The effects of explicit timing on middle‐school students' writing production across 5‐ and 15‐min sessions. Issue 9 (30th August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ignacio, Peter L.; McCurdy, Merilee; White, Jada; Auge, Madeline B.; Skinner, Christopher H.; Schwartz‐Micheaux, Janet
• Is Part Of: Psychology in the schools. Volume 56:Issue 9(2019)
• Page Start: 1482
• Page End: 1492
• Publication Date: 2019-08-30
• Subjects: explicit timing -- writing performance; Educational psychology -- Periodicals; Psychopédagogie -- Périodiques; 370.15
• DOI: 10.1002/pits.22286
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0033-3085

Abstract

Abstract: Enhancing rates of accurate, active, academic responding can enhance learning. Both temporal manipulations (i.e., reducing time to work on assignments) and providing multiple distributed temporal cues (MDTC), sometimes referred to as explicit timing, have been shown to enhance rates of accurate mathematics responding. The current study was designed to evaluate the effects of session length (i.e., 5 vs. 15 min to write) and temporal cues (i.e., a single initial temporal cue vs. MDTC) on seventh‐ and eighth‐grade students writing assignment rates and writing accuracy. Results showed that the 5 min writing sessions did result in significantly greater rates of accurate responding than the 15 min sessions; however, explicit timing did not significantly alter writing rates or accuracy. These findings suggest that educators can enhance rates of accurate writing by reducing writing session lengths. Discussion focuses on applied implications of providing briefer writing sessions and future research investigating the interaction between multiple temporal cues and assignments.