Date of Award

1986

Type

Thesis

Major

Specialist in Education

Degree Type

Special Degree in Education

Department

Teacher Education

First Advisor

Dr. James M. Brewbaker

Second Advisor

Dr. Carolyn M. Cartledge

Third Advisor

James Chappel

Abstract

This study tested the hypothesis that seventh-grade students who practiced a regimen of sentence-combining would have less apprehension about writing than students who were taught composition in the traditional mode. The subjects were four intact classes of seventh-grade students whose average IQ of 99, who were 12.2 years of age, and who were in classes for students who worked on or near grade level. Each teacher administered to the experimental group the sentence-combining treatment for two class periods a week over a nine week period and taught the control group composition by conventional methods the same amount of time. The writing anxiety of each group was tested before and after treatment by the Writing Apprehension Test developed by Daly and Miller. No statistical difference existed between the treatment groups at the pretest level. After treatment the posttest ascertained that the mean of the sentence-combining group was 90.05, and the mean of the conventional method group was 82.28. The t value was 2.360* (p. < 05).

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