Single-Subject Writing Strategy Instruction: A Meta-Analysis
Abstract
This meta-analysis reports on single-subject design (SSD) writing strategy instruction research conducted in the 15 years since Rogers and Graham's (2008) meta-analysis on SSD writing instruction. The analysis reviewed 36 studies and aimed to answer four questions: 1) Are writing strategy interventions tested using single-subject methodology effective with students in Grades 1 to 8? (2) Is writing strategy instruction more effective for some grades than others? (3) Is writing strategy instruction more beneficial for specific samples of students? (4) Do studies deemed higher quality based on What Works Clearinghouse (2022) (WWC) indicators have more or less overlap than those deemed lower quality? Results showed that students benefited from writing strategy instruction, making significant gains in holistic text quality, number of genre elements and word count. When comparing the effectiveness across grade levels, writing strategy instruction was highly effective in improving holistic text quality of students in grades 5-8 and moderately effective for students in grades 1-4. When exploring the effectiveness with various student samples, writing strategy instruction was highly effective in improving holistic text quality for emotional behavioural disorders/suspected emotional behavioural disorders and autism spectrum disorder groups but moderately effective for the learning disabilities/struggling writers' group. Visual analysis results revealed low to moderate study validity. Although study quality was poor to acceptable and should be improved, the effectiveness of writing strategy instruction did not differ significantly between low and higher quality studies.