Higher Education 20:411--442, 1990. �9 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Essay-writing: what really counts?

LINDA S. NORTON Department of Psychology, Liverpool Institute of Higher Education, Liverpool, U.K.

Abstract. This study uses objective measures from essay scripts to report on the interaction between students' strategies in essay writing and tutors' strategies in marking. 98 1st year psychology students completed questionnaires on their essay writing strategies and submitted their essays for analysis. Six tutors who marked the essays were subsequently interviewed. The results indicate that the amount of time spent on the essay, the number of books used, the number of references cited and proportion of research based content actually found in the essays were all strategies that led to higher essay marks. However, there was clear evidence of a mismatch between students and tutors on their perceptions of the most important criteria - students were more concerned with content, whereas tutors were more concerned with argument.

Introduction

Essay writing is regarded by many students (particularly those in the first year of a degree course) with a certain amount of trepidation. This is partly because they feel their performance might not be up to undergraduate level, but more often it is because essays are now an accepted part of evaluating a student's final degree. Although research has shown that students prefer course work essays to be taken into account (Miller and Parlett 1974; Siann and French 1975; Hartley and Branthwaite 1976), it has undoubtedly put extra pressure on them to perform well in each submitted piece of work. Naturally then essay-writing skills have become of primary importance not only to students in academic institutions but also to their tutors. In the publishing world, this has been reflected by the considerable output of study manuals, all giving advice on the most effective strategies for writing essays. (e.g., Lewis 1976; Freeman 1982; Clanchy and Ballard 1983; Rowntree 1988; Meredeen 1988; and Hall 1989.) Advice is also given in the research literature to tutors on how to help their students (e.g., Fox 1977; Martin 1979; Hartley, 1987; Blackey 1988; Bizzell and Singleton 1988).

Actual research on what are the most effective strategies has been slow to follow. Branthwaite, Trueman and Hartley (1980) looked at the different strategies students used in writing their essays and evaluated how effective these were. They found evidence of a mismatch between what students thought tutors were looking for and the actual tutors' criteria in assessing essays. Hounsell (1984) carded out an in depth interview study with a sample of 17 history students on how they went about their essay writing assignments. While the essay as argument was seen to be the most important conception, students were found to hold two other conceptions: the essay as viewpoint and the essay as arrangement. It could be that this results from a misunderstanding on the students' part about what the staff see as important.

While there has been some research on the factors that affect tutor assessment

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(e.g., Hall and Dalglish 1982; Daly and Dickson-Statham 1982; and Hughes 1983) there appears to be little in the recent literature as to whether the strategies advocated in study guides are effective or not. Two exceptions have been papers by McLaughlin Cook (1984) and Norton and Hartley (1986) but these are specifically concerned with essay-writing in examinations.

In this study an attempt was made to investigate some of the missing areas in the research on essay writing. It was specifically intended to focus closely on three main areas. a) What students do in preparing and writing their essays. This was examined by a

questionnaire study that replicated and extended the work of Branthwaite et al. (1980).

b) What tutors look for in assessing essays. This was examined in an interview study.

c) What objective measurements could be found to distinguish high scoring from low scoring essays. These were obtained from an analysis of essay scripts. Finally, it was intended to see (through discussion) in what ways these measures

were inter related.

Method

1. The questionnaire study: student strategies in preparmg for and writing one specific psychology essay

133 1st year undergraduate students at the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education (LIHE) who took psychology as one of their three subjects in their preliminary year, were given questionnaires concerning their strategies relating to the last psychology essay they had handed in. To make the research as naturalistic as possible the questionnaires were distributed approximately two weeks after their essays had been submitted. The essay in question was a normalpart of the students' coursework and it counted towards their final mark at the end of the year. Because the questionnaire responses were to be linked later to the essay marks the students had to be asked for their names. However, great emphasis was placed upon complete confidentiality and this was assured by asking students to return their questionnaires in a sealed envelope. The author undertook not to open any envelopes until after all essays had been marked and returned to the students. Questionnaires were distributed and completed by students in lecture time. In the event 98 questionnaires were returned: a response rate of 74%.

The questionnaire (see Appendix 1) was broadly based on one used by Hartley (1987) in an unpublished study. It was designed to find out how students went about preparing and writing one specific essay in their psychology course. It was also intended to reveal the underlying feelings students have about essay writing, about the grades they expect to get and the criteria they think tutors use when it comes to marking their essay.

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2. The interview study: tutors' criteria in assessing essays

Seven tutors were involved in marking the essays one of whom was the author. Semi-structured interviews lasting approximately half an hour were held with the other six tutors about a week after they had marked the essays. The aim of these was to find out basically how the tutors went about the business of marking essays and what they were specifically looking for. (See Appendix 2 for a copy of the interview schedule.) The interviews were all taped with the tutors' permission and then later transcribed. In the event, detailed data were obtained from only five tutors since the recording equipment failed in one of the interviews. The data recorded from the sixth tutor were derived from notes taken by the author during the interview.

3. The analysis of the essay scripts: establishing what makes a good essay

All 133 1 st year psychology essays were photocopied as soon as they were handed in. To carry out the analysis only the scripts of the students who had completed the questionnaires were used. This gave the researcher 98 essay scripts to analyse. The scripts were analysed in three ways. Firstly, the total number of words written was recorded to obtain a measurement of the length of the essay. (A word limit of 1250 words had been set for the assignment.) Secondly, the number of references cited at the end of the essays was used to give an indication of the variety and number of sources used. (It was also possible to check with the questionnaire how many books each student said that they had used when preparing their essays.)

Thirdly, on a more detailed level, a sample of twenty essays were selected to carry out a content analysis. These essays represented 10 of the highest scoring and 10 of the lowest scoring essays. To ensure that this sample was taken from the whole range of tutors this sometimes meant that not all of the highest or lowest scoring essays were selected. (For example, where one tutor would give a 70 as the top mark another would give only 65, and a similar pattern was true of the lowest scoring essays.) A further complication was that the students had been given a choice of 4 essay titles, but for the purposes of this part of the analysis it was important that all the essays should be on the same topic. In this case all the selected essays were entitled: 'Describe and contrast the characteristics of both short and long term memory.'

The content analysis was carried out to provide objective measurements of what proportions of the essay were devoted to structure, to named research and to unsubstantiated factual description. To do this each sentence in the essay was regarded as a unit and assigned to one of ten categories:

1. Introductory sentences. 2. Quotes/sayings. 3. Linking sentences. 4. Argument. 5. Conclusions. 6. Factual, descriptive information.

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7. Quoted research. 8. Described research. 9. Mentioned research.

