Writing in a Multimedia Environment: Pilot Outcomes for High School Students in Special Education

This study examined outcomes of using a generative multimedia environment for writing. Students in grades 9 to 12 enrolled in a special education language arts class participated in an eight-week intervention during which they wrote five stories that included pictures, audio, and text. Stories were scored using a Hawaii standards-based rubric assessment. Statistically significant differences were found when scores on the first and last stories were compared. Teams with lower pretest scores appeared to benefit the most from the intervention. A teacher interview revealed several affective outcomes in student writing behaviors, student engagement, and motivation.