Article

A framework for identifying early writing development

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Abstract

In this article, we present a novel framework for identifying young students’ writing development in the first years of primary school (age 6–8 years). It was developed to analyse a large number of student texts (n = 803), all in the format of digitised books, as part of the large-scale Danish research project titled Teaching Platform for Developing and Automatically Tracking Early Stage Literacy Skills (ATEL, 2018–2023). In this project, based on a text-oriented model of writing, we aim to gain insights into less considered dimensions of emergent writing. Specifically, we consider how young students construct sentences and expand their meaning-making repertoires in this regard, as well as how they tie a whole text together and begin to express interpersonal meaning. In developing the framework, we took inspiration from both formal and functional linguistic approaches to young students’ writing development and constructed a comprehensive framework to examine the first steps into ways of communicating through writing in school. Furthermore, through a theory-and data-driven process, we developed the framework to suit emergent writing in the educational and language context in Denmark. In addition to presenting the framework in this article, we discuss its limitations and potentials for research and practice.

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... We focus on early-stage writing in Danish, whereas the general literature on automated essay scoring (AES) is dominated by English (Beigman Klebanov & Madnani, 2020, Ramesh & Sanampudi, 2022 and typically targets essays written by older students. To achieve the objective, we propose to automate the recent theoretical framework for characterizing early-stage writing by Kabel et al. (2022). The framework consists of three dimensions (text construction, sentence construction, and use of modifiers), where each dimension can be associated with a numerical proficiency scale and relies on the identification of a rich set of linguistic features. ...
... In this work, we study the feasibility of using machine learning and natural language processing methods for assessing writing proficiency in Danish with respect to text construction, sentence construction, and use of modifiers. Our work is based on the analytical framework for scoring early writing proposed by Kabel et al. (2022), where each text is first annotated by a human expert according to a predefined coding scheme and subsequently scored using statistical Rasch modeling (Rasch, 1960). We investigate two different strategies for estimating these scores automatically: 1) we propose a system for identifying the central linguistic features automatically mimicking the role of the human experts and 2) we train state-of-the-art discriminative machine learning models to predict the proficiency scores directly from the texts. ...
... 1) How reliably can we identify the individual linguistic features of the scoring framework? 2) How accurately can the scoring framework by Kabel et al. (2022) be automated using machine learning? 3) Can the scoring accuracy be improved by omitting the need for explicit feature representation using purely discriminative machine learning models? ...
... I kontrast til tilgange med et kontekstuelt perspektiv, så er kognitive og socio-kognitive tilgange grundlaeggende optaget af at forstå skriveudvikling som en afspejling af det enkelte barns kognitive processer og udvikling (fx Bereiter, 1980;Flower & Hayes, 1981), selvom senere socio-kognitive tilgange, som antydet af navnet, i højere grad har fokus på, hvordan undervisning kan laere eleven effektive strategier (fx Graham, 2019). Vi henviser til Kabel et al. (2022) for en mere uddybende gennemgang og diskussion af forskellige forståelser af skriveudvikling. Opsummerende vil vi her pointere, at skriveudvikling kan forstås på flere divergerende måder, der implicerer forskellige modeller for skrivning og perspektiver på skriveudvikling, og derigennem også forskellige forskningsinteresser og måder at undersøge og forstå denne på. ...
... Dansk ortografi er udfordrende på grund af ikke-transparente grafem-fonem-forbindelser (Elbro, 2005;Veber, 2016), og der opereres typisk med fem faser i staveudviklingen (Gentry, 1982): praefonetisk, semifonetisk, fonetisk, overgangsskrivning og konventionel stavning. Som beskrevet i Kabel et al. (2022), adresserer den praefonetiske fase elevers skrivning af bogstaver eller tegning af ord, en fase der er central i ATEL-projektet, fordi vi har elevtekster fra begyndelsen af 0. klasse, hvor børn typisk først skal til at laere alfabetet og det alfabetiske princip. I den anden ende adresserer den konventionelle fase elevers stavning, når den langt overvejende er ortografisk korrekt. ...
