But Can They Really Write? Assessing UW-Madison’s Comm A General Education Requirement

Summary:  This paper asks whether there is any evidence UW-Madison undergraduate students can write more accurate and effective prose since the introduction of a new two-semester required communication course sequence in 1996. That requirement was established in response to widespread faculty complaints about the inability of undergraduate students to write at the college level.  A 2007 study sought to assess how well students could write both before or after completing CommA, the first course in this sequence. It is not clear that either the responses to an on-line survey of students who took CommA or the high grades given in that course are adequate indicators of the ability of students to actually write at the college level. A new 2011 study finds some evidence that CommA helps students improve their writing. However, because of the limited size and scope of that study, it needs to be replicated to provide more solid evidence on the effect of CommA . This paper concludes with recommendations designed to strengthen the assessment of the CommA course and to enhance the ability of college students to write effectively in whatever major they pursue.
Prologue

“Thank you, a miracle has occurred,” [Chancellor David] Ward said after the unanimous vote for the general education requirements. The normally sedate Faculty Senate responded with a round of spontaneous applause.   .    .    . I will be very, very interested in making sure that what was intended by the [Bitzer] committee will be implemented.” So reported Madison’s Wisconsin State Journal on Tuesday, May 3, 1994.
The newly enacted general education requirements were implemented two years later. Of particular interest is the one-semester required composition course, CommA, established to enhance the ability of new undergraduate students to write at the level expected by UW-Madison faculty members. What we still don’t know almost two decades later is how well students can write and whether their writing is improved after completing the CommA course.
The story is an old one. The process of implementing the writing requirement was quickly “captured” by representatives from the English Department and the Communication Arts Department who dominated the Implementation Committee.[1] As a result, the English Department version of the CommA course proved to be an upgraded version of the “remedial” composition course, English 100, it previously offered to the roughly 10 percent of entering freshman with low scores on the English Placement Exam. The Communications Arts Department version of the CommA course ended up being what it had always been, namely a speech course. In short, the implementation process produced a set of CommA courses that differed substantially from what the Bitzer committee proposed and what the faculty approved.[2]
Most disturbing is the realization that almost two decades later we still know so little about the effectiveness of the new CommA course requirement. Indeed, little solid evidence is available showing the CommA requirement improves the quality of student writing. Providing instruction in CommA courses requires a continuing and substantial investment of scarce budgetary resources. The question that remains to be answered is quite simply: Can our students write better now than before the Faculty Senate voted to reform  the general education curriculum and require that students complete the CommA course?
Recent national data assessing liberal education outcomes offer an illuminating perspective on the ability of college students to write. The Educational Testing Service’s “Proficiency Profile” assesses the written responses of students at a wide variety of colleges and universities to prompts and structured essay assignment.[3] For freshman over the years 2006-11, only five percent were found to be “proficient” at Writing Level 3, with another 19 percent classified as “Marginal.” For college seniors over the years 2006-11, only nine percent were found to be proficient at Writing Level 3, with another 28 percent classified as “Marginal.” This means that 63 percent of college seniors were classified as “Not Proficient” even after benefiting from whatever instruction they received in written communication and the experience of writing papers in their college courses. Though comparable data are not available for UW-Madison, we would expect somewhat greater, but probably not much greater, percentages of UW-Madison seniors scoring at the “Proficient” level.
Introduction
Assessing student learning, the effectiveness of instruction, and course content coverage are important dimensions of growing concerns about accountability in higher education. Institutions are moving rapidly to develop and implement assessment programs, particularly for general education courses. Of particular concern is the ability of students to communicate effectively, most notably their ability to write. Many questions remain unanswered about how to conduct such assessments and how to use the results of these assessments. The fundamental question remains: how well do these assessments measure how well students are able to write both in their major and in their work and lives after graduation?[4]
This paper can be viewed as a case study of assessment efforts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It begins by reviewing a 2007 assessment of the one-semester, required “communications” course, CommA, instituted after a quarter century without any such requirement.[5] This assessment, conducted by the College of Letters and Science, which “oversees” the communications requirement as part of UW-Madison’s general education requirements, sought to determine “whether CommA courses provide students with opportunities and experiences they need to enhance their communication skills.” The study concluded that the several courses created to satisfy the requirement “yield student outcomes that fulfill fundamental general education objectives with respect to writing, communication, and information literacy skills.” It also concluded that the goal of “achieving general education proficiency objectives with respect to writing, speaking, and information-seeking skills” can best be realized by having several departments offer courses that fulfill the CommA requirement.