10. Textbook information. At the end of the analysis the total number of sentences was counted and the

proportion of sentences falling in each category was calculated as a percentage of the total number of sentences.

Results

1. Analysis of the questionnaires

The questionnaire responses were analysed in four subsections: a) the work routine (this includes the number of hours spent preparing for and

writing the essay, and, the number and types of sources, books, journals and drafts made);

b) the writing strategy (this includes the plan, the purpose, the audience and who the students discussed the essay with);

c) the affective component (this includes which parts of preparing and writing were most difficult and how enjoyable students rated this essay assignment); and

d) the criteria for assessment (this includes the expected grade and students' views about the criteria they think tutors are using when they are marking their essays). The results for each of these subsections were as follows:

a) The work routine: Types of sources. Table 1 presents a descriptive picture of the types of sources used by students in preparing for their essay. This table shows that the majority of students worked hard in preparing for this essay. 94% used the library and, as was to be expected, nearly all of them used the basic course textbook. Lecture notes were a frequently used source (81%), but only 38% followed up references given by tutors and very few students asked for tutors' personal advice. As might be expected at this stage in their academic career, only a small number (11%) used journals.

Table 1. The types of sources students used

Type of source Percentage mentioning (N = 98)

Library 94 Textbook 93 Lecture notes 81 References 38 Seminar notes 35 Tutor's personal advice 14 Journals 11 Other sources 7 Other students' essays 5

Table 2. Number of different sources used and effect on essay scores

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Number of sources Percentage mentioning Essay scores

(N = 98) Mean SD N

None 0 One 1 Two 11

55.1 8.2 12

Three 33 54.9 10.9 32 Four 29 56.9 7.0 28 Five 20 58.6 8.9 20

Six 3 53.6 5.4 6 Seven 3

Number of different sources. Table 2 presents a percentage breakdown of the number of different sources used. Again, the picture is one of seemingly considerable effort. Well over half the students used between 3 and 4 different sources (i.e., 62%) with 26% using 5 or more.

To see if the number of different sources used would affect the essay mark given a correlation and a trend test were carded out. It was predicted that the more different sources used the higher the essay mark would be. The results of neither test were significant (Spearman's rho = 0.085, N = 98, Jonckheere's Z = 1.401, N = 98) but, looking at the mean essay scores shown in Table 2, it can be seen that there is a small trend in the predicted direction for 3, 4 and 5 sources.

Number of different books. Looking more specifically at the most commonly used source, namely books, it was intended to see if the number of books used would have a beneficial effect on the mark given.

Table 3 presents the percentage of students using different numbers of books as well as the mean essay scores. Although the Jonckheere's trend test showed no significant trend (Z = 0.718) a Spearman's correlation of 0.248 was significant (N -- 97, p < 0.01) Accordingly, a Kruskal Wallis test was carried out to see if there were any overall differences and this also was statistically significant (H = 23.0, N = 97,p < 0.001). Clearly then there is a relationship between the number of books consulted and essay grade, with 5 to 6 being the optimum number. Interestingly, while over half of the students used 3-4 books and nearly a third used 5 to 6, there were a few students (12%) who claimed to have looked at as many as 7 or more.

Number of hours spent. The next analysis was concerned with the amount of time the students had spent in both preparing for and writing their essay. It had originally been intended to look at these two factors separately but analysis of the questionnaires soon showed that some students were unclear as to the distinction

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Table 3. Number of books used and effect on essay scores

Number of books Percentage mentioning Essay scores

(N=97) Mean SD N

None 1 One 2 Two 3 51.4 6.3 28

Four 28 55.5 6.2 27 Five 19 61.0 4.2 18 Six 12 59.1 7.9 12

Seven 5 Eight 3 Nine 2 Ten 1 Eleven 1

57.4 8.9 12

between the terms prepar ing and writing. Consequently, it was decided to add these two together to give a total number of hours spent by each s tudent on their essay. As Table 4 shows, the picture appears less impressive in terms o f the actual amoun t of t ime students spent working. A l though the number of hours spent allegedly ranged f rom 1 to 55 nearly half the students spent between 7 and 12 hours and a quar ter of them did 6 or less hours work.

A Jonckheere ' s t rend test was not significant (Z = 0.194, N = 93) nor was a correla t ion (r = 0.003, N ---- 93) but the mean showed that higher scores d id tend to fall in the higher number o f hours. This was confirmed by a t-test compar ing those who did 6 or less hours with those who did 7 or more. The lat ter showed significantly higher essay scores (t = 1.66, d f = 91 ,p < 0.05).

Table 4. Total number of hours spent on essay and effect on essay scores

Number of hours spent Percentage mentioning Essay scores

(N = 93) Mean SD N

1-6 25 53.7 6.3 23 7-12 48 57.1 6.7 45

13-18 16 54.3 8.8 15

19-24 7 57.9 8.7 10 254- 4

Table 5. Number of drafts and effects on essay scores

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Number of drafts Percentage mentioning Essay scores

(N = 97) Mean SD N

None 4 55.2 7.6 33 One 30

Two 53 56.4 7.6 51

Three 12 57.8 6.5 13 Four 1

Number of drafts. The number o f drafts students claimed to have made showed no significant t rend in essay scores but once again the mean scores did show a trend in

the predicted direction. These results are presented in Table 5. It is interesting to see that two thirds o f the students made a considerable effort by doing 2 or more drafts of the essay.

Overall, the picture that has been obta ined of the s tudents ' working strategies is one of a seemingly considerable amoun t of work in a relatively short time! Most students used a variety of sources, consulted three or more books and made 2 or more drafts o f their essay but the time that was spent on all this activity was no more than 12 hours for the great majori ty. In terms of which strategies were most beneficial, there were clear indicat ions that the more books consulted and the more time spent were likely to produce essays which received higher scores.

b) The writing strategy Planning. Students were asked about the types of plan they made when writing their essay. Their responses are summarised in Table 6.

This is a somewhat difficult table to interpret due in par t to a misunders tanding by many students who ticked more than one category in this section, consequently,

Table 6. Types of plans used

Type of plan Percentage mentioning

No plan 0 Evolving + one or more types of other plan 3 Mental 6 Extended 13 Basic 15 Basic (or mental) + one or more types of other plan 16 Evolving 21 Rearranged 25

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Table 7. Students' views on the purposes of their essay

Purpose Percentage responding Yes* (N = 98)

Organise the essay round a central unifying theme 38 Summarise the literature + add comments, criticisms and associations 37 Use literature as springboard to trigger comments, ideas or responses to topic 20 Manipulate ideas to present a persuasive argument 17 Summarise the literature 7 Other 5

* The percentages add up to more than 100 since a number of students ticked more than one response category.

categories had to be combined. However, when looked at in terms of what these responses actually meant it was seen from the way that these plans were described in the questionnaire that the plans called 'Basic', 'Mental', and 'Extended', were all plans which involved no rewriting or re-arranging. By further combining these a simplified breakdown was made which showed 35% made plans that were not modified in any way and 65% made plans that were subsequently altered as the essay progressed. A t-test, however, showed no significant difference between the two categories of planner (t = 0.093, df= 91) in terms of essay marks.

