Recent Studies of Student Error

The following information about recent studies in student error comes from John Bean's book Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. Engaging Ideas is a book that shows faculty how they can effectively ingegrate writing into their courses. It features a treasure trove of information on how to incorporate writing in large classrooms, how to integrate reading with writing, and how faculty can use writing assignments to promote student learning. It also includes sample in-class writing assignments and other activities that promote writing and critical thinking. John Carroll University's Center for Teaching and Learning has several copies of Bean's book.

What Teachers Across the Curriculum Need to Know About Recent Studies of Error

•  College Teachers Have Always Railed Against Errors in Student Writing.

•  Prose Contains Fewer Mistakes Than Teachers Sometimes Perceive.

•  Our Students Have More Linguistic Competence Than the Surface Features of their Prose Sometimes Indicate.

•  Errors in Student Writing Increase with Greater Cognitive Difficulty of the Assignment.

•  Errors Often Disappear in Students' Prose as They Progress Through Multiple Drafts.

•  Teachers Can Expect to See Sentence Problems in First Drafts and on Essay Exams.

•  Traditional Procedures for Grading and Marking Student Papers May Exacerbate the Problem.