localised sample, and the restriction in functions oflanguage (an essay on The Day of the Big Fog) and in audience, we must interpretBrigg's study with caution. It would be interesting, for example, to discover whetherthe pattern is repeated with transactional uses of language in other subject areasand with Secondary judges who were not English teachers. Nonetheless, a pictureemerges of an 'at risk' secondary pupil who may already have problems in organising

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his ideas in writing and shaping them for effective communication to an audience.Such a pupil, who most needs tolerance, understanding and help so far as hishandwriting is concerned, is perhaps the least likely to receive them.

Kinds of Writing: Kinds of Assessment

It is clear that there are very many different kinds of written work ranging frommultiple choice and completion items to the various kinds of essay. These latter formsgive more freedom for the pupil to respond in his own language and to organize andshape his own ideas, but as freedom of response increases so do the difficulties ofmaking valid reliable and helpful assessments. Some writers have given advice on howto make essay marking more efficient. Chase (1974), for example, suggests thatpupils should be assessed on the same essay title and indeed Rosen, (1969) hasshown that a list of essays, from which a pupil is required to choose only one, maymake very different linguistic content and organizational demands. Chase seems tooverlook the fact that, even with the same title, say Copper in an English Languageexamination, one pupil might perceive his task is to give some account of themining, geographical distribution and economic importance of the mineral, anothermight discuss the role and status of the police in our society, and a third mighteasily write a short story about a golden retriever. Chase also recommends thatessays should be marked analytically according to a prepared scheme. This ofcourse assumes that clear decisions can be taken beforehand about criteria forassessment and what proportion of marks shall be awarded for each aspect,punctuation, for example. Contradictory evidence is provided by Britton et ah, (1966)who show that impression-marking by a small team of examiners gives a fairerassessment of pupils' essay work and by Wood & Quinn (1976) who suggest that thisis true for some other forms of writing, notably summaries.

Discussion of ways of assessing suggests that in offering sincere praise forchildren's efforts and achievements in writing, teachers are managing the learningprocess more effectively than if they offered merely negative criticisms. Hargreaves(1972) shows how pupils prefer teachers who exhibit positive qualities of personalityand teaching technique (that is patience, cheerfulness, a sense of humour, interest inindividuals, help-giving rather than being sarcastic, unkind, with no sense of humour,taking no account of individual differences and giving little help). So the way ateacher responds to written work and the way a pupil perceives this response arelikely to influence the pupil's motivation to learn, his relationship with his teacherand the way he perceives the task of writing (that is, as a test or as part of the dialogueof learning). Clearly it would be unhelpful to have an unvaried praise strategy sincethis would inevitably become devaluing. It is also necessary to make comments whichencourage a pupil to look more closely at his work with the aim of improving it.

Praise is likely to be most effective if it meets the needs of the situation and ofindividuals. So techniques such as awarding marks, displaying or reading work to awider audience, making oral or written comments to individuals need to be thoughtthrough carefully and used appropriately. Marland (1975) provides an interestingdiscussion of the way in which praise can be rendered ineffective in a public situationwhere a pupil, pre-occupied with his status in the peer group, might perceiveteacher praise as an attack or threat. It is mistaken to assume that praise is notwanted though it may not be wanted publicly. For many such pupils, as Marlandnotes, private praise is essential and frequently effective. Responses on written workprovide main opportunities for giving it.

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In a classic study, unfortunately limited to secondary age pupils, Page (1958)investigated which methods of assessing written work were most likely to lead togreater motivation and to higher subsequent performances. The written work of2,139 students was randomly assigned to three categories which were given:(i) a grade but no comment; (ii) specified comments such as "Good work, keep itup"; and (iii) whatever the teacher felt appropriate. Assignments were then returnedwithout any unusual attention and scores were compared with marks given for thenext assignment done by the same children. Page discovered that the groupreceiving automatic, impersonal comments achieved higher scores than the groupwho received only a mark, but the group receiving individualised comments fromthe teachers scored highest of all. Page concludes: "Comment, expecially theindividualised comments, had a marked effect upon student performance" (p. 177).This effect, of course, is measured over a very short term and there is no evidenceas yet which shows that the gains are held for longer periods. For that a longitudinaldimension is required. Nonetheless, a very great advantage of Page's study is that it isnaturalistic and minimises falsity. It also has direct implications for classroompractice.