Purpose. This section of the questionnaire asked the students what they thought the purpose of the essay was. A descriptive account of their responses is presented in Table 7 but no statistical analyses were done on the essay scores as this was felt to not be particularly meaningful.

Clearly, the majority of students (75%) perceived the purpose of their essay to be more concerned with organisation and adding to the literature rather than with manipulating ideas to argue a case (17%).

The audience. Closely linked to what students think is the purpose of their essay is

Table 8. Students responses to the type of audience they had in mind

Audience Percentage responding Yes* (N = 98)

Your tutor 39 Yourself 29 No-one in particular 28 A wider, general audience 16 A particular person 2

* The percentages add up to more than 100 since a number of students ticked more than one response category.

Table 9. People with whom students discussed the essay

Discussed with Percentage mentioning (N = 98)

Fellow students 66 No-one 15 Others 13 Tutor 5

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the actual way in which they will write and structure their work. But do they write with particular audiences in mind? Table 8 presents a percentage breakdown of students who claimed to do so.

Surprisingly, this table shows that less than half the students wrote with their tutor in mind and nearly a third wrote with no-one in particular as an audience.

Discussing the essay. The final part of this section concerned with writing strategies was designed to find out whether or not students actually talked about their essay to anyone and if so, to whom. Table 9 presents a summary of the responses.

This table shows that 66% of the students talked to fellow students and there was a considerable proportion (15%) who didn't discuss the essay with anyone. Only 5% of students said that they had discussed the essay with their tutor.

Overall, the picture that emerges of the students' writing strategies shows some variety in ways of working. Although the evidence on students' planning shows that the majority are 'active' planners (i.e., they modify their plans) their thoughts on the actual purpose of the essay are 'off target'. Most students showed an over concern with fact and structure and only a few were concerned with presenting an argument. These misconceptions may occur because students do not appreciate the purpose of functional essays nor do they talk to tutors about essay writing.

c) The affective component Writing at the best of times is a difficult activity and essay-writing, with its attendant worries concerning assessment, must be even more difficult. This part of the questionnaire focussed on finding out which particular aspects of both preparing for and writing the essay were the most difficult. The responses are summarised in Table 10.

Clearly concern with the material is again shown to be important with the largest percentage of students finding it a problem in both the preparation and writing stage. As far as the actual parts of the essay were concerned, the evidence confirmed that opinion held by a great many writers - that it was the introduction which was the most difficult to write.

In view of all the difficulties and worries associated with producing essays it might seem somewhat whimsical to ask students whether or not they enjoyed the activity! However, many students do enjoy the challenge of having their intellectual abilities tested in this way. In this part of the questionnaire students were asked to give a

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Table 10. Most difficult aspect of preparing and writing the essay

Preparing Percentage saying Yes* (N = 98)

Finding sufficient material 38 Establishing exactly what the set question meant 31 Organising the time 29 Other 16

Writing

Selecting material to keep in or leave out 57 Writing clearly 34 Focusing on the question set 26 Manipulating ideas to present an argument 26 Keeping to a clear framework 21 Other 6

Part of the essay that was most difficult to write

Introduction 41 Conclusion 33 Middle 27 Other 3

* The percentages add up to more than 100 since a number of students ticked more than one response category.

rat ing o f how enjoyable they had found writing the essay to have been. The scale ranged f rom 1 (extreme dislike) to 5 (extreme enjoyment) and the s tudents ' responses are presented in Table 11.

As this table shows, nearly half the students were neutral about the essay but slightly more were negative than positive. The actual mean rat ing was 2.9. It is possible that how enjoyable the students found writing this present essay may have been related to how well they had per formed on their previous essay. It could be predic ted that a high grade would give students confidence in their abil i ty (part icular ly as this was their first year) and thus enhance their enjoyment in doing the present essay. Accordingly, a Spearman ' s correlat ion coefficient was computed

Table 11. Ratings of enjoyment of the essay

Rating of enjoyment Percentage (N = 97)

5 (extreme enjoyment) 2 4 22 3 (neutral) 47 2 23 1 (extreme dislike) 6

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between previous grades and the students' ratings of enjoyment. This did indeed give a significantly positive correlation (r = 0.46, N = 98, p < 0.0005). Of course, it may also be that enjoyment and present essay marks correlate independently of previous marks. To check this, a further Spearman's correlation coefficient was computed and this did show a significant correlation between present essay grades and students' ratings of enjoyment (r --- 0.28, N = 98, p < 0.005). The correlation between previous essay grades and enjoyment was however significantly larger than the correlation between present essay grades and enjoyment (t ---- 1.97, df= 95, p < 0.05), so it would seem that assessment does appear to have some ongoing effect on how students feel about (and presumably tackle) their next course work assignment.

Overall, this section of the questionnaire has shown that students are largely concerned with the difficulties of finding and selecting material for their essays. Getting started by writing the introduction was the most difficult part of the essay itself. The students seemed to be mainly neutral when asked how enjoyable they had found the essay task. Perhaps the most important finding in this section was that the enjoyment in writing the present essay was most strongly related to the grade given for the previous one. The implications of this are that assessing written work has an effect on students' self-esteem, confidence and enthusiasm for the work they are set to do.

d) The criteria for assessment Students were asked what grade they expected their essay would get. As letter grades were put on the essays (although tutors actually record a mark out of 100) it was only possible to make a rough approximation to the actual mark that tutors gave. The results are presented in Table 12.

It can be seen that there was a general trend for students to underestimate the grades they thought they would get compared with what the tutors actually did give them. For example, only 13% of the students expected to get a B grade and yet nearly 3 times that number were actually given B's for their essay.

As far as the criteria that students expected the tutors to be looking for was concerned, the results are summarised in Table 13.

