Improvement of writing skills during college: A multi-year cross-sectional and longitudinal study of undergraduate writing performance

We examined persuasive and expository writing samples collected from more than 300 college students as part of a nine-year cross-sectional and longitudinal study of undergraduate writing performance, conducted between 2000 and 2008. Using newly developed scoring rubrics, longitudinal analyses of writing scores revealed statistically significant growth in writing performance over time. These findings held for both persuasive and expository...