What the assessment study failed to determine is whether the ability of undergraduate students to write or, for that matter, speak, improved after completing the CommA course. It was the inability of undergraduate students to write effective prose that led the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) almost two decades ago to recommend a new two-course communications requirement.[6] The CUE viewed the CommA requirement as a traditional “composition” course to be completed in the first semester of the freshman year. It would emphasize the critical components of writing such as grammar, elements of style, the structure of essays, arguments and evidence, and research techniques, and above all, students would be given ample opportunities to write and receive feedback on their writing. The CommB course, to be completed after the CommA course, would be taught in small, faculty-directed courses that emphasized writing. The CUE’s recommendation, passed by a unanimous vote of the Faculty Senate in May 1994, took effect in 1996.[7]
This paper reexamines the CommA course assessment study. It does so against a backdrop of earlier faculty concerns that led the CUE to propose a first course that emphasized “basic composition and rhetoric” combined with an information literacy component. This paper begins by reviewing the evidence obtained from the CUE’s 1993 survey of UW-Madison faculty. That survey indicated the quality of student writing left much to be desired. It then reviews the methodology of the assessment study, its findings, the interpretation of its findings, and the conclusions drawn by its authors. The paper goes on to highlight a series of questions raised by the study’s results. In so doing, it touches on the more recent 2010 study that made a rigorous attempt to assess the impact of the CommA course. This paper ends by setting out its conclusions, a series of questions that call for research, a set of immediate recommendations that would strengthen campus efforts to enhance the quality of student writing and improve the assessment process, and several final observations.
On the Quality of Student Writing
The breadth and depth of the faculty’s concerns about composition/communication became clear in the results of a February 1993 survey of UW-Madison faculty members conducted by the CUE. The survey revealed that 94 percent of the respondents believed that composition courses should be a required part of the general education requirements. A surprising two thirds of the faculty respondents took time to elaborate their concerns in separate written comments.
The general tone of the faculty’s assessment is captured in the several comments reproduced below from more than twenty comments selected for inclusion in the CUE Report.
Writing skills are abysmal; plus, students have no idea that their writing is so poor; it seems we must require composition course work to help students write at the college level. They don’t even know the basics, such as (1) start with an introduction; (2) use subheadings; (3) make paragraphs–some students will have a 1-2 (even 3) full pages with no paragraphs; (4) learn how to express ideas clearly; (5) end with a summary-conclusion. [Kinesiology]
Students’ writing skills vary greatly, but many of the papers I receive reveal severe problems. These include fundamentals such as spelling, basic grammar, and syntax. Furthermore, some of the most poorly written papers come from students in their third and even fourth years. [Art History]
Over the past 23 years, I have increasingly found students to be less prepared to read, think carefully, and write about literature [and to have] very little formal training in logic. Student writing skills have declined because students have been urged to express themselves in K-12, not to learn how to think critically or write carefully. If the schools do not take this to be their responsibility any longer, we must do what we can to change their thinking by setting minimum entrance standards and by emphasizing these basic skills in our requirements. [English]
I think the vast majority of our students cannot write at an acceptable level—even students who have high grade point averages. I think this is appalling! I think we should start teaching them how to write immediately. I do what I can in upper level psychology courses, but there is a limit to what I can do because I also have to teach content. The English Department should teach composition. [Psychology]
The CUE Report concluded, “Most [faculty members] lamented the inability of students to write more effectively, and some offered solutions. What emerged was the strong conviction of most faculty members that nearly all students require systematic instruction in writing. Based in considerable part on the survey results, the CUE recommended the following “Communication” requirement. “Each student must satisfy the requirement by completing a two-course sequence (6 credits) in basic composition and rhetoric [emphasis added] involving principles of effective exposition and argumentation, critical reading and listening, and information literacy; or by placing into and completing a one-semester accelerated course (3 credits); or, for exceptionally well prepared entering students, on the basis of examinations.” (CUE Report, p. 27).
