A Comparison of Freshman Composition Grading Standards Between Public Two-Year and Four-Year Institutions of Higher Education in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

To determine if there are significant differences between the first-semester freshman composition grading standards of public two-year and four-year institutions in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a composition instrument was mailed to 120 freshman composition directors from two-ye...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author Abraham, George R
Format Report
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.03.1978
Subjects
Academic Standards
College Faculty
College Freshmen
Colleges
Comparative Analysis
English Departments
English Instruction
Essays
Evaluation Criteria
Grading
Higher Education
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Two Year Colleges
Universities
Writing (Composition)
Writing Skills
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Summary:To determine if there are significant differences between the first-semester freshman composition grading standards of public two-year and four-year institutions in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a composition instrument was mailed to 120 freshman composition directors from two-year and four-year member institutions. The instrument contained combinations of seven grammatical and eight nongrammatical elements of written compostion. The directors were asked to grade the essays according to departmental writing standards for students completing one semester of freshman composition. Comparative analysis of the 58 instruments which were returned showed close agreement on the quality of writing. In addition, both groups rated development of the idea and overall theme organization to be the most important non-grammatical elements of composition. Both groups felt that paragraph organization, sentence structure, and transition were the second most important non-grammatical elements of composition. Sentence fragments, mixed errors, and subject-verb agreement errors were rated the most severe grammatical errors by both groups. In conclusion, no significant differences were found between the first semester composition grading standards of the two-year and four-year institutions. (Author/JAG)