Although there are many differences between this study and the one reported by Branthwaite et al. (1980) the data are interesting for they also show a similar

Table 12. Students' expected grades compared with grades given by tutors

Expected grades by students (N = 96) Actual grades given by tutors (N = 98)

Grade Percentage Grade Percentage

A (70-t-) 2 A 2 B (60-69) 13 B 36 C (50-59) 51 C 45 D (45--49) 27 D 11 E (40--44) 7 E 6 F (39-) 0 F 0

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Table 13. Students' and tutors' criteria for essay assessment

Criteria students Present Keele thought tutors were s tudy research* looking for in this specific essay Percentage Percentage

mentioning mentioning (N = 98) (N = 82)

Criteria tutors were actually looking for in this specific essay

Present Keele study research*

Percentage Percentage mentioning mentioning (N = 6) (N = 7)

Answer the question 63 Presentation/style 58 (12) Structure/organisation 50 (35) Argument 47 (22) Wide reading 42 (17) Relevant information 39 (17)

Evaluation/own views 38 (11) Understanding 35 (29) English/spelling 26 (35) Content/knowledge 21 Conciseness 19 Clear expression 17

of ideas Evidence 16 (39) Legibility/neatness 16 Not plagiarising 12 Critical 10 (12)

interpretation Amount of work/effort 4 Length 4 Interesting to read 3 Handed in on time 3 Originality 3 (40) Intelligently written l

Structure 100 (57) Argument 80 (29) Answer the question 66 Wide reading 60 (57) Content 60 Clear expression of 60

ideas Relevant information 66 (57) Evidence 40 (57) Understanding 50 (14) Presentation 50 (14)

English/spelling 20 (57)

Legibility 20 Evaluation 20 Own views 20 Awareness of 20

theoretical issues Sensible 20 Effort 20 Not plagiarised 20

(43)

* These data have been reproduced from Branthwaite et at (1980) with permission.

'mismatch ' between students and tutors and the present study replicates the Keele findings that students and tutors are not really in touch with each other when it comes to what counts as a good essay.

Of course, when interpreting these data it has to be acknowledged that the percentage mentioning a criterion is a relatively crude measure. Accordingly, a further analysis was carried out to establish the mean ranking of those criteria that were mentioned by at least 20% of the students. The questionnaire asked students to rank in order of importance the six most important criteria that they thought tutors would use when marking their essays. The ranking was from 1 (the most important) to 6 (the least important) so the lower the mean mark, the more important that criterion was judged to be. The results of this analysis can be seen in Table 14.

Clearly a different picture emerges here where criteria such as presentation and style, al though mentioned frequently by the students were not regarded by them (or the tutors) as very important. Content and knowledge move up considerably to second place using this measure. Interestingly though, answering the question still

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Table 14. Mean ranking of students' and tutors' criteria for assessment of essays

Mean ranking

Criteria Students Tutors (N = 98) (N = 6)

Answer the question 1.5 1.0 Content/knowledge 1.8 - Relevant information 2.3 2.0 Understanding 2.4 1.3 Wide reading 2.9 3.7 Structure/organisation 3.3 2.8 Argument 3.5 1.5 Evaluation/own views 3.9 3.5 Presentation/style 4.2 3.5 English/spelling 4.8 4.0

remains the single most important criterion judged by students to be what tutors are looking for in an essay. Similarly, as far as the tutors were concerned, answering the question was also seen to be the most important criterion, together with understanding and closely followed by argument. So at least with one criterion there was a close match between staffand students. To see how close this match was, both sets of data excluding the content/knowledge criterion were correlated showing an r of 0.72, N = 9,p < 0.05 so clearly there is a measure of agreement between students and tutors. The fact though that the tutors did not rank content and knowledge at all is significant in view of the fact that students marked it second in importance. This is consistent with the evidence produced from other sections of the questionnaire that students are very concerned with this aspect.

2. Analysis of the interview data

Tutors' experience. Of the six tutors interviewed, their lecturing experience ranged from I year to 20 years. A brief description is presented in Table 15. Unfortunately, the taped recording of the interview with colleague F did not work so there are no detailed quotes from this tutor. As noted earlier the data for this tutor was derived from the notes the author took during the interview.

Table 15. Tutor experience

Colleague Years of experience

A 1 B 2 C 4 D 8 E 10 F 20

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The five tutors who had been marking essays for more than a year were asked whether or not they thought their marking standards had changed at all over the years. In general it appeared that tutors tended to relax their criteria compared to when they had first started.

As colleague C commented: ' I have become a little bit more generous looking for the positive things rather than the negative things.'

Their reasons given for this relaxation revolved around the fact that new tutors tended to have overly high expectations of student capabilities. Experience made this expectation more realistic.

Standards in students' performance. The tutors were asked whether or not they thought essay writing standards changed much as the students became more experienced. In general, the view seemed to be that final year essays tended to be the best but 2nd year essays were not necessarily of a higher standard than those written in a student's first year. Colleague E thought it was a question of motivation:

I think 3rd years are more motivated than 2nd years. 1st years are highly motivated when they first come, but it drops off in the 2nd year and the students seem to be much less motivated. In the 3rd year they decide that they really want to have a go at it and when they are motivated they write better essays.

Tutors' marking strategies. (Relating specifically to the one essay that was used in the research.)

Preparatory reading. None of the tutors interviewed did any reading in the areas tackled in the essays. The reason given was that they all felt sufficiently knowledgeable to deal with the level of a first year essay. Tutor A (the least experienced member of staff) did say she might do some reading if it was a subject she knew nothing about and if several students had written on that particular essay topic.

This response is very interesting for not only does it reflect tutors' expertise and knowledge but it also relates to the previous findings already discussed (see Table 14) where tutors did not rank content/knowledge at all as an important criterion in marking. It will be remembered that students ranked this criterion as second in importance.

The process. Tutors were asked how they actually went about the task of marking this particular batch of essays. Since the essay assignment had been on a choice of topics it transpired that all the tutors grouped their essays into topics as a first step. The most common strategy then was to simply mark the essays in whatever order they happened to be in, writing comments as they were actually reading the essay. Tutor C was the exception as she adopted a strategy of picking out a 'good' and a 'middling' essay to make comparisons with.

As well as comments, half the tutors also tended to put grades on to the essays right away. Of the other half, two used pencil and one made a separate list of letter grades so that she could change it later if necessary after comparing the essay with

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the rest o f the group. As might be expected, the least experienced tutor was the most cautious, not putting down any marks until the whole sample had been read, whereas the most experienced tutor put a grade straight on to each essay in ink without comparing it with any others. When questioned further about this he said that it was not only because o f his experience but also because he believed that the grade did not really matter. In practical terms, o f course, this was a reasonably accurate statement for in terms of the actual difference in an overall mark at the end of the year, when the essay grades are combined with exam marks the percentage difference between an A grade and a C grade is very small indeed. In terms of students ' self-esteem, however, the difference is enormous. It will be remembered that the analysis of the questionnaire data indicated a positive correlation between students' rating o f enjoyment of the current essay with the mark they had been given for their previous essay.