Summary

This is perhaps the point to pause and note that the assumptions referred to insection 1 above have been challenged by the review of studies in later sections.Clearly the business of response to writing is a complex one and includes taking awhole series of decisions about what is assessed why and how and how the criticismcan be offered without undermining the student. There are various factors whichinfluence assessors and distort the objectivity of assessment. Writing itself providesa student with the opportunity to re-structure new information and to re-order andre-organize it in terms of his present knowledge. These processes, however, maynot be evident in the surface features of writing submitted for assessment. Assessmentis not the same as marking or evaluating, and though it need not lead to marking, itusually does in schools. Equally, marking may occur without assessment if thelatter is taken to mean determination of the nature and quality of writing andfeedback to the student about these. So when the teacher merely marks he reinforceshis own frame of reference and his own expectations about the task; when heassesses and comments he is likely through advising, modifying, suggesting, etc.to come closer to the student's position. In order to help pupils to clarify theirthinking, to refine their judgements, to cope with learning problems generally, theteacher needs as much information as possible about their frames of reference. Ithas been suggested throughout the earlier review that a teacher's perception mightwell be selective and value-loaded. Clearly it would be helpful to incorporate intoassessment other information particularly that which reveals more about thestudent's frame of reference. One major source of such information is provided by thestudent himself and the remaining section of this paper is devoted to outlining fromongoing work three approaches which make use of pupils' perceptions. The researchon pupils' perceptions is limited but suggests they are valid and reliable enough to beused as feedback and that they are constructive as well as negatively critical (Meighan,1977). Pupils have been able to supply relevant information not perceived by theirteachers (Wade, 1978). So pupils' views on assessment together with informationfrom other sources are likely to provide teachers with valuable information.

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Three Approaches Using Pupils' Perceptions

This section briefly outlines three aspects of exploratory work which examines theassessment of written work and employs perceptions of pupils in consideringmotivation and attainment in writing.

(i) Case Studies of Individual Pupils

One way of examining the demands which school subjects make on particular pupilsis to examine the writing done by pupils over a period of time. Here the writing doneby one pupil whom I will call David was examined over a period of 8 months. Davidhad been admitted to a selective school as a late entrant: (a) on the recommendationof his Middle School headteacher; (b) on the evidence of several pieces of hiscreative writing (neatly copied and corrected); (c) after an informal interview withthe secondary headteacher.

Within a year David's marks were consistently down to C and D grades. Davidhad become negative and apathetic.

The starting point in a counselling session was David's view of his situation. Thefollowing points emerged: (a) He felt in the shade of an elder 'A' gaining brother atthe same school; (b) he found difficulty in writing his ideas down; (c) teachers areinterested in how writing looks, not what it contains; (d) his difficulty with writingwas because he had never been taught handwriting; (e) his spelling was poor becausehe had never been taught to spell; (f) teachers don't like him because they only likeclean tidy work and don't see the person behind it.

A review of David's written work at this stage suggests there is some validity inhis perceptions. Brief examples must suffice.

His history exercise book is first marked at the twenty-first page with (C) "Earlierwork rather scrappy". The next set of notes on the American War of Independencereceives (D) "This is rather careless work", and a ring around the 's' in 'ambused'.Then an account of Saratoga receives no mark but two comments: "Rather messy"and "Incomplete".

His Physics book has only three comments throughout a hundred or more pages:"Show your working. Please take care with your writing; The corners of the pagesare in a dreadful state-take more care of your book;" and "finish this work".

David's Combined Siance (sic) book has its cover torn, the school crest and namedefaced, a large tea-stain on the cover along with tentative drawings of fish, a beardedman and a batman mask. There are frequent teacher comments - usually brief-forexample: "Explanations?", "Diagrams?", "Title?". In the last thirty-six pages of thebook, for example, in addition to low marks there are comments on the need tolabel diagrams carefully, the need to underline titles and the need to use pencil fordiagrams. In addition several spelling errors, particularly in titles, are encircled, forexample, experement, microbs, plateing, Disterlation, causeing, liqued, caperble, sterlize,until!, though others such as arround and winemakeing are left untouched.

Throughout David's work there is evidence of an uncertain marking policywhere there is little encouragement and the infrequent comments are negative. Thelow marks seem to be given as a punishment for bad work and are probablyreceived as such. It is interesting to note that the marking policy contains very littlereference to the teaching of a school subject. For example, does the teacher behaveas a teacher of science or a teacher of 'language'? It seems a pupil like David islikely to receive fewer comments about the content or nature of his task than aboutpresentation or spelling. However, it seems that there are no constructive policies

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for helping with language. In addition to pointing out errors it would also seemnecessary to suggest ways of correcting them. A glance at David's spelling errorssuggests that he has problems with particular letter sequences and not with others,for example, 'e' both silent and confused with T suggests auditory confusions, whiledouble consonant errors suggest visual discrimination difficulties. Since he wasasked for such a vast output of written work, David had quickly and continuallybecome aware of his teachers' disapproval, but he had been given little constructivehelp. Further he was at risk since he was not receiving sufficient feedback about thequality of his learning in individual subjects.