In response to campus-wide hearings, the CUE, under pressure from the departments of English and Communication Arts, and particularly the Chancellor’s budget office, felt compelled to modify its proposed 3-6 credit Communication requirement to include a first-year course (Part A) “providing instruction and practice in the modes of literacy.[8] Courses shall be dedicated to literacy proficiency—accurate and critical writing, speaking, reading, and listening, with primary emphasis on writing,” [emphasis added] and a second course (Part B) “designed to enhance their [student] literacy proficiency,” as determined by the school/college.” CommA courses would be taught by departments with some expertise in communication, among them English, Communication Arts, Life Science Communication (previously known as Ag Journalism), and Engineering Professional Development.[9] CommB courses would be taught by departments in the various academic disciplines and would introduce students to writing in the disciplines. While joining in approving these requirements, CUE members lamented the downgraded emphasis on “basic composition and rhetoric.”
Comm A Courses
The criteria for approving CommA courses were agreed upon in November 1994 by an Implementation Committee appointed by the Dean of the College of Letters and Science. The CommA courses were designed to advance “basic skills in the four modes of literacy: writing, speaking, reading & listening, with special emphasis on writing; critical thinking, and information-seeking skills and strategies.” CommA courses evolved as these departments gained experience teaching these courses. Of the approximately 5.400 entering freshmen in Fall 2006, approximately 2,200 or 40 percent of the incoming freshmen were exempted from the CommA requirement. To spread the teaching load more evenly over the academic year, approximately half the students must take Comm A in the fall semester and the other half in the spring semester.
The program objectives of the new English 100 course, which is taken by almost 50 percent of the entering freshmen required to take a CommA course, are listed in the department’s web page as follows:
—to teach students how to write clear and coherent papers;
—to engage students in critical analysis of writing; and
—to develop thorough research techniques.
These objectives are to be realized by
—frequent assignments in writing and speaking totaling 25-30 pages of clear, revised prose;
—at least one researched essay;
—several prepared oral presentations, including one researched speech; and
—completion of the information component developed in conjunction with the campus library user education program.
The Communication Arts 100 course, which enrolls about a third of the entering freshmen who are required to take a CommA course, is designed, according to the department’s website, to:
—focus on the skills involved in selecting, researching, organizing and writing persuasive messages,
—help students learn to communicate their ideas effectively using verbal, written, and visual skills,
—emphasize important listening skills, and peer evaluations are important components of the course,
—call on students to undertake self-evaluations, by viewing video tapes of their own speeches and analyzing their performance.
The Engineering Professional Development’s Basic Communication 155 course seeks to help students
—read critically and analyze writing to locate the thesis, the pattern of organization, and
the strengths and weaknesses of the writing;
—plan, develop, and revise essays, suitable for a university setting, that present and defend a clear, precise thesis using effective organization and logic, appeals, evidence, a variety of sources, and appropriate documentation and that demonstrate a mastery of elements of grammar, usage, and style;
—analyze the context of different communications situations and audience needs, interests, and values in order to adapt writing and speaking more effectively for their intended audiences;
—speak with more confidence in front of peers in an organized manner and participate effectively in class discussions; and
—collaborate with fellow students to develop effective essays and presentations through group work and the peer review process.
The Life Sciences Communication’s Introduction to its Communication 100 course, as it is now numbered, has no similar statement of objectives ,but based on my reading of one syllabus, the course appears to be most similar in content and emphasis to the Engineering Professional Development course.
