Writing-To-Learn: Conducting A Process Log

Abstract

The purpose of the present study, which was conducted within the framework of a more comprehensive one (Segev-Miller, 1997), was to investigate the effect of personal writing on college students’ authentic processes of performing a common academic task of writing-from-sources — a literature review — in partial fulfilment of their research requirements. The subjects, 12 elementary education college students, volunteered, at the request of the researcher, to document their performance of the task by means of a process log over an academic year. At the end of the year, the subjects also responded — for the purpose of the present study — to a questionnaire, requiring them to assess the effects of the process log on their writing processes. An analysis of the data obtained from the subjects’ responses indicated that conducting the process log facilitated their use of the cognitive intertextual processing and knowledge-transforming strategies of selection, connection and organization of information from the textual sources, which are crucial for the performance of the task. However, the major effect of conducting the process log was to promote the subjects’ use of metacognitive strategies, particularly the strategies of self-assessment and self-regulation, which are crucial for significant learning to take place.