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Relevant CAT: Attitude Survey
Discipline: Any
Description:
The Views About Writing Survey (VAWS) is 26-item survey that asks students to rate on an eight-point scale their attitudes and beliefs about writing and composition. The structure is based on the "contrasting alternative design" developed for to measure students' attitudes towards physics (Halloun & Hestenes, 1996). An example questions appears in the box below.
The paper that presents VAWS data does not describe testing or validation of the VAWS instrument; however, the authors do indicate that they will conduct validation via focus group interviews with students (Rhoads et al., 1998). The instrument was used to measure change in attitudes toward writing of students enrolled in English class that was geared for students in an engineering learning community (50 students) and of students in a traditional English class (155 students).
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Actual question from the Views About Writing Survey
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Learning to write requires:
(a) a serious effort.
(b) a special talent.
What would each one of the eight choices mean?
| 1 |
Only (a), Never (b) |
Learning to write requires only a serious effort and no special talent at all. |
| 2 |
Mostly (a), Rarely (b) |
Learning to write requires far more a serious effort than a special talent. |
| 3 |
More (a) Than (b) |
Learning to write requires somewhat more a serious effort than a special talent. |
| 4 |
Equally (a) & (b) |
Learning to write equally requires both a serious effort and a special talent. |
| 5 |
More (b) Than (a) |
Learning to write requires somewhat more a special talent than a serious effort. |
| 6 |
Mostly (b), Rarely (a) |
Learning to write requires far more a special talent than a serious effort. |
| 7 |
Only (b), Never (a) |
Learning to write requires only a special talent and no serious effort at all. |
| 8 |
Neither (a) Nor (b) |
Learning to write requires neither a special talent nor a serious effort. |
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Tool:
www.eas.asu.edu/~fcae/Insturments/Communication%20Instrument/vaws.doc
Copyright information provided from the author: “Copyright 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All Rights Reserved. The goal of the Active/Cooperative Learning Project is to make well-designed and classroom-tested materials available to engineering faculty and faculty developers across the country. They are available for you to use for educational, not-for-profit, purposes. As you use these materials, please be aware that individual faculty members who have contributed materials to this project retain the copyrights. We expect that you will reference these teaching materials as carefully and faithfully as you would reference your research. Therefore, if you duplicate, adapt, excerpt, modify, or use these materials in any way, you must credit the individual faculty member who wrote or developed the materials, and reference the project. The proper citation for the project is:
Duerden, S., Garland, J., & Rhoads, T. 1998, “Goals, Objectives, & Performance Criteria: A Useful Assessment Tool for Students and Teachers,” Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference. “Goals, Objectives, & Performance Criteria: A Useful Assessment Tool for Students and Teachers.” Published in the proceedings for Frontiers in Education 28th Annual Conference. Nov. 1998.”
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Authors:
Teri Reed Rhoads (School of Industrial Engineering, University of Oklahoma)
Sarah J. Duerden (Department of English, Arizona State University)
Jeanne Garland (Department of English, Arizona State University)
Selected References:
Duerden, S., Garland, J., & Rhoads, T. (1998). Goals, Objectives, & Performance Criteria: A Useful Assessment Tool for Students and Teachers. Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference. “Goals, Objectives, & Performance Criteria: A Useful Assessment Tool for Students and Teachers.” Published in the proceedings for Frontiers in Education 28th Annual Conference. Nov. 1998.”
Rhoads, T., Duerden, S, & Garland, J. (1998) Views about Writing Survey - A New Writing Attitudinal Survey Applied to Engineering Students. Paper presented at the Frontiers In Education Conference, Tempe, AZ.
Halloun, I., & Hestenes, D. (1996). Views about Sciences Survey: VASS. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, St. Louis, MO.
http://www.inco.com.lb/halloun/VASS20Snps.PDF
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