Publication Date

1966

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Mueller, Richard J., 1927-||Grubb, Donald R.

Degree Name

M.S. Ed. (Master of Education)

Legacy Department

School of Education

LCSH

English language--Composition and exercises; Transfer of training

Abstract

The problem considered was to determine the difference in freshman composition grades at Northern Illinois University for a group of Argo High School students who experienced journalism training and a comparable group who have not experienced journalism training. The basic sample is a group of eighty-two students who graduated from Argo Community High School during the period 1960-1966. Forty-Four students did not take the journalism course, but enrolled in a comparable college prep English course. Thirty-eight students had enrolled in a one semester journalism course that stressed form rather than internal structural or grammatical problems. Though much has been written concerning the area of transfer of training, there is little evidence to support the idea that students in the secondary schools transfer their writing skills to their college freshman composition courses. What literature is available seems to indicate a distinct correlation of awareness of structural relationships in journalistic and English patterns of writing and the ability in written composition. Data on each students success in English 103 and English 104, 104A at Northern Illinois University was collected. The relative high school ranking of each student was collected for visual inspection to determine whether or not both groups had any comparable ability. The significance of the difference of percentage between each group of students was determined using a t-test with eighty degrees of freedom for English 103 and seventy-nine degrees of freedom for English 10V. In this study it was found that there is a statistically significant difference between percentages in favor of the experimental group between each group of students who received grades of "Withdrawn," "F," or "d" in English 103 and English 10^ at the .05 level of significance. There is no statistically significant difference between percentages in favor of the experimental group between each group of students who received grades of "C," "B," "A," "104A," or "Exempt" at the .05 level of significance. This study does not assume that because the students had enrolled in a high school journalism class they did better in college composition courses, but there are indications that stressing form in writing patterns at the secondary level may help the freshman college student in his English course.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references.

Extent

36 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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