In this study, community college remedial writing students composed an informational report from sources, a task commonly assigned in higher education that integrally combines reading and writing processes. Productivity, use of source text, reproductions, accuracy, and inclusion of key ideas were analyzed as a function of two exogenous variables, text density (high, low) and domain (health, business), and two endogenous variables, prior knowledge and general literacy skill.
Text density interacted with literacy skill for productivity, and with prior knowledge for accuracy. Individuals with lower literacy or prior knowledge scores were at a disadvantage with high- but not low-density source text. Domain affected productivity, use of source, and inclusion of key ideas; health text was associated with superior performance. Domain effects may be explained by metacognitive or motivational variables, or differences in the readability of the source texts. The results have implications for instruction aimed at improving community college students’ preparedness for the academic demands of higher education.
This article was published in Higher Education, vol. 45, no. 1.
