Research Matters

performance in different elements of English, not just writing.Whilst the study has its limitations,
it presents what we believe to be a reasonable comparison of the same features of writing from
students who are writing under the same conditions – in a high-stakes examination under
invigilation, and aware that their work will be judged on its technical features of writing.
With the above in mind, the studies have always sought to keep the reported statistics simple,
abjured the use of significance statistics (for multiple reasons listed in Massey, Elliott & Johnson
2005, p.23) and presented the data with relatively little theorising about the reasons for change,
thus allowing the reader to make of it what they will.
The Aspects of Writing reports
There are several publications which detail the entire history of this study. Massey and Elliott
(1996) contains the original comparisons between 1980, 1993 and 1994, using a single sentence
methodology. Massey et al. (2005) extended the same method to a further set of sentence samples
from 2004.
In 2007, sponsored by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), a revised method
was developed, and conducted on a 2007 sample and on the original 2004 scripts.These were then
resampled in accordance with the 2007 method.This process was reported in Elliott, Green, Curcin,
and Ireland (2008), Green, Elliott, and Black, (2007), and Green, Elliott, and Gill (2007), as well as
being disseminated at conferences at the time.
The current report extends the study to 2014, but does not repeat the exemplar materials or
discussions pertaining to the 1980–2006 single sentence sample and method, as these can be
readily accessed in Massey et al. (2005), which is available as a previous Special Issue of Research
Matters.Where pertinent, data has been drawn from the 1980, 1993 and 1994 studies for
comparison. Readers wishing to consider the background information about these samples should
refer to the previous report.
Some details of the revised 100-word and whole-text analysis method analyses conducted on
the 2007 scripts and the resampled 100-word sample from 2004 are included in this report,
including exemplars of the 100-word sample for each of those years.This is because it is our
intention to provide sufficient information between this report and the 2005 report for the
majority of readers to gain a full picture of the whole series of studies undertaken.
It is important to remember that two sets of data exist for 2004 – the data analysed via the original
single sentence method (reported in 2005), and the data analysed by the revised 100-word analysis
and whole-text analysis (reported in 2008).
Literature review
The ability to write is fundamental for achieving success in numerous aspects of life, facilitating
educational, professional and social progress.Therefore, it is important that children develop
proficient writing skills through their primary and secondary education.
One way to assess changes in writing ability is by administering tests and comparing the grades
that students achieve within and across years. National tests have shown increases in English test
4 | RESEARCH MATTERS – SPECIAL ISSUE 4: Aspects of Writing 1980–2014