A Comparative Study of the Effectiveness of Writing Under Time Pressure and Portfolio Writing.
ABSTRACT
This study compared the effectiveness of writing under time pressure and portfolio writing of SS II students of Government Day Secondary School, Malunfashi, Katsina State.
The study sample consisted of eighty-four SS II students (all boys). A quasi-experimental study was designed in which the subjects were assigned to two treatment groups “time pressure” and “portfolio” groups after a pre-test was given to them.
The pressure group was exposed to time pressure writing procedure treatment three times a week for three months while the portfolio group was exposed to portfolio writing procedure treatment three times a week for three months.
The aim was to compare the effectiveness of each of the two writing procedures analytically and holistically, by comparing the three writing samples of each student, one sample from each of the three months, presented as Phases I, II, and III.
The findings showed that portfolio writing students performed better than the time pressure writing students.
The Portfolio group showed progressive writing development both analytically and holistically, whereas the time pressure group showed retrogression statistically in their writing performance across the phases.
It was, therefore, recommended that the portfolio writing program should be introduced into secondary schools writing instruction and assessment to complement writing under pressure procedure.
Portfolio writing procedure could be used for both teaching and learning and, as an alternative assessment procedure that could help to guard against examination malpractices.
INTRODUCTION
Two major instructional and assessment methods of writing are pressured and portfolio writing. Writing under time pressure is seen to be the employment of paper and pencil-standardized tests to assess students’ performance under concentrated writing time (Lau, 2001).
It is a traditional approach to teaching and assessing writing in which students are given a model and encouraged to mimic it in order to produce a similar copy under concentrated time pressure.
Portfolio writing, on the other hand, is seen as the systematic collection of students’ work measured against predetermined scoring criteria (O’malley & Valders, 1996). It is a purposeful collection of materials over a period of time that can communicate students’ interests, abilities, and achievements in a certain area.
Language, is an act of communication, is the art of passing messages across from one person to the other. This communication can be in spoken or written form. As Abercrombie (1965) notes, language is central to communication which makes it possible for individuals to live in a society.
It, therefore, makes it easy for social, business, educational and religious interactions; that is why a learner does not learn until he masters the language of instruction (Olagoke, 1979).
Writing is much more difficult to teach and learn than most people realize because it presents so much that is personal about the individual writer. It is seen to be a personal accomplishment and a lifelong skill that requires, patience, practice, and confidence involving action, product, thought and process.
Instruction in English as a second language has often focused on improving students’ skills and ability in speaking, listening, and reading while ignoring the development of the students’ writing skills (Edelsky, 1982; Edesky & Smith, 1989).
Haris (1985) concluded that only 2% of English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction was concerned with writing activities. Of the two 2%, 75% was related to the mechanical aspect of writing such as syntax, punctuation, and speaking. Yet for L2 learners, writing is an essential language reinforcing skill (Krashen, 1977).
Together with lack of attention to writing instruction has been the neglect of research suffered by writing compared to other skill areas (Graves, 1984). Yet the need for sound writing research is greater than ever.
There are four skills in the English language and any other language, that learners have to acquire. These skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Writing, as the last skill to be acquired, is very significant because it essentially involves the correctly developed production of what the learner has learned, his experience in a context, meaning, and the possibility of sharing meaning with the reader.
This is why Sawyer and Sawyer (1993) indicate that writing, which could be seen as the ability to produce correct forms of words and sentences, is a very important skill of language acquisition.
Since writers and readers form the act of communication together, finding ideas that matter and words to express them require patience and confidence. This is why most people would rather talk than writing. When they are pressed to write, they draw a blank or even feel that they have nothing new to write or they do not know how to say it in writing.
After a decade of teaching writing, this study was necessitated by the finding that most student writers share some unpleasant experiences. They feel a sense of dread whenever they are confronted with a writing task. Upon all the courses, workshops, and handbooks, there is still the rarity of authentic writers at every level of education which makes it not surprising that few students complete a particular level of education with good writing achievement.
The West African Examination Council’s report (1992) on Senior Secondary School Certificate pointed out that candidates showed a lack of acquaintance with essay formats. Parents, teachers, and employers of labor have all complained of near illiteracy of modern learners especially concerning the inability to write good essays (Olayemi, 1980).
One reason that therefore necessitated this study, apart from the “back to the basic” movement (Omaggio, 1986) is that the need for writing research is greater than ever. Teachers, educational administrators, employers, and parents have been convinced of the importance of writing in language development and in empowering students to write clearly, not only in college but throughout their lives as members of a democratic society.
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