... Første trin i vores undersøgelse bestod som naevnt i at udvikle et rammevaerk for kodning af teksterne. Rammevaerket eller analysemodellen er beskrevet i Kabel et al. (2022) og bygger på samtaenkning af en dansk strukturel lingvistisk tradition, repraesenteret af Diderichsen (1946) samt af Hansen og Heltofts (2011) videreudvikling af feltanalysen, med en angelsaksisk funktionel lingvistisk tradition med udgangspunkt i Hallidays socialsemiotik (fx Halliday & Hasan, 1989;Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) og danske beskrivelser i den tradition (fx Andersen & Holsting, 2015). Som en del af samtaenkningen bygger analysemodellen på en mere simpel tilgang til semantiske roller (Fillmore, 1968), end hvad disse udvikles til i systemisk funktionel lingvistik. ...
Article
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Mange forhold spiller en rolle for skriveudvikling set i et livsperspektiv. I ATEL-projektet (2018-2023) identificerer vi, hvordan elever gennem skolens tre første år udvider deres skriftsproglige repertoire, fra de første skriblerier til de begynder at skrive korte sammenhængende tekster (6-8 år). Konkret har vi analyseret et stort antal billedbøger skrevet af elever i Svendborg Kommune (n=803). Ved at undersøge tidlig skriveudvikling som et flerdimensionelt sprogligt fænomen hen over flere skoleår, adresserer vi et underbelyst område både nationalt og internationalt. I artiklen præsenterer vi et centralt resultat: En model for elevers typiske udvikling af skriftsproglige ressourcer. Derudover fremhæver vi, at vi kan se stor diversitet på hvert klassetrin, som kalder på en differentieret skriveundervisning. På baggrund af den nuancerede og præcise viden om skriveudvikling som den kan ses i elevers tekster, har vi udviklet undervisningsforslag og bud på formativ evaluering til brug for læreren. Vi diskuterer afslutningsvist grundlaget for udformningen af disse forslag.
... The framework developed in the first task of the large-scale ATEL project and presented in Kabel et al. (2022) was created in order to examine the initial steps of communicating through writing in school. In essence, and as described in more detail in Kabel et al. (2022), the approach in ATEL is based on a text-oriented model of writing (Donahue & Lillis, 2014;Hyland, 2002) and a social semiotic understanding of early writing development as an emergent expansion of a repertoire of written language resources used in text creation (Halliday, 1978(Halliday, , 1993Kress, 1982Kress, , 1997. ...
... The framework developed in the first task of the large-scale ATEL project and presented in Kabel et al. (2022) was created in order to examine the initial steps of communicating through writing in school. In essence, and as described in more detail in Kabel et al. (2022), the approach in ATEL is based on a text-oriented model of writing (Donahue & Lillis, 2014;Hyland, 2002) and a social semiotic understanding of early writing development as an emergent expansion of a repertoire of written language resources used in text creation (Halliday, 1978(Halliday, , 1993Kress, 1982Kress, , 1997. In developing the framework, we were inspired by different traditions; first, a systemic functional linguistic tradition (e.g. ...
... During the coding process, the coding scheme was finetuned in order to account for special cases. See Kabel et al. (2022) for a thorough presentation of the development process and the resulting coding framework. The coding manual has been published as a working paper (Bremholm et al., 2020). ...
Article
This paper aims to validate scales for the early development of writing proficiency based on a framework used to linguistically describe multiple dimensions of writing development in 6–9 year-old Danish-speaking students and to lay the statistical foundation for empirically describing proficiency levels in emergent writers. The analysis is based on the Rasch model and was conducted on texts (n = 803) written by Year 0–2 students using the computer app WriteReader. The paper introduces both the model and the theory behind it, including the rationale for using this model, and it presents the main analytical steps taken and decisions made in the study, which is part of the large-scale Danish research project entitled Teaching Platform for Developing and Automatically Tracking Early Stage Literacy Skills (ATEL, 2018–2023). The results show that it is possible to identify detailed levels of early writing development in four dimensions: 1) text construction, 2) sentence construction, 3) verbals, and 4) modifiers.
