Early Predictors of Ability in a News Writing Course

In most college journalism programs, an introductory writing course is the foundation upon which more advanced skills are built. Such a course represents uncharted territory for many students and can prove challenging for students and instructors alike. A student's performance in such a course is critical for a two reasons - a student may choose a career path or major based on his or her performance in the introductory course; and students who struggle with the basic concepts in an introductory course are likely to have even greater difficulty with courses that follow. Such concerns take on greater weight when one considers the role college media writing courses play in preparing the next generation of professional journalists. It isn't a stretch to say the quality of profesional journalism tomorrow is in part being determined by the level of journalism instruction today. For these reasons, it's crucial to understand the factors that predict potential success in an introductory media writing course. Research in the area of academic performance identifies several possible factors that predict success. While it is difficult to analyze all of these factors, we sought to explore some of these variables and their relationship to academic performance in introductory journalism writing courses. We hoped to determine what factors led some students to be more likely to be successful throughout the semester based on first-day performance. This study focused on experiences and attitudes that might predict success. Common sense suggests exposure to news, previous experience in journalism, and GPA are factors that could be related to a student's initial success in a news writing course. Social learning theory (Bandura, 1971) asserts that as individuals are exposed to specific behavior, that behavior becomes easier to model. Therefore, students who read the newspaper frequently may be more capable of producing news stories than students who aren't exposed to as much news. Furthermore, logic suggests that students who had experience in high school journalism may be better prepared for the college journalism writing than students with no experience. For example, Dvorak (1990) found that students who had taken at least one high school journalism class said they were better prepared for college-level writing and journalism courses than those without that experience. In the Dvorak study, students were asked to report how well their experiences - i.e. prior English courses and prior journalism courses - prepared them in 29 competency areas. Dvorak found "journalism courses rate highest in fulfilling the 29 competencies" (p. 44). Because news writing is so different from many other writing styles, it seems logical that students who were exposed to journalism in some capacity in high school would be better prepared for college journalism classes. This assumption is one worth testing in research. The study of journalistic writing presents a unique situation for researchers because the writing style is so different from essay writing. Many beginning journalism students presume great success in news writing courses because of their previous high performance in composition classes. Olson and Dickson (1995) found that students in journalism writing courses reported their English composition courses did not adequately prepare them for the rigors of a news writing course, yet students only realized this after the journalism class was over. For example, Olson and Dickson report that only 17.5 percent of students surveyed felt freshman composition was "highly useful to journalistic writing," (p. 50), and just over 50 percent found freshman composition of little use. Furthermore, these same students indicated they received much better grammar and writing instruction in their journalism courses, yet many students only realized their deficiencies when journalism instructors pointed them out. While it's clear that previous experience in journalism should predict success in future writing courses, research in the last several decades has begun to focus on the psychological components of learning. …