Instruction in these courses differs. Class sections in both the English and Communication Arts courses are taught by graduate student Teaching Assistants who work under the direction of a tenured professor in their department. The Engineering Professional Development and Life Science courses, by contrast, are taught by experienced academic staff members most of whom hold PhDs and have extensive experience in the teaching of writing. Both the Engineering Professional Development and Life Science courses give greater focus to basic composition and rhetoric, in line with the CUE recommendations.
CommA Assessment Study
The central conclusion of the CommA assessment is “that students taking these courses report greater improvement in their communication skills as a result of their educational experiences than do comparable freshmen who did not satisfy the requirement.” Students who completed the CommA courses also reported gains in fourteen specific skills addressed by these courses.
How was the assessment study conducted? Its results are based on a on-line survey of new UW-Madison freshmen conducted at the end of their first semester in residence. Students who had and had not completed one of the CommA courses in fall 2006-07 were administered a survey to ascertain their self-reported gains in the communication skills targeted in these courses. In that survey students were asked to think about the courses they took during the fall semester and then asked “How much did any of these courses teach you to do each of the following:” [Note: the underlining appeared in the survey questionnaire]
The survey questionnaire listed fourteen “Selected Dimensions of Communication Skills” (hereafter referred to as “activities”) that were thought to “measure the communication content of their courses and the skill students putatively gained from these courses during the fall semester.” For each of these activities students were instructed to respond on a 4-point scale, with a 1 indicating “not at all” to a 4 indicating “a lot.” The list of activities follows:
1. Deliver a speech or oral presentation?
2. Retrieve and analyze information from library databases?
3. Select and focus topics for a paper or speech/presentation?
4. Recognize logically sound arguments?
5. Use language clearly and appropriately?
6. Support ideas in a paper or speech/presentation?
7. Produce papers or speeches/presentations for a specific audience?
8. Judge the credibility and soundness of evidence?
9. Organize ideas for a paper or speech/presentation?
10. Improve your grammar, punctuation, and style?
11. Cite sources and avoid plagiarism?
12. Use library databases to locate research materials specific to the topic of a paper or speech/presentation?
13. Write and revise drafts of a paper or speech/presentation?
14. Critique speeches/presentations or papers?
To ascertain the effect of CommA courses, responses from the sample of freshman enrolled in CommA courses during the fall semester were compared to responses from a sample of freshman not enrolled in CommA courses during that same fall semester.
The results indicate that all students reported gains in communication skills but those who completed CommA courses “were almost three times as likely to report their communication skills grew by ‘a fair amount’ or ‘a lot.’” The largest and most consistent differences between students who did and did not take CommA courses show up in two of the three activities that describe information literacy, i.e., “using library databases to locate research materials specific to the topic of a paper or speech/presentation,” and “retrieve and analyze information from library databases.” This means that the other courses new freshmen took gave little or no emphasis to these activities, in part perhaps because the CommA course was known to include a information literacy component.
The finding that CommA courses offered by the several departments differed in their emphasis on the fourteen activities is not surprising. Of most interest is the finding that the emphasis in CommA courses taught in English and Communication Arts differed considerably. Students who took the Communication Arts department course, as contrasted to the English department course, were far more likely to “deliver a speech or oral presentation” and “produce papers or speeches/presentations for a specific audience.” The results for the activity “write and revise drafts of papers or speech/presentations” were exactly the opposite, receiving far more attention in the English course than in the Communication Arts course.
In short, the report concluded that CommA courses succeeded in achieving their goals. It claims that the several courses created to satisfy the requirement “yield student outcomes that fulfill fundamental general education objectives with respect to writing, communication, and information literacy skills.” The authors report that their findings are “robust and general,” hold for “virtually all of the salient dimensions of communication skills targeted by the CommA requirement,” and they apply in “roughly equal measure for all five CommA courses.”