Time taken. The time taken to mark each essay was estimated by tutors to range from 10 minutes to 45 minutes. Specifically, the time per essay was as follows:

Tutor A 20 minutes Tutor B 30-45 minutes Tutor C 30 minutes Tutor D 10 minutes Tutor E 12 minutes Tutor F 15 minutes

Clearly, there was quite a large range here and interestingly it was not the least experienced tutor who took the most time - al though the shortest times were all taken by the three most experienced tutors. While 30-45 minutes would seem to be putting a heavy load on staff who already have a considerable workload, 10-12 minutes would seem to be perhaps too brief in view of the importance that students attach to the return and marking of their written work.

Criteria. The criteria tutors look for in marking essays have already been dealt with in Tables 13 and 14, but some comments made in the interviews may help to illustrate what a very complex and subjective process marking essays really is. The tutors were asked 'what were you looking for when you marked these essays?'

Colleague A: ...they can demonstrate that they have actually understood what the question is about and that they have actually answered what they have been asked to do... Most specifically I want to see evidence of a plan and that I know it is organised or structured in some way. That they have covered everything that I would consider to be relevant and that there is evidence that they have read things other than their lecture notes.

Colleague B: ...I was looking for a logically ordered essay: a beginning, a middle and an end. I was looking for an answer to the question.., if they made some sort of assertion and backed it up from the literature... I looked to see if it was referenced correctly... I was looking for any evidence that they had read more widely...

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Colleague C: First of all they have got to actually be directly answering the question... (I'm) specifically looking for content and that the actual specifics are not so general that they just fall into a loose paragraph but they actually show which study has supported that... It is important that they can actually structure an answer because if they don't ...it gets very boring.., when it comes to actually writing a paper, I would say that all assignments are a disappointment, partly because I think they lack the skills in writing and then they are not very clear.

Colleague D: I think the most important thing is an understanding of the issues which would be shown by the essay as a whole, both how it was constructed, the kind of arguments used and the clarity with which the arguments are put.

Colleague E: If its got a personal style then I am in a very good mood to give it a reasonable mark. If it shows awareness of theoretical issues and putting things together in a structure within the essay, the structure of it does influence me a lot. Content is not a major thing. The major thing is structure, clarity of exposition and that it's sensible (meaning that) this person has thought about this area and seen what is good and what isn't and written sensible things about it, rather than repeating things that they don't know what they mean and you can tell that very easily.

These comments have been quoted at length for they reveal at one and the same time similarities and differences. Clearly there is a general concern for the way in which the essay is constructed, how an argument is formulated and that the essay is relevant to the essay topic. Having said that though there are many examples o f ' idiosyncratic ' concerns, for example, Colleague E's mention o f a 'personal style' and that they write 'sensible things'. Interestingly, Colleague C actually thought content was important whereas Colleague E said it was not a major criterion. This demonstrat ion o f individual differences in marking was borne out in the rest of the interviews where tutors revealed pet niggles such as bad handwriting, incorrect referencing or whatever. While they claimed that such things did not adversely affect the mark they would give, it is impossible to be sure that they were not in fact so influenced. Perhaps, more importantly though such statements reveal an inevitable subjectivity in the assessment process o f written essays. This subjectivity was born out by the extreme reluctance shown by the tutors when they were asked to rank the criteria in order o f importance. The general view was that they were inextricably linked. This is a fair point but it carries with it implications that objective marking in terms of weighting the different elements in an essay could not be carried out. Marking then becomes something of an impressionistic exercise.

Commenting on the essays. Tutors were asked what sort o f comments they wrote on essays that they were marking and whether or not they used ticks. The general response was that they all claimed to write comments that related to each specific essay while they were reading through it, as well as an overall comment at the end. The purpose o f the final comment was intended to indicate to the student which areas would need improving to get a better grade. All tutors admitted to using ticks fairly indiscriminately except for Colleague C who said she did not 'stroke them'. One of the pitfalls o f interviewing as a research method is that people may be trying

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to present themselves in the best possible light. The responses about tutors' work in commenting may perhaps be a reflection of this when it is remembered that 4 of the tutors spent 20 minutes or less on each essay.

Length. Knowing that the Department had imposed a word limit of 1250 words for this essay assignment, the author was keen to see how much importance the tutors attached to the word limit. The general consensus appeared to be one of flexibility with the exception of Colleague F who said he would penalise the student if the essay was well over the word limit. As Colleague D commented, she would not take length into account... 'not unless it is excessively long or short. I mean 20 pages would just turn me off. Also I would think this student has not demonstrated the skills of actually using the material effectively. Equally for half a side, the student has not bothered but beyond that no.' Interestingly, the fact that the correlation between word length and essay mark was r = 0.13 (see below) supported the tutors' comments that they were not particularly concerned with length and contrasts sharply with the significant correlations obtained between exam essay lengths and marks (Norton and Hartley 1986).

Presentation. Again tutors were fairly flexible about matters of presentation: poor handwriting and spelling were seen more as irritants than as something to take marks off for. Correct referencing was seen as important by the staff which is probably why so many of the students mentioned it (see Tables 13-14).

Overall, the picture that has emerged from the interview part of the research has shown that a certain duality exists in the way that tutors in this department thought about and actually carded out their assessment of student essays. On the one hand there was a remarkable consistency about the central importance of argument, structure and relevance. On the other hand there were quite wide variations in what other criteria tutors thought were important and in how they actually marked the essays.

3. Analysis of the essay scripts

The third and final part of the research was concerned with analysing all the essays on two basic measures and contrasting a sample of high and low scoring essays by using measures derived from a content analysis.

Length. All 98 essays of students who had completed a questionnaire were counted for the number of words. This measure was then correlated with the mark obtained but the result was not statistically significant (r = 0.13, N -- 98). It was possible to pool the data in this way since there was no significant overall difference in the marking of the seven lecturers. In view, though, of the different views held by those tutors who were interviewed, separate correlations were carried out for each tutor's group but again these proved not significant.

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Table 16. Number of references cited and effect on essay scores (N = 94)

Number of references cited

0-1 2 3 4 5 6 7+

Mean essay score 53.2 47.0 57.3 55.1 56.6 61.2 59.2 SD 6.4 5.5 7.4 6.3 7.3 4.9 6.4 N 6 8 13 22 25 11 9

Number of references cited. The essays were next looked at in terms of the number of references that had been cited to see if this would affect the mark given. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 16.

A Jonckheere 's trend test showed that these means were in the predicted direction (Z = 3.23,p < 0.001), so the more references cited, the significantly higher the mark.

A comparison of high and low scoring essays. In order to see if more information could be found as to what constitutes a ' good ' essay, a sample o f 10 high and 10 low scoring essays was selected to be content analysed and then compared to see if there were any significant differences. In selecting the 20 essays the author wanted to ensure the following conditions were met: a) all seven tutors should have at least one o f the essays they had marked,

represented in both high and low scoring categories; b) all 20 essays should be on the same essay topic.