In an otherwise interesting critique of the Schools Council's research projects onwriting, Williams (1977) makes the following criticism:

With a curious lack of imagination, they approached writing in all subjectsas though it were writing in English, forgetting, or ignoring the fact thatfor the English teacher, kinds of writing are part of the actual subject-matter of the discipline, whereas for other teachers writing is a means only.Their first responsibility is to their subject-matter; language either spokenor written, is of secondary importance, (italics are the writer's) (p.39).

David's case reveals the unsupported assumption here in William's argument.She appears not to see that a child's learning problem might be a language problem;certainly she does not recognise that a teacher's linguistic prejudices might preventhim giving help with subject matter.

In addition to information provided by David himself, and by evidence from hiswriting, a number of tests were used to diagnose his weaknesses. For example, at theage of 12-4 he was assigned a spelling age of 11-2 (Daniels & Diack) and a readingage of 12-6 (Schonell Word recognition). He was shown to have slight sequencingdifficulties (visual sequential memory) and a fairly short memory span (auditorysequential memory). His motor control in writing was poor and he had somedifficulty controlling structure in letter formation (graphic-motor test). His I.Q.(WISC) was given as 142.

His I.Q. score was used to challenge his low self-image and gradually Davidbegan to accept an 'above-average' label. He was given the Marion Richardsonwriting cards and advised to practise until his skill became more proficient. He wasencouraged to take notice of the required presentation for each subject. The GillCotterell Phonic Rule Cards were offered so that David could begin to analyse hisown mistakes in spelling. This self-teaching continued for several months untilthe headmaster commented on the marked improvement in David's written work.An exchange of information included the isolated information about his I.Q. score.After 18 months David is now achieving 'A' and 'B' grades consistently in mostsubjects. Significantly the later comments on his work, e.g. "I doubt whether youunderstand this" (Biology); "Good. Well explained" (Physics); "Better, but you couldorganize your account of the experiment more clearly: (1) Method (2) Results (3)Conclusions". See Me" (chemistry) are encouraging, constructive, centrally con-cerned with learning and organizing of knowledge and are likely to lead to furtherdialogue and learning.

(ii) Using Pupils' Perceptions in Talk

The following two extracts are taken from transcripts of recordings made bypupils in small groups who were asked to discuss their feelings about responses totheir written work. These pupils are in the third year of a mixed comprehensive school.

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Extract 1

1. Do you like someone to read your work?2. No, No.3. Certainly not.4. I feel embarrassed.2. And me.4. I don't need i t . . . you know.1. If it's for school its expected. I mean nobody's going to say I wrote an essay

last night but I can't see i t . . . (laugh) they're not going to go like thatbecause everybody'll think they're m a d . . . because all you write is for theteachers really.

2. When I write poetry and essays at home I don't even allow my mum anddad to read i t . . .

3. No . . . its personal.2. When I'm feeling in a generous mood I'll perhaps let my best friend or

somebody like that read it but anyone else than that - No.4. It can be embarrassing.2. Yeh . . .1. Yeh it can.4. I think the teacher should ask you first not to say I'm going to write (read?)

out this essay now by so and so 'cause that can be an awful, terrible moment'cause if you've written something down very very intimately personal andyou think, booming it o u t , . . .

1. Yes.4. And everybody laughs at you.1. Ooh gosh yes.4. Everybody looking at you.3. Terrible.

The strong feelings of embarrassment support the views held by Marland (seesection 4 above). Pupils are fair and recognize that school expects the scrutiny ofwriting, but the widespread technique of reading a pupil's work aloud is deplored,especially when the topic is personal and the pupil has not been consulted. Whatmay be a useful strategy with 10-year-olds may be damaging with older pupils.Possibly one reason why the Development of Children's Writing project finds lesswriting in the teacher as trusted adult audience category than in the teacher as examinercategory is that pupils play safe in case their writing is made public. These pupilssuggest that teaching methods can affect teacher-pupil relationships and pupils'motivation and performance in writing.

