In keyboard writing, typing skills are considered an important prerequisite of proficient text production. We describe the design, implementation, and application of a standardized copy-typing task in order to measure and assess individual typing fluency. A test-retest analysis indicates the instrument’s reliability. While the task has been developed across eleven different languages and the related keyboard layouts, we here refer to a corpus of Dutch copy tasks (n = 1682). Analyses show that copying speed non-linearly varies with age. Bayesian analyses reveal differences in the typing performance and the underlying distributions of inter-key intervals between the different task components (e.g., lexical vs. non-lexical materials; high-frequent vs. lowfrequent bigrams). Based on these findings it is strongly recommended to include copy-task measures in the analysis of keystroke logging data in writing studies. This supports a better comparability and interpretability of keystroke data from more complex or communicatively-embedded writing tasks across individuals. Further potential applications of the copy task for writing research are explained and discussed.

This paper gives an analytic description of why and how an instructional writing program on the improvement of cross-genre writing skills in German secondary grade level has been designed and implemented. From a diagnostic research phase, and according to theoretical expectations, coherence management and perspective taking proved to be ability components that substantially contribute to text quality across different genres. To train these two abilities in a didactical setting, two 11-unit writing courses were analogously constructed and administered in 5th and 9th grades. There were 12 intervention classes and 12 control classes in each grade, forming 48 classes with 1.145 participants. The decisions that lead to the design of the intervention study and the corresponding didactical settings are explained and justified in detail, and the developed self-learning materials are described in terms of their assumed learning potentials and the underlying didactical principles. Based on the obtained empirical experiences, the intervention is critically evaluated with respect to good intervention research and its proper description.

This paper gives an analytic description of why and how an instructional writing program on the improvement of cross-genre writing skills in German secondary grade level has been designed and implemented. From a diagnostic research phase, and according to theoretical expectations, coherence management and perspective taking proved to be ability components that substantially contribute to text quality across different genres. To train these two abilities in a didactical setting, two 11-unit writing courses were analogously constructed and administered in 5th and 9th grades. There were 12 intervention classes and 12 control classes in each grade, forming 48 classes with 1.145 participants. The decisions that lead to the design of the intervention study and the corresponding didactical settings are explained and justified in detail, and the developed self-learning materials are described in terms of their assumed learning potentials and the underlying didactical principles. Based on the obtained empirical experiences, the intervention is critically evaluated with respect to good intervention research and its proper description.