The authors also conclude that “the decentralized mode of implementation . . . is a highly effective means of achieving general education proficiency objectives with respect to writing, speaking, and information-seeking skills.” Taken as a whole, these findings can be viewed as confirming the wisdom of the UW-Madison Faculty Senate’s action back in 1994 in unanimously approving a new set of general education requirements that included a 3-6 credit “Communication” requirement.
Assessment Study Methodology
Considerable caution is required in accepting the findings and conclusions from this assessment. Students exposed to any body of material, in this case those taking the CommA course in the fall semester, were far more likely to report benefitting from that exposure than students who did not have that same exposure, namely, students who were not taking a CommA course. Suppose that students exempted from the CommA requirement based on their English Placement Test scores but enrolled in CommB courses were administered this same on-line survey. It seems quite unlikely these students would report the same level of exposure to the material taught in CommA courses. The reason is clear. Faculty members in the various disciplines teaching CommB courses would be focusing much more heavily on subject matter content rather than on CommA content. On the other hand, students taking CommB courses would be more likely to be exposed to the fourteen activities than students who have not yet been able to enroll in their CommA courses until the spring semester of their freshman year.
What if these students enrolled in CommB courses had been asked about their exposure to these 14 activities prior to attending college through a question that might read as follows: “How much did your courses in high school and particularly your English courses teach you to do each of the following fourteen activities at a level you believe is required in college?” It seems quite unlikely their responses would embrace the full range of the activities emphasized in CommA courses. If this were the case, it raises questions about using the English Placement Test as a basis for exempting students from the CommA requirement.
The English Placement Test taken before students enroll as new freshmen is apparently viewed as a representation of the content taught in CommA courses. But, how good a representation is it? The EPT, which determines whether entering freshmen are exempt from the CommA requirement, has a quite different focus. The test’s three sections deal with Usage, Sentence Correction, and Reading Comprehension. The questions in all three sections give test takers an opportunity to decide which of the various possible responses is correct. An inspection of the questions indicates there is no obvious overlap between the EPT and the 14 activities emphasized in CommA courses.[10]  This means that students exempted from the CommA course are deficient in their lack of exposure to the activities emphasized in the CommA course. Yet the EPT is described as “valid and reliable in identifying students who need developmental instruction and those capable of doing honors work, or being exempted from one or more of the freshman composition courses.” Unfortunately, no evidence can be found that supports these claims for the EPT.[11]
Some light on this question comes from an earlier assessment of the CommB course.[12] Its authors reported that “students who completed CommA tend to perform better on basic writing criteria than students who were exempted from CommA via English Placement Test scores.” This finding is not at all surprising in view of the content of the EPT. It led the authors to suggest that exemptions to the CommA requirement be eliminated, and that all students be required to complete the CommA course. (p. 45)  Unfortunately, the authors of the CommB assessment study failed to document the strength of the effect that is hidden behind the phrase “tend to perform better on basic writing criteria.” How much better? Nor does that study make explicit the meaning of “writing criteria.” Presumably this term refers to the criteria used in the CommB assessment study to evaluate papers written by students in CommB courses.
Interpreting the Results
How do the authors interpret their results? Readers of the assessment study are likely to be confused by two different sets of statements. The first set asserts quite forcefully the impact of CommA courses on student learning. For example, at various points in the study, the results are discussed in terms of what they demonstrate about
“gains in communication proficiency” (p. 3 and 9),
“differences in student learning outcomes” (p. 4),
“the communication scale implicitly taps growth in skills by asking students to gauge ‘how much’ they learned” (p. 11),
“students who satisfied the requirement report significantly greater gains in learning” (p. 14).
But the second set of comments, though fewer in number, is more cautious:
“gains in communication proficiency may be viewed as valid, if indirect, indicators of actual student learning outcomes” (p. 3), [emphasis added] and
“students who complete the specified CommA course experience far greater exposure than their non-CommA peers to the kind of substantive content that would be expected to yield gains in writing, speaking, and information-seeking skills.” (p. 12) [emphasis added].
