SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Writing is a critical skill for success in school and beyond, but how do students feel about their writing? A new survey from NoRedInk, a provider of adaptive online writing curriculum, reveals that student writing confidence decreases with each successive grade level. The nationwide survey also uncovered several other findings that educators may find informative as they plan for the 2022-23 school year.
Leveraging its presence in over 60% of U.S. school districts, NoRedInk asked more than 60,000 of its student users in grades 4-12, “How confident are you in your writing skills?” It found that student writing confidence drops 5.03% from late elementary school (grades 4-5) to middle school (grades 6-8) and then drops another 4.74% from middle to high school (grades 9-12). As a result, the average fourth grader is nearly 13% more confident in their writing than the average high school senior.
Additionally, female students are 3.75% more confident in their writing than male students. While writing confidence doesn’t vary significantly based on a school’s per-pupil funding, students attending private schools are more confident than students attending public schools.
Unsurprisingly, practice has the greatest effect on writing confidence — and, by extension, on writing proficiency. “An essential part of becoming a great writer is having lots of opportunities to write,” said Jeff Scheur, founder and CEO of NoRedInk. “When students get sufficient practice and meaningful feedback, they begin to see what they’re capable of and to view themselves as writers.”
As an illustration of the power of practice, high schoolers who mastered “Revising Wordiness” on NoRedInk were, on average, 6.57% more confident in their writing than those who didn’t. Similarly, those who mastered “Recognizing Language That Is Too Formal or Too Informal” were 5.22% more confident than those who didn’t and those who mastered “Building Counterargument Paragraphs” were 5.14% more confident than those who didn’t.
Students who mastered multiple topics in tandem often reported confidence well above average, particularly when the topics covered complementary grammar and writing skills. NoRedInk found over 1,600 topic pairings for which mastery corresponded with confidence at least 10% above average. For example, students who mastered both “Providing Strong Context for Nonfiction Evidence” and “Dialogue and Flow Quotes” were 10.48% more confident than the average student.
“My students use NoRedInk to produce, evaluate, and improve their writing. Once they had the confidence that they could write clearly and accurately, they were no longer embarrassed or afraid of writing. They wanted to write, and NoRedInk was the springboard that allowed that to happen,” said Kirk Macnider, a former English teacher who is now assistant principal at Schaumburg High School outside of Chicago.
A summary of the survey findings, and a state-by-state breakdown of student writing confidence, can be found in this infographic.
About NoRedInk
NoRedInk helps students in over 60% of U.S. school districts become better writers. The company’s adaptive writing curriculum engages students with exercises based on their interests, guides them through the writing process with instructional support, and boosts their skills through targeted practice. Learners have completed over 10 billion exercises on the site. For more information, visit www.noredink.com.