Meeting these conditions meant in effect, that the selected sample did not represent the 10 absolute highest or lowest essay grades given in the original sample. An initial comparison was made using the two basic measures of length and number of references cited from the essay and data f rom the questionnaires to see if there were any broad differences between high and low scorers. A summary of these data are presented in Table 17.

Although none of the differences were significant, this table shows that the high scorers did have higher means than the low scorers in all o f the measures. The fact that these differences were not significant is not particularly surprising as the samples were small and the measures were crude.

Table 17. Comparison of measures between 'high' and 'low' scorers

High scorers (N = 10) Low scores (N = 10) t p

Measure Mean SD Mean SD

Words 1506.6 318.3 1434.7 537.8 0.364 NS No. of refs. cited 4.6 1.8 3.7 1.3 1.283 NS No. of drafts 1.7 0.5 1.5 0.5 0.885 NS No. of hours work 11.9 5.9 10.9 7.2 0.322 NS No. of sources 3.8 0.9 3.7 0.9 0.239 NS

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Consequently, it was decided to look at these essay scripts in more detail by carrying out a content analysis and then comparing them again. The content analysis consisted of categorising each sentence of the essay into one of ten categories. Percentages were calculated so that the proportion of each essay devoted to the various categories could be estimated. These percentages were then compared using t-tests. No significant differences were found, so the original ten categories were combined into three basic categories which were called respectively: a) structuring (this included introductory sentences, quotes/sayings, linking sen-

tences, argument, and conclusions); b) factual descriptive information (this remained the same as the original category);

and c) research-based (this included quoted research, research described, research

mentioned, and textbook information). The results of this analysis of the combined categories is presented in Table 18. This shows a clear pattern of differences whereby high scoring essays contain

significantly more research-based information and significantly less factual des- criptive information than do low-scoring essays. As far as the amount of structure was concerned, both types of essay were similar.

Overall the analysis of the essay scripts has revealed some interesting findings. The number of references cited at the end of the essay has a significant effect on the mark obtained. Obviously the more references cited, the more research-based the essay is likely to be and the content analysis showed quite clearly that the high scoring essays had a significantly higher proportion of research-based information than did the low scoring essays. Factual descriptive information (i.e., content/know- ledge ranked highly by students and not at all by tutors) was significantly greater in the low scoring essays than in the high scoring essays. Neither length nor the amount of structuring appeared to have any significant effect.

Table 18. Mean percentage of sentences attributed to recognised categories

High scoring essays Low scoring essays (N = lO) (N = 10) t p

Category Mean SD Mean SD

Structuring 9.22 3.47 9.26 5.39 0.019

Factual descriptive information 35.07 18.20 47.18 16.36 1.796

Research-based 55.65 25.98 40.72 18.99 2.210

NS

0.05

0.025

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Discussion

Essay writing is a complex process and the way that students go about both preparing for and writing an essay is highly individualistic. The research reported here has attempted to tease out some of these strategies and find which are the most effective. It has also sought to establish from tutors what they are looking for when they mark the products of what for most students has been a considerable amount of time and effort.

Strategies

Analysis of the questionnaire responses revealed that indeed students did work quite hard for this essay. (Nearly all the students went to the library and nearly all used the basic textbook.) This was no doubt due to the fact that it counted towards their course work assessment. Although 81% used lecture notes it was interesting to see that only 38% used references given by lecturers. This finding is in line with similar results in a study by Norton (1981) where only 20% of students followed up references given in a lecture.

As far as sources of material were concerned, the evidence in this report indicates that students did tend to use a fairly wide variety with over half using four or more and 13% using as many as six or seven. The number of sources was not seen to have any effect on essay marks. However, looking specifically at the number of books used: over half used between three and four books and over a third used five or more. This strategy was actually associated with a higher essay score, there being a significant positive correlation (r = 0.25,p < 0.01). This finding was strengthened by evidence from two further analyses of the actual essay scripts. The first involved looking at the whole sample of essays where a Jonckheere trend test showed that the more references cited then the significantly higher the mark (Z = 3.23, p < 0.001). The second involved the content analysis where it was found that high scoring essays had a significantly higher proportion of sentences which were research-based than did the low scoring essays (t = 2.21,p < 0.005). Since first year students make very little use of journals (11% in this research) it follows that the research they use in their essays must come from books, and the more books they use the more likely they are to quote research evidence in their answers. This finding replicates that of Cirino-Gerena (1981) who in an American study found that students who reported quoting books and/or articles in essay exams tended to have a higher grade point average than did the students who didn't.

As far as the amount of time spent both in preparing and writing the essay, the majority of students spent seven or more hours with the maximum reported being an astonishing 55 hours! There was, however, a substantial number (approximately a quarter) who spent six or less hours on their essays. When looked at in terms of essay marks there was a significant difference between these 2 groups whereby the group who worked longer did significantly better (t = 1.66, p < 0.05). The author knows of no previous research that has looked at this particular factor in relation to essay marks.

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Planning

This enquiry showed that all the students used some kind of plan and several used one or more plans. The complexity of the plan did not, however, appear to affect the mark obtained. The effect of planning has been studied in examination answers (see Hartley 1984; McLaughlin Cook 1984; and Norton and Hartley 1986). These results have consistently indicated no clear cut advantage for planning. Of course, writing in an examination is a very different matter from writing an essay as part of coursework. Both Bi=ell and Singleton (1988) and Blackey (1988) point out that exam answers are like writing a rough draft with no time to polish, rethink and rewrite. In any case, many students come to the examination room with pre-prepared answers. Planning for essay writing has always been strongly advocated in study manuals (see Ashman and George 1982; and Clanchy and Ballard 1983) but their advice may be too simplistic. Gibbs (1981) thinks the problem may lie in perhaps overformalising what is a relatively informal strategy. As he says: 'The real planning many people do is often so informal and messy as to pass unrecognised. Clearly the lack of any planning at all can be disastrous, but very formal planning can also be disruptive and unhelpful.' This research supports the previous published findings that there is no evidence that formal planning is an effective strategy. Study advisors and study manuals might consider taking a more cautious approach when advising on this particular aspect of essay preparation.

