Examines first-generation students’ perceptions of their academic literacy skills and their performance and persistence in college. Indicates that first generation students’ self-perceptions represent critical factors in the college experience, underscoring the importance of helping students forge identities as members of academic communities.

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This study explores the assumption that writing is a way to learn by examining the influence of task interpretation on writing and studying as learning aids. Forty college freshmen performed two tasks: reading-to-write and reading-to-study. Approaches to each task were categorized to test for effects of task interpretation. Students answered passage-specific comprehension questions after each task and gave think-aloud protocols as they worked. To assess learning processes, protocol transcripts were analyzed using a taxonomy of cognitive operations. Writing led to lower scores than studying on two of four comprehension measures. Writing and studying led to different patterns of cognitive operations when students worked with a fact-based source passage, but (a) these differences interacted with task interpretation, and (b) virtually no effects of task were observed on a more abstract passage. Results indicate that task interpretation and the nature of the material to be learned are important mediating variables in the relationship between writing and learning.