These two sets of comments indicate some ambivalence about the results of the CommA assessment study. Yes, student responses indicated that CommA courses taught what they were designed to teach. But whether that meant students could write more effectively remains unanswered.
One obvious way of determining whether CommA courses focus on the “selected dimensions of communication skill”—meaning the courses are doing their intended job—can be determined by inspecting the course syllabi, their statements of course goals and expectations, their schedules of assignments for class meetings, and required readings in the course; hence, there is no need for a survey such as that used in the CommA assessment. The survey responses from students simply confirm what should have already been apparent from an examination of the course syllabi.
Whether these courses taught students “to do”or “to perform” these various activities or merely exposed  them to these activities is less clear.  Perhaps a better way of phrasing the question would have asked students to indicate how well they learned to do the various activities. Faculty members know all too well the disparity between what they teach, what students learn, and what students say they can do with what they learned.
In short, the CommA assessment study goes too far in assuming that what students said they were taught to do is the same as what students could demonstrate about their ability to do what they were taught. Thus, we are left with the question: did students emerge from their CommA courses as better writers than when they entered these courses? It is doubtful that any student survey could provide a definitive answer to that question.
As noted at the beginning of this paper, a strong motivation for reestablishment of a two-semester communication requirement came from faculty members who expressed their disappointment at the inability of students to write effectively in their class work. Faculty members teaching undergraduate courses, particularly for first-year freshmen, are not particularly concerned about the “selected dimensions of communication skill.” They want students in their classes to know how to write and to write well. Though exposure to the “selected dimensions of communication skills” might help students become better writers, that proposition was not tested in this study.
Course Grades
The CommA assessment study says nothing about the usefulness of courses grades as a  measure of effectiveness for CommA courses or the ability of students to write effective prose. This leads to the question: How well did students perform in CommA classes?  Grade statistics obtained from the Registrar’s Office tell a confusing story. Grade statistics for CommA courses in Fall 2006-07 show average grades of
3.52 in English 100,
3.46 in Life Sciences Communication 120 (since renumbered as 100),
3.36 in Engineering Professional Development 155, and
3.31 in Communication Arts 100.
The official grade statistics indicate wide variations in the average grades in the sections of English 100 and Communication Arts 100. It seems doubtful that these variations reflect differences in student performance; more likely, they reflect differences in grading standards applied by course instructors.[13]
Meanwhile, the average GPA for all freshmen was 3.11. What this suggests is that all four of these required CommA courses, established because of faculty concern about the poor quality of student writing, on average boosted the GPA of those students who took these courses. It also suggests that if students can perform in these courses as well as these grades indicate, perhaps there was no need for them to take the CommA courses. What we do not know is how the papers students wrote in the CommA courses would be graded by faculty members rather than the teaching assistants who conduct the small group classes. The ultimate test of the effectiveness of the communications requirement is the scoring of student writing by faculty members.
Conclusions
—The Comm A assessment study fails to provide convincing evidence that CommA courses improve the quality of student writing. The study’s conclusions about the success of the CommA requirement in measuring how well students write are not supported by the data and analysis.
—The goals and structure of CommA courses, as well as the CommA assessment survey, were not aligned with the faculty’s concerns about the weak writing skills of students.
—The grading standards employed in CommA courses are at odds with the grading standards employed in other courses taken by first-year students. Either these CommA courses are amazingly successful in enhancing student writing skills or, as I suspect, the grading standards employed in CommA courses do not reflect accurately the faculty’s assessment of the ability of students to write college-level prose.
Lingering Questions[14]
On the CommA Requirement: To what extent do higher scores on the Communication Scale used in the CommA assessment study correlate with effective student writing? How can the faculty be assured that students after taking CommA courses can with some facility write both short and long papers and also answer essay-type examination questions, not only in their first year in college but also in courses they take later in their major?