Purpose

The questions asking students about the purpose of their essay, the type of audience they had in mind and whether or not they had discussed their essay with anyone revealed some interesting data. The majority of students saw the main purpose of their essay to be concemed with content and structure with less than a quarter being concerned to put forward an argument. Further evidence came from the data which showed that over half the students (75%) thought that the most difficult part of preparing and writing the essay was selecting appropriate material to include or leave out. Yet more evidence came from the section of the questionnaire asking students what criteria they thought their tutors were looking for. Content/know- ledge came second in the rankings of importance as opposed to argument which came seventh. When the six tutors were asked the same question, four of the six mentioned argument and the mean ranking was third in importance. Content, on the other hand although mentioned by three of the tutors, did not figure in their rankings. Clearly this evidence points to a mismatch between staff and students about the relative importance of argument and content. This replicates a similar finding by Hounsell (1984) where history students were seen to cling to two conceptions of the essay: as viewpoint and as arrangement, rather than the one promoted by the department - namely, the essay as argument. This mismatch is important because it has a significant effect on the marks. Students who had a greater proportion of their essays concerned with factual descriptive information

432

did significantly worse in terms of essay marks (t = 1.79, p < 0.05). How does such a mismatch come about? When asked what type of audience they

had in mind, nearly 40% of students said their tutor and yet only a tiny 5% of them actually discussed their essay with their tutor. Again a similar lack of consultation was reported by Hounsell (1984). The fact that approximately two thirds of students discussed the essay with fellow students may be the answer. Typically, such a strategy will result in misinformation as rumours tend to proliferate among students, particularly when stress levels are high such as during examination time or when essays are due.

There is evidence, however, to suggest that some important information does get through. It was obvious when comparing the results of the present study with a similar study by Branthwaite et al. (1980) that different institutions must emphasise different criteria in essay writing. For example, answering the question was mentioned most frequently by L.I.H.E. students and by 60% of the L.I.H.E. tutors and yet wasn't mentioned at all by either Keele students or tutors. Looking at the students first, it's surprising to see the large discrepancy between the L.I.H.E. students and the Keele students. Another example was where only 30% of L.I.H.E. students mentioned originality and yet 40% of Keele students thought this was important. Such large discrepancies may be the result of what particular institutions teach (for example, not plagiarising material and presenting references carefully are both heavily stressed at L.I.H.E. The department even gives each student a handout on both these matters).

Looking more specifically at how students and staff differ, the present research has shown that overall the L.I.H.E. tutors thought that answering and understand- ing the question were the most important criteria in an essay, closely followed by presenting some sort of reasoned argument. Less importantly were relevant information and structuring, followed by students' own views, evidence of wide reading and lastly details of use of English and presentation. The students too saw answering the question as most important followed by content and information and then understanding and evidence of wide reading. Argument was midway between structure and own views but English and presentation were, like the tutors' ranking, at the bottom. Seemingly then there is a sort of agreement but the importance is weighted differently with the knowledge/content criteria being, as said before, extremely important as far as the students were concerned. In terms of future research, this difference should be further investigated by analysing tutors' comments on essays and relating these findings to their stated criteria in marking. Unfortunately, this was not possible in this study as the essays were photocopied before the tutors marked them.

In terms of practical implications, students must be somehow persuaded to take a more relativist view. As Wheeler (1983) puts it, discussion with students who are having difficulties show that they often have a conception of the essay... 'as a comprehensive, somehow total and flawless display of knowledge in response to the question set,' Part of this misunderstanding may be a result of the students' lack of experience (the students in this research were first year undergraduates). They tend not to use journals which give more up to date information and a more realistic

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picture of the current state of knowledge in psychology. At the same time, first year students tend to be highly anxious about assessment and are very concerned to 'to do the right thing' (Branthwaite et al. 1980). In other words, as one tutor pointed out in the interview, they are keenly motivated. Because of this it is very important that misconceptions are cleared up at an early stage. It is possible that this can be achieved in four main ways: a) By tutors explicitly stating their criteria in marking essays: a number of the tutors

interviewed already do this. Perhaps tutors should go further. They should explain to students what they mean by structure and reasoned argument, for example. To take the essay title in the present study; 'Describe and contrast the characteristics of both short and long term memory' tutors could demonstrate to students how it is possible to turn this statement into an argument that needs justifying. For example one can either take the position that both short and long term memory are really very similar, or that they are really very different.

b) By tutors improving the feedback they give on essays. The interviewed tutors were genuinely convinced that they did write copious comments specific to each individual essay. Yet, as mentioned before, this may not be true of every essay, particularly as some tutors took only 10 or 12 minutes per essay. Colleague A made the comment 'I think C is the hardest grade to deal with because it is just average'. Presumably then, while some students may get quite detailed comments, others may not be so lucky particularly those who are neither outstandingly good or outstandingly bad. As part of a course evaluation exercise at L.I.H.E. all first year Psychology students were asked whether or not tutors gave helpful feedback. 55% agreed that they did, 34% were neutral and 21% actually disagreed. This would seem to indicate that a considerable proportion of students do feel that they are not getting sufficient feedback on their esray performance. In view of the considerable time and effort most students put in and the importance they attach to the assessment of essays as shown by this research, it would seem that tutors should write fuller and more explicit comments.

c) By tutors using an essay marking scheme which focusses on these criteria. For example, Hartley (personal communication) used the scheme shown in Figure 1. The criteria here are drawn from Clanchy and Ballard (1983), and each are graded and commented on separately: then an overall grade and comment is appended. Such a scheme ensures that tutors cover all aspects and do not concentrate on one criterion at the expense of the others. The completed mark sheet is then discussed with each student as appropriate.

d) By tutors giving spoken feedback on a one to one basis. The Psychology Department at L.I.H.E. has actually made a commitment to do this in response to the course evaluation. Obviously, such steps raise a major practical difficulty of tutor-time, especially in

the current situation of increasing student numbers. However, to avoid losing or discouraging students, giving feedback should become a priority in tutors' teaching functions. The current research revealed a significant positive correlation between rating of enjoyment of the present essay with the grade given for the previous essay (r --- 0.46, p < 0.01). More face to face discussions would also have the benefit of

434

Essay checklist

Note a mark out of 5 is given for each of the headings below, with additional explanatory comments where necessary.

5 = excellent, 4 = good, 3 = fair, 2 = not so good, 1 = very poor

Focus on question set

Relevant reading

Organisation/Structure

Presentation - style/grammar etc.

Presentation o f References

General Comments

Grade/Mark

Fig. I. Essay marking scheme used by Hartley (1989) reproduced with permission.

helping students to articulate their views and in some cases would make the tutor aware of the effort that had been put into an essay. Effort alone cannot be rewarded but it may help tutors to be more sympathetic if they know the background to the production of an essay.

During this research the author was able to relate the strategies and lengths that some students had gone to (by studying their questionnaires) and then seeing what mark had been given. Undoubtedly, some students must have been quite devastated and totally confused about what they had done wrong. There were several examples where students reported higher than average levels of work in terms of number of books consulted and hours worked. In addition they had made detailed plans and written with the tutor in mind, yet still had been given lower than average grades.