... Artiklens første forskningsspørgsmål implicerer en tekstorienteret forståelse af skriveudvikling, som her, forankret i socialsemiotikken, defineres som en udvidelse af elevens skriftsproglige repertoire til at skabe betydning i sine skrevne tekster (Halliday, 1978;Kabel et al., 2022;Kress, 1994). Med socialsemiotikken forstår jeg tekster som sprog i brug -betydningsdannelser -i sociale kontekster. ...
... Dette på trods af, at posttekstanalysen viser en udvidelse i brugen af forbindere (jf. min tekstorienterede forståelse af skriveudvikling som en udvidelse af sprogligt repertoire), som i kvantitative eller kvantificerede studier (fx Hundal, 2017;Iversen & Otnes, 2015;Kabel et al., 2022;Ledin, 1998) ville vaere blevet tolket som netop skriveudvikling. Studiets kvalitative tekstanalyser bidrager derfor med en vigtig nuancering af kohaerensen i Oscars tekster. ...
Article
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Artiklen er et kvalitativt enkeltcasestudie, som består af tekstkohærensanalyser af to elevtekster skrevet af den samme 4. klasseelev, Oscar, henholdsvis før og efter en forskergenereret intervention i faget dansk med fokus på tekstsammenhæng. Studiet indskriver sig i den tekstorienterede skriveforskning, men inkluderer også en social­kontekstuel forståelsesramme (Schultz & Fecho, 2000) ved at belyse tekstanalyserne gennem analyser af de to konkrete undervisningskontekster, hvori Oscar har skrevet sine to tekster. Tekstanalyserne bidrager med en detaljeret forståelse af, hvordan Oscar skaber kohærens i sine to tekster, samt hvordan kohærens kan undersøges på dette klassetrin. Studiets inklusion af kontekstanalyser nuancerer tekstanalyserne og under­streger, at en forståelse af samspillet mellem tekst og empirisk skrivekontekst er afgørende for at forstå Oscars skrivning. Tekstkohærensen undersøges gennem en analyse af semantiske kæder, funderet i en funktionel lingvistik inspireret af Hasan (1984, 1989), men også af Enkvist (1974), Källgren (1979) og Nyström (2001), mens de kontekstuelle data (feltnoter, fotos, skriverammer og to interviews med Oscar om hans tekster) analyseres gennem en fortolkende analyse af udvalgte nøgleomstændig­heder (Erickson, 1977, 1986). Tekstanalyserne viser blandt andet, at postteksten på nogle områder er mindre kohærent end præteksten, mens kontekstanalyserne finder, at kohærenssvækkelsen i Oscars posttekst med sandsynlighed kan tilskrives den konkrete undervisningskontekst, som teksten er skrevet i, herunder særligt lærerens instruktion af skriveopgaven. Studiets fund, herunder dets didaktiske implikationer, diskuteres afslutningsvis i artiklen.
... Til brug for den analytiske kodning af de mange elevtekster udviklede vi i ATEL-projektet et fintmasket analytisk rammevaerk som vi har praesenteret i Kabel et al. (2022). Kodningen af elevteksterne muliggjorde på baggrund af en statistisk analyse at vi kunne udarbejde en model der beskriver en typisk elevs skriveudviklingsfaser . ...
