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 writing. Although writing performance was better among women than men, and better among students majoring in the humanities and social sciences than in natural sciences and engineering, neither women nor humanities and social science majors showed differential improvement over time from freshman to senior year. Our findings showed reliable increases in writing performance during a student's college years, and moreover demonstrated that such longitudinal changes can be effectively measured. We call for more such outcome assessment in higher education as an essential tool to enhance student learning.