On Evaluating Student Writing: Do the standards used in evaluating papers written in CommA courses correspond in any way to the standards used by faculty members in evaluating student writing in the courses they teach? How would a group of faculty readers evaluate the papers written by students in CommA courses? How would CommA teaching assistant instructors judge the papers written by students in faculty-taught courses?
On Grading in Comm A Courses: Is there any standard procedure for determining how students enrolled in the CommA courses are graded?  What accounts for the high grades given to students in the CommA courses? Are the grades based on the quality of writing as might be judged by faculty members? Or do the grades reflect the prevailing grading standards in those departments that offer CommA courses? In the case of the English and Communication Arts courses, are graduate student instructors imposing on their students the same standard used by faculty members in grading graduate students who receive mostly A and B grades in their graduate-level courses? A further question arises because of the wide variance in average grades given to students in the different sections of these courses: what accounts for these wide variations?
On the English Placement Test: :: Does exemption from CommA through a high English Placement Test score signify that students will be effective writers in their college courses?  Can a multiple-choice type test such as the EPT accurately assess the ability of students to write effective college-level prose? On what basis does an EPT score above a certain level mean that students should be exempted from the CommA requirement? Should students who score poorly on the EPT be required to complete a pre-100 remedial, non-credit course? What studies demonstrate the relationship between EPT scores and the scores on freshman writing samples? If these questions cannot be answered, how can a proper determination be made about which entering freshman students should be exempt from the CommA requirement?
On Using the SAT and ACT Writing Tests: How effective are these tests, the scores of which must be submitted when applying for admission, in measuring the ability of students to write at the college level? If they are effective, should they not be substituted for the English Placement Test in determining who must take CommA courses?
On the Recent Increase in English Placement Test Scores: To what extent does the rise in
English Placement Test (EPT) scores from 1994-95 to 2007-08 indicate that entering freshmen can write more effective prose than before adoption of the CommA requirement?[15] If the EPT is indicative of the ability to write, does the rise in EPT scores mean that fewer entering students should be required to take the CommA course than might have been projected earlier?
On Concerns about Racial Disparities in Introductory Course Grades: Would it not have been useful in designing the CommA assessment to examine differences in the responses between targeted minority students and non-targeted students? If differences emerged, might they have helped explain the gap in introductory courses grades identified in a subsequent College of Letters and Science study, Grade Gap/Future Gap: Addressing Racial Disparities in L&S Introductory Courses, Report of the Equity and Diversity Committee of the College of Letters and Science to Dean Gary Sandefur and the College Community (May 2010)?
On Ethical Issues: To what extent do the grades in CommA courses give students informed and accurate assessments of their ability to write in the other college courses they will take? To what extent do CommA grades give the faculty an accurate assessment of the quality of student writing and the wisdom of its general education requirements? To what extent do CommA grades give parents and the general public assurance that UW-Madison students receive the quality education they deserve, including an ability to express themselves effectively in writing?
Immediate Recommendation
1. CommA courses should be graded on a Pass-Fail basis. In the absence of independent evidence that students completing CommA courses can write effective prose, students should not be able to raise their overall GPA as a result of taking courses of unknown quality that employ such generous grading standards. Nor should students in the absence of actually demonstrating the quality of their writing be given a misleading signal by their high grades that they have strong writing skills. This change should be implemented immediately.
2. All students should be required to complete the CommA requirement.[16] There appears to be no solid evidence the high English Placement Test scores that currently exempt some freshmen from the CommA requirement indicate that these students have been exposed to the activities of CommA courses or that they can write effective prose. This change should be implemented as soon as possible.
3. Students who have already demonstrated their ability to write at the college level should be exempted from the CommA course only if they have performed at the college level in Advanced Placement Language courses with scores of 3, 4, or 5, received college level scores on the International Baccalaureate, scored 680 or above on the SAT II Writing Test, or scored 30 or above on the ACT English Test . This change needs to be implemented as soon as possible after student applicants are given notice of this change.