Article
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Artiklen præsenterer analyser af 803 tekster skrevet af elever i 0.-2. klasse (6-8 år) på 13 forskellige skoler i Danmark med brug af et digitalt skriveværktøj tilpasset børn. Analyserne har fokus på hvilke genrer og semantiske universer der er fremherskende i danske indskolingselevers skriftlige produkter. Undersøgelsen funderes i social­semiotiske og nyretoriske perspektiver på skrivning og genre hvor børns tekster kan anskues som udtryk for et emergerende repertoire af skriftsproglige ressourcer. Analyserne bygger på kategorier der blev udviklet gennem en iterativ og datadrevet proces for at kunne indfange og sikre sensibiliteten over for indskolingsteksternes særlige og emergerende træk. Der identificeres tre hovedgenrer: fortælling, beskrivelse og andet. Mere end halvdelen af teksterne falder under kategorien beskrivelse. Tilsvarende kan teksternes semantiske universer samles i fem hovedkategorier: dyr og natur, det nære, begivenhed, menneskeliv samt en lille gruppe af ubestemmeligt indhold. Kategorierne konkretiseres og uddybes i artiklen gennem tre næranalyser af udvalgte elevtekster. Kun få af genrerne er genkendelige som del af en etableret tekstkultur i fritidsliv eller på senere trin i danskfaget. I forhold til semantiske universer træder især indholdsområder frem der vurderes at repræsentere det nære i elevernes sociale verden. Samlet set konstateres en lille variation i overordnede skrivehandlinger og en begrænset forekomst af mere fagspecifikke genrer og emner, hvilket tilsammen peger på en skriveundervisning der lader eleverne prøve sig af som skrivere, men som kun i begrænset grad giver adgang til skolens faglige verden.
... To avoid redundancy, the participant and predicate construction was redefined and renamed (Modifiers). The subcategories related to the descriptive functions in the sentence (predicate adjectives and premodifiers in the form of classifying and descriptive adjectives) were isolated, and the remaining categories were integrated into the Sentence construction dimension (see Kabel et al., 2022, for a detailed description of the categories in the dimensions). The finalised dimensions resulting from these adjustments are presented in the following section. ...
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Despite the growing prominence of writing in both educational contexts and society at large, research-based knowledge about the development of writing remains lacking, particularly regarding the developmental trajectories that students pass through as they encounter and grapple with the complex system of more formal writing during their primary years of school. This article presents a study that examined writing development in Danish primary grade students (ages 6 to 8) from a linguistic perspective to identify developmental patterns in students’ writing skills during these years. In the study, we applied a multidimensional analytical framework based on a text-oriented model of writing, for the coding of a large number of digitalised student texts (N=803). Subsequently, we analysed the coding results using statistical Rasch theory. Through this procedure, we were able to identify developmental patterns in the students’ writing in the form of different proficiency groups along four textual dimensions and to describe a number of linguistic levels for each dimension. Furthermore, the article discusses didactic potentials and limits from using proficiency groups when teaching writing in primary grades.
Thesis
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While writing instructional practices concerning older students have been researched and practiced in numerous ways throughout the 20th century, the primary school years (ages 5-7) have not been as focused. Recent decades have, however, seen a growing interest in L1 and writing instruction in primary school years, a movement of which this thesis is part. The purpose of the thesis in Didaktik is to add knowledge on what characterizes early school writing and how it may be understood as discourse practices. The theoretical framework of the thesis builds on a Hallidayan social semiotic notion of language (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014), a Bakhtinian understanding of texts as dialogic (Bakhtin, 1981), and a didactically based receptionist perspective on the meeting between text/prompt and student (Liberg, 2001). Further theoretical concepts drawn on are the notion of disciplinary literacy (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012) and Fairclough’s (2003) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The methodological framework consists of analytical tools inspired by Systemic Functional Grammar, Bakhtin’s dialogism and CDA. The thesis includes four papers building on texts written by students in primary school years, video-observations of writing instructional practices, and teacher interviews. The results show that students in primary school years may construe texts using a significant variety of linguistic resources, which can be related to more advanced ways of writing, showing signs of what is discussed as emergent disciplinary literacies. The thesis further shows examples of heteroglossia through the multifaceted texts construed by students concerning specific