[English] confidence-building writing exercises

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Hi all,


"The research.. had seventh graders in schools do assignments three to 
five times through the school year. It asked them to choose from a list 
the values that were most important to them — including athletic ability, 
sense of humor, creativity and being smart — and to write why those 
values were so important."


Task to Aid Self-Esteem Lifts Grades for Some 

By BENEDICT CAREY Published: April 16, 2009 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/science/17esteem.html?_r=1&hpw>


Some seventh graders who were struggling in class did significantly 
better after performing a series of brief confidence-building writing 
exercises, and the improvements continued through eighth grade, 
researchers reported Thursday. 

The students who benefited most were blacks who were doing poorly, the 
study found; the exercises made no difference for white students, or for 
black ones who were already doing well.

By the end of eighth grade, the students who benefited had nearly a half-
point higher grade point average than struggling peers who completed a 
different writing exercise. The study was published in the journal 
Science.

"A difference of a third or more on G.P.A. is a large effect, and what’s 
surprising is that there was apparently no fadeout of the effect," said 
Greg Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, who 
was not involved in the research. 

"Fadeout is the coin of the realm in school intervention studies."

Experts cautioned that the writing was hardly transforming. Those who 
benefited were still barely getting C’s, on average, by the end of middle 
school.

Yet the results were surprising, because interventions to improve school 
performance tend to have short-term benefits, and the writing assignments 
were simple 15-minute efforts. 

The researchers, led by Geoffrey L. Cohen, a social psychologist at the 
University of Colorado, had seventh graders in suburban Connecticut 
schools do the assignment three to five times through that school year. 
It asked them to choose from a list values that were most important to 
them — including athletic ability, sense of humor, creativity and being 
smart — and to write why those values were so important. The students 
were randomly assigned, within classes, to do the exercise or a control 
assignment that was not focused on their values.

In previous studies, researchers had found that such exercises reduced 
stress and the fear of failure in some students. 

By the end of eighth grade, among black students who were struggling, 
those who had expressed in writing their most important values had an 
average G.P.A. that was 0.4 points higher than those who had not.

"The idea is that a bad experience early in school can have lasting 
effects, and that if we can do something in that crucial window, it could 
alter the student’s trajectory slightly and change the arc of their 
experience over time," Dr. Cohen said.

The assignment, he said, reminded students that their entire self-worth 
was not riding on a single test result. 

Dr. Cohen’s co-authors were Julio Garcia of Colorado; Valerie Purdie-
Vaughns of Columbia University; and Nancy Apfel and Patricia Brzustoski 
of Yale. 

The authors found, too, that those who benefited from the exercises felt 
more adequate as students on average than those struggling peers who did 
the control assignment.

The writing exercise did not mention race, but previous research has 
found that reminding minorities of stereotypes can worsen their 
performance on a variety of tests.

"But there’s no reason to think that it couldn’t benefit kids who are 
highly anxious about tests, of any race," Dr. Cohen said. "We haven’t 
looked at that yet."

--

Cheers,
Stephen