4. Students completing CommA courses should be required to take an exit examination that assesses their ability to write. This would be done during the scheduled final exam period by having them write an essay to demonstrate their ability to write. To ensure that student essays are evaluated from a faculty perspective rather than that of CommA graduate instructors, the assessment of these essays would be overseen by faculty members from departments other than those offering CommA courses. This change should be undertaken as soon as possible.
5. The faculty should be surveyed once again to ascertain their views about the effectiveness of student writing. If the survey results show that faculty members continue to be concerned about the weak writing skills of their students, the Committee on Undergraduate Education should reexamine the effectiveness of CommA courses in improving student’s writing skills and assessing how well students completing CommA courses can actually write. If necessary, the Committee should recommend changes in the goals and structure of these courses. This survey of faculty attitudes about the quality of student writing should be implemented as soon as possible.
6. Answers to the “lingering questions” above should be sought through an intensive research effort. This effort should be directed by a special faculty committee none of whose members are affiliated with the departments that currently offer CommA courses.
Final Observations
The assessment studies of the Communications Requirement—the CommA and CommB courses—conducted as part of the on-going assessment of the General Education Requirements adopted by the Faculty Senate in 1994, fail to indicate whether these courses are helping students improve their writing skills and their ability to write. In the earlier assessment of the CommB requirement, the College of Letters and Science’s “wide-ranging and deep study of student outcomes associated with the Communication B requirement .  .  . was limited to students who had taken courses certified as satisfying the requirement.” The assessment study of the CommA course discussed here fails to provide convincing evidence that students who took the CommA course became better writers than those who had not yet taken the CommA course.
A more detailed and systematic effort to identify and assess the effects of the CommA course is reported in new December 2011 study that is motivated by a series of research questions about the requirement and its effectiveness.[17] This assessment is based on two writing samples written by students in the same course, one from early in the semester and another from later in the semester, with the samples scored by multiple readers using a standard rubric. The results of the study are summarized as follows: “The findings were mixed and limited by the nature of the study. However, overall the findings suggest that efforts to identify students who are exempted from Communication A are working and that the Communications A course requirement has a positive effect on student learning with respect to improve writing literacy.”[18] As the authors admit, the results must be interpreted cautiously because the number of students in the assessment was quite small, the assignments they responded to sometimes differed, and the timing of the writing samples varied. However, the holistic scores for students exempted from the requirement were significantly better than those for students who had not yet completed the requirement; scores on the UW Placement Exam were more highly associated with beginning writing scores (the first early-semester essay) than Advanced Placement scores; and a high correlation showed up between scores on the UW Placement Exam and the ACT-ENGL exam. The study’s authors hope the methodology they used will aid in developing a larger and more effective assessment of the CommA course.
The sad fact remains that almost twenty years after faculty members overwhelmingly expressed concern about the inability of their students to write effectively and later voted to re-institute a two-semester sequence of freshman writing courses, and almost fifteen years after the College of Letters and Science implemented the new Communications requirement, we have very little reliable evidence that CommA courses help improve student writing skills. Nor do we have any evidence that students are any better equipped now than before the curriculum reform took effect to satisfy the writing demands of faculty members in the intermediate and advanced courses student they take on the way to completing their undergraduate degrees.

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About the author: The author is professor emeritus of economics, UW-Madison. He served in 1992-94 as a member of the Committee on Undergraduate Education and headed its Subcommittee on Student Writing Skills.  In 1974-76 he served as a member of the Committee on Undergraduate Education and headed its Task Group on Student Writing and Speaking and prepared the report Improving the Writing Skills of Undergraduate Students (April 1976). He subsequently served as a member of the Chancellor’s Special Committee on Student Writing (1977). From 1993-1997 he served on the Educational Testing Service’s Committee on the GRE Writing Measure. He regularly taught Writing Intensive Courses in economics and participated in workshops for faculty members scheduled to teach Writing Intensive Courses for the first time. He has also written extensively on the importance of writing as a way of enhancing student learning in economics.
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The author acknowledges the helpful comments of senior author James A. Wollack.

Endnotes