writing tasks, and textual dialogism through both intertextuality and interdiscursivity. It is also demonstrated how a CDA perspective on writing instruction can enable a deeper understanding of how power operates in and behind discourse in early school years. From these results I argue that primary school writing can be a hotbed for the cultivation of disciplinary literacies, and for awareness of the significance of the dialogic relationship between texts and children’s experiences in early school writing instruction. Finally, I argue that the L1 subject can be a subject for democracy in its own right, not least by showing how social purposes of writing can be fulfilled in different ways and by highlighting (and challenging) dominant linguistic practices, such as disciplinary literacy practices. I further argue that L1 as a subject of democracy entails understanding how power permeates the primary school writing classroom, shaping (constraints of) what is possible to say, do and be. Keywords: Early school writing, Primary school, Emergent Disciplinary Literacy, Systemic functional linguistics, Dialogism, Critical Discourse Analysis
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Alamargot, D. & Fayol, M. (2009). Modelling the development of written composition. In R. Beard, D. Myhill, M. Nystrand, & J. Riley (Eds), Handbook of Writing Development (pp. 23-47). London: Sage.
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This is the first comprehensive account of the Appraisal Framework. The underlying linguistic theory is explained and justified, and the application of this flexible tool, which has been applied to a wide variety of text and discourse analysis issues, is demonstrated throughout by sample text analyses from a range of registers, genres and fields.
Chapter
It is now an acknowledged fact in the world of linguistics that the concept of evaluation is crucial, and that there is very little – if any – discourse that cannot be analyzed through the prism of its evaluative content. This book presents some of the latest developments in the study of this phenomenon. Released more than a decade later than Hunston and Thompson’s (2000) Evaluation in Text, Evaluation in Context is designed as its sequel, in an attempt to continue, update and extend the different avenues of research opened by the earlier work. Both theoretical and empirical studies on the topic are presented, with the intention of scrutinizing as many of its dimensions as possible, by not only looking at evaluative texts, but also considering the aspects of the discursive context that affect the final evaluative meaning at both the production and reception stages of the evaluative act. The editors’ main objective has been to gather contributions which investigate the manifold faces and phases of evaluation by presenting a wide variety of perspectives that include different linguistic theories (e.g. Axiological Semantics, Functionalism or Politeness Theory), different levels of linguistic description (e.g. phonological, lexical or semantic), and different text types and contexts (e.g. the evaluation found in ironic discourse, the multimodality of media discourse or the world of politics, just to name a few). The volume can be of use not only for scholars who study the evaluative function of language, but also for students who wish to pursue research in the area.
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How Picturebooks Work is an innovative and engaging look at the interplay between text and image in picturebooks. The authors explore picturebooks as a specific medium or genre in literature and culture, one that prepares children for other media of communication, and they argue that picturebooks may be the most influential media of all in the socialization and representation of children. Spanning an international range of children's books, this book examine such favorites as Curious George and Frog and Toad Are Friends, along with the works of authors and illustrators including Maurice Sendak and Tove Jansson, among others. With 116 illustrations, How Picturebooks Work offers the student of children's literature a new methodology, new theories, and a new set of critical tools for examining the picturebook form.
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In Section 1 of this article, the author discusses the succession of models of adult writing that he and his colleagues have proposed from 1980 to the present. He notes the most important changes that differentiate earlier and later models and discusses reasons for the changes. In Section 2, he describes his recent efforts to model young children’s expository writing. He proposes three models that constitute an elaboration of Bereiter and Scardamalia’s knowledge-telling model. In Section 3, he describes three running computer programs that simulate the action of the models described in Section 2.
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This article draws from discussions that have been taking place over the last 20 years concerning the interplay of social contextual research and theory and knowledge about writing development. Beginning with a survey of these academic discussions and then detailing what this theory suggests through an examination of the academic literature and classroom examples, the article suