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Writing Tasks (writing + task)
Selected AbstractsCognitive Screening Using a Tape Recorder: A Pilot StudyJOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 3 2003Peter W. Schofield MD OBJECTIVES: To determine whether a tape recorder can be used to administer cognitive tests efficiently and yield valid results. DESIGN: Convenience sample. Administration of cognitive test materials by tape recorder and conventional technique. SETTING: Outpatient clinic. PARTICIPANTS: Subjects from memory disorder clinic, hostel accommodation, and community. MEASUREMENTS: Responses to Hopkins Verbal Learning Test,revised, verbal fluency items from the controlled oral word association test, 10-item naming task, a construction task, and speed writing task. RESULTS: Performances on the tape- and clinician-administered battery of tests were highly correlated. Memory impairment was accurately detected using the tape battery. Data from 30 minutes of testing via tape were obtained at the cost to the clinician of 2 to 3 minutes of scoring time. CONCLUSION: Tape-administration of cognitive test material warrants further study as an efficient means of cognitive screening. [source] The role of cutaneous sensation in the motor function of the handJOURNAL OF ORTHOPAEDIC RESEARCH, Issue 4 2004Ayman M. Ebied Abstract We studied the effect of abolishing cutaneous sensation (by infiltrating local anaesthetic around the median nerve at the wrist) on the ability of 10 healthy volunteers (a) to maintain a submaximal isometric pinch-grip force for 30 s without visual feedback, and (b) to perform a fine finger-manipulation ,handwriting" task. Blocking cutaneous sensation had no effect on ability to maintain pinch force, suggesting that muscle afferents have the major role in force-control feedback. However, a near-linear fall in force, present with or without block (mean slope = ,1.3 ± 0.2% s,1), which cannot be attributed to motor fatigue, reveals a shortcoming of the afferent feedback system. Blocking cutaneous sensation did impair ability to perform the more demanding writing task, as judged by an 18 ± 6% increase in the length of the path between target points, a 22 ± 9% increase in the duration of the movement and a 63 ± 24% in ,normalised averaged rectified jerk", an averaged time-derivative of acceleration (all significantly nonzero, P < 0.04). These experiments demonstrate the relative importance of muscular and cutaneous afferent feedback on two aspects of hand performance, and provide a way to quantify the deficit resulting from the lack of cutaneous sensation. © 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Orthopaedic Research Society. All rights reserved. [source] Research on Direct versus Translated Writing: Students' Strategies and Their ResultsMODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 2 2001Andrew D. Cohen This study explored an alternative approach to short essay writing on language assessment tasks. Thirty-nine intermediate learners of French performed 2 essay writing tasks: writing directly in French as well as writing in the first language and then translating into French. Two-thirds of the students did better on the direct writing task across all rating scales; one-third, better on the translated task. While raters found no significant differences in the grammatical scales across the 2 types of writing, differences did emerge in the scales for expression, transitions, and clauses. Retrospective verbal report data from the students indicated that they were often thinking through English when writing in French, suggesting that the writing tasks were not necessarily distinct in nature. Since the study was intended to simulate writing situations that students encounter in typical classroom assessments, the findings suggest that direct writing in French as a target language may be the most effective choice for some learners when under time pressure. [source] A secondary reanalysis of student perceptions of non-traditional writing tasks over a ten year periodJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 5 2010Mark A. McDermott This study aims to add to the growing research related to the implementation of non-traditional writing tasks in classrooms to encourage science literacy. A secondary reanalysis methodology was employed to review student interviews collected as a part of several individual studies during a ten year research program. This method established an interpretive framework different than the particular frameworks guiding the individual studies. In doing so, a greater ability to generalize findings was sought. Main assertions emerging from the student responses analyzed include recognition of benefits of non-traditional writing, recognition of the need for particular task characteristics to encourage these benefits, and recognition of greater cognitive activity than is present in typical science classroom writing. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 518,539, 2010 [source] Research on Direct versus Translated Writing: Students' Strategies and Their ResultsMODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 2 2001Andrew D. Cohen This study explored an alternative approach to short essay writing on language assessment tasks. Thirty-nine intermediate learners of French performed 2 essay writing tasks: writing directly in French as well as writing in the first language and then translating into French. Two-thirds of the students did better on the direct writing task across all rating scales; one-third, better on the translated task. While raters found no significant differences in the grammatical scales across the 2 types of writing, differences did emerge in the scales for expression, transitions, and clauses. Retrospective verbal report data from the students indicated that they were often thinking through English when writing in French, suggesting that the writing tasks were not necessarily distinct in nature. Since the study was intended to simulate writing situations that students encounter in typical classroom assessments, the findings suggest that direct writing in French as a target language may be the most effective choice for some learners when under time pressure. [source] Writing in the Secondary Foreign Language Classroom: The Effects of Prompts and Tasks on Novice Learners of FrenchMODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 2 2000Denise Paige Way This study investigated the effects of 3 different writing tasks (descriptive, narrative, and expository) and 3 different writing prompts (bare, vocabulary, and prose model) on 937 writing samples culled from 330 novice learners enrolled in 15 classes of Levels 1 and 2 high school French. In order to assess the quality, fluency, syntactic complexity, and accuracy of the writing samples, the researchers employed 4 evaluation methods: holistic scoring, length of product, mean length of T-units, and percentage of correct T-units. Results indicate that the descriptive task was the easiest and the expository task the most difficult. The prose model prompts produced the highest mean scores, and the bare prompts produced the lowest mean scores. Based on these findings, the researchers question whether the description of a novice writer in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines(1986) should be used as a blueprint for curriculum development and textbook construction for secondary novice foreign language learners. [source] Handwriting speed: duration of testing period and relation to socio-economic disadvantage and handednessOCCUPATIONAL THERAPY INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2008Paul O'Mahony Abstract In the course of norm-referencing the Handwriting Speed Test (HST) for 8- to 18-year-olds in the Irish education system, the authors examined the issue of the duration of the handwriting test period, the relation of handwriting speed to socio-economic disadvantage and the comparative handwriting speed of left- and right-handed students. The literature reports some concerns about the generalizability of results from a short-duration handwriting speed test, some evidence that children from poorer backgrounds are less proficient at handwriting, and conflicting results on the relation of handedness to speed of handwriting. The results of this study suggest that the addition of a further 9-minute test to the 3-minute test of the HST would improve its ability to predict handwriting speed problems in everyday extended writing tasks, such as examinations, and would also identify some children who are wrongly classified as slow writers on the 3-minute test. The results also indicate a markedly lower-than-average handwriting speed for children attending designated disadvantaged schools. The results suggest that neither left- nor right-handed children have a consistent advantage in handwriting speed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||