A personal interview would presumably go a long way towards helping such students and this should be seen as an essential part of teaching duties.

435

I m p l i c a t i o n s

The research reported here has attempted to fill a gap in the literature on essay writing by trying to unravel the complex interaction between students' strategies in preparing and writing an essay and how they feel about it, what the essay scripts actually contained and what tutors who marked them were looking for. The findings of this study although limited to first year psychology students at a college of higher education were consistent enough to suggest several practical implications for students, tutors and for all who counsel or publish advice on effective essay-writing strategies.

Students: - should be very clear about what the tutor who is marking their essay is looking

for (by listening closely to what tutors say, by discussing their essay with their tutor beforehand and by writing with their tutor in mind);

- should concentrate more on using their essay to present an argument rather than a factual and descriptive account of the area;

- should support their arguments with research based evidence, citing these references at the end of the essay and making sure they use between four and five books;

- should spend more than six hours on preparing and writing the essay; - should keep in proportion what each essay is actually worth in terms of the

overall mark, realise what a subjective process marking is; and, - should make every effort to discuss with their tutor the comments that have been

made on the essay with a view to improving their performance next time.

Tutors: - should try to make even more explicit the criteria they are using in marking

essays; - should spend more time discussing essays with students both before and after

submission; - should make both written and spoken comments in a more positive and

supportive way; - should make sure students know how little difference one essay grade makes to

the overall mark at the end of the year; and, - should perhaps consider whether it would be wise to spend more (not less) time

marking first year essays as assessment is of such crucial importance at the start of students' academic careers.

Study advisors: - should guard against putting forward certain strategies as guaranteed keys to

success (for example, planning, making a number of drafts, etc.); and - should emphasise that any strategies are just tools to be adapted to suit students

own styles and ways of working; and should follow the direction of the counselling movement and seek to become more student-centred and non-direc- tive (see Main 1980; Norton 1980; Wheeler 1983).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people: All the staff and students of the Psychology Department at L.I.H.E. who gave up their time to take part in the research; Professor James Hartley, University of Keele, for his valuable comments on an earlier draft, and, Mrs Barbara Davies for all her hard work in typing the manuscript.

Appendix 1. The questionnaire

Questionnaire on essay writing

Please note that all the following questions relate to what you did when preparing for and writing up your last psychology essay (i.e., submitted for 19th February).

For the purpose of analysis, it is essential to ask for your name, age and sex. Any information that is given in this questionnaire will however remain completely confidential and will stay sealed up and will not be analysed until after your essay has been marked and handed back to you.

It is really important to the outcome of this research that you are as honest and accurate as possible in all your replies. Thank you very much for your co-operation.

Name (please print) Age M/F

Have you ever been given any advice on how to write essays? Y/N (If yes, please explain)

For your last psychology essay, please answer the following questions:

Please tick

1) Did you use any of the following sources?

Atkinson, Atkinson, Smith and Hilgard (1987)

Lecture notes

References given to you by tutors

Seminar notes

Tutors' personal advice

Library (e.g., subject catalogue, books on shelves)

[]

[]

[]

[]

[]

[]

Journals

Other student essays on a similar topic

Newspaper articles

Other sources (please explain)

2) How many books did you use?

3) How many journal articles did you use?

4) How many drafts did you make of your essay?

5) How many hours did you take to prepare it?

6) How many hours did you take to write it up?

437

[]

[]

[]

[]

Please state No.

7) Please indicate the type of plan you made when writing this essay: Please tick

No plan []

A mental plan (i.e., a plan in your head with nothing written down) []

A basic plan (i.e., plan a beginning, middle, end and main parts) []

An extended plan (i.e., main points written down and numbered for reference to a more detailed text) []

A rearranged plan (i.e., notes prepared and then rearranged into an ordered sequence) []

An evolving plan (i.e., a plan that's continually being modified as you are writing the essay) []

Other type of plan (please explain) []

8) Did you see the purpose of your essay was:

To summarise the available literature []

To summarise the available literature and add your own comments, criticisms or associations []

To use the literature as a springboard to trigger your own comments, ideas or response to the topic in general []

To organise your essay round a central, unifying theme []

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To manipulate ideas in order to present a persuasive argument []

Other (please explain) []

9) Which part of the essay was the most difficult to write?:

The introduction []

The middle []

The conclusion []

Other (please explain) []

10) Which aspects of preparing for the essay did you find the most difficult?:

Organising the time []

Finding sufficient material []

Establishing exactly what the set question meant []

Other (please explain) []

11) Which aspects of writing the essay did you find the most difficult?:

Focusing on the question set []

Keeping to a clear framework El

Selecting material to keep in or leave out []

Writing clearly what you want to say []

Manipulating ideas to present an argument []

Other (please explain) []

12) Did you have audience in mind when you wrote the essay?.:

Yourself []

Your tutor []

A particular person (please explain) []

A wider, general audience []

No-one in particular []

13) Did you discuss your essay (or early drafts) with:

Your tutor []

Fellow students []

Others (please explain) []

439

14) Did you enjoy writing this essay? Please circle the appropriate number where 5 represents extreme enjoyment and 1 represents extreme dislike.

[5] [4] [3] [2] [1]

15) Please circle the grade that you are expecting your essay will get. [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] IF]

16) Please list in order of importance the 6 most important criteria that you think your tutor was looking for when she/he marked this essay.

l~ 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Rank Criteria

17) If you used any other strategies in writing or preparing this essay that have not already been covered, please would you note them down here.

Thanks for your help.

44O

Appendix 2. The interview schedule

How long have you been lecturing?

How long have you been marking?

Do you think your criteria for marking essays has changed much over that time?

Do you think that standards in student performance change much from year to year?

Do you think there are any differences in essays between 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students?

In respect of the 1st year essays that you have just marked, did you do any reading beforehand, in the areas that you didn't know much about?

Can you tell me how you actually went about marking them? Do you read them all through roughly first, do you make charts or what do you actually do?

How long did it take you to mark each essay, roughly?

What were you specifically looking for, i.e., what do you think as far as you are concerned, counts as a good essay?

Just in terms of the memory question could you give me a brief list of what a good essay would cover and what a bad essay would cover?

Do you use ticks?

Do you bother correcting spelling mistakes?

Do you write comments?

Are they generally specific to that particular essay or are they transferable to any essay, like 'good, a very good point'?

Do you take the length of the essay into account? Do you look for it to be of a certain length?

Do you then penalise essays that are shorter than the word limit or longer than the word limit?

Does their handwriting affect the way you mark their essay?

441

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