A Research published by Cambridge Assessment shows how 16-year-old students’ writing in exams has changed since 1980.
Aspects of Writing has been published by Cambridge Assessment approximately every 10 years, initially using a sample from 1980. This latest phase of the study focuses on writing samples from 2014. Key findings include:
- The percentage of spelling errors at the lowest level of achievement is higher in 2014 than in most years. The incidence of spelling errors has changed very little among the mid- and higher-achieving students.
- There is some evidence that use of “other” punctuation marks such as semi-colons has increased among higher-achieving students but decreased sharply among the lowest-achieving students.
- There is a cautious indication of a general improvement in the use of commas.
- There is an increase in the use of simple sentences among higher-achieving students. The researchers observe that these students tended to use simple sentences for literary effect.
- Students of all abilities are using less-complex sentence structures.
- Students at most levels of achievement are using more paragraphs than their predecessors.
- There was almost no evidence of candidates using “text-speak “abbreviations in their work.
It recommended future studies in this topic to focus on social media, non-standard English, informal language, as well as spelling and gender.