Extract 2

3. What kind of comments do you find the most helpful.1. "Good".2. "I can see you've worked hard".4. If they just put "Good". "This is satisfactory" they should put why it is

satisfactory?3. Because they'll get big-headed won't they? if they always put "Good".1. "This is a good effort. I can see you've worked hard".3. ? some teacher I know I think he's a chemistry teacher . . .2. Physics.

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3. If he puts "Good", tick, the mark, "Good", tick, the mark and all he puts is"Good" or just nothing, tick, the mark . . .

4. Yeh I know what you mean.3. . . . To that particular subject chemistry there isn't really anything to it.

All you've got to write about sort of English is the method, diagrams,results, copy up from the board. . .

2. Yeh. Yeh. That's all you've got to do.3. I mean when you do your own work its more interesting mm you can retain

it a l o t . . . when you're doing own work but if you copy pages and pagesfrom the board it's a lot harder to remember it.

1. It would be better though . . . if they p u t . . . if they put a comment and thenthey say well they've got thousands of books to mark.

Again the comments here are balanced. Pupil 1 recognizes the marking load ofteachers in the secondary school. Again the comments are perceptive, supportingPage (section 4 above) in stressing the value of positive (pupils 1 and 2) andconstructive (pupil 4) comments. Pupil 3 suggests that for some students a mechanical,congratulatory marking policy may be self-defeating and the word "Good" mightlose all shreds of meaning.

(iii) Using Pupils' Perceptions in Writing

If opportunities can be given for pupils to write their own messages about their ownwriting and the teacher's comments, useful information can be provided. A FirstSchool teacher could not account for inconsistencies in one child's work until shemarked a poor piece about ivy and wrote after it: "I cannot even put a tick on yourwork. I was shocked by the way you worked. This is not the T— that I want to know.Why was your work so poor"? The child wrote immediately following: "MyDaddy is wurking away."

Encouraging a dialogue can allow pupils to reveal difficulties in learning. ASecondary pupil in a Biology test on the digestive system made what appeared tobe careless errors in labelling his diagram: slavery glands (salivary); oescopigus(oesophagus) and expandex (appendix). His teacher encouraged him to writemessages: "You have remembered quite a lot - good answers but please write yourown comment on your answers - which did you find the hardest?" And the boy wrote:"I found the human body the hardest. I couldn't pronous the names, some of them.I thing it would have been easy if I had someone who could tell me how to pronounsthe names".

Apart from providing useful feedback to the teacher this kind of dialogue throughwritten messages can be a source of learning in itself. At the end of a 15-year-oldpupil's work, her teacher had drawn attention to certain words for writing in thepupil's word book. Then follows this dialogue. The teacher's messages are in italics:"I'm sorry I do make many mistakes. I know. I don't understand when to put this -e.g. you're, They're etc." "Don't be. That is the only way in which you will learn,because we need to make errors and then take heed of the messages we receive.(i) Your pirate girl is picking up black-berries (ii) You're (you are) my pirate-girl. ;semi-colon. The handle of the bag was in her hands. She looked down at it. The handle ofthe bag was in her hands; she looked down at it". "Thank you very much forthe help. I understand now."

At the end of the next piece of work, a newspaper article, the dialogue continues:

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"I hope you don't mind me writing in black but I thought it would look more like anewspaper." "That's a good idea." "I've used a semi-colon on page 1 of mynewspaper on the 3rd line. Is it used correctly?" "Yes, well done!"

The examples in this section suggest that a teacher needs to investigate thepractice of responding to written work, to know what that practice is and its effecton pupils. Further, he needs to be sensitive to language (his own and his pupils)and to have a constructive policy to help pupils to learn through writing. If pupils'views, both oral and written, are encouraged, they also can convey useful feedbackto the teacher, not replacing his perceptions, but providing additional information.The area of response to written work and pupils' perceptions now requires systematicinvestigation.

Acknowledgment

I am grateful for the help of Wendy Dewhurst, Janet Pearson, Esther Munns andSally Davis in discussing parts of this paper.

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Bulletin No. 12 (HMSO).BRITTON, J.N. et al. (1975) The Development of Writing Abilities (11-18) (Macmillan Educational).BULL, R. & STEVENS, J. (1976) Do we get 'A' for attractiveness? Sesame, December 1976.CHASE, C.I. (1974) Measurement for Educational Evaluation Reading (Massachusets, Addison-

Wesley).GARWOOD, G. (1976) First-name stereotypes as a factor in self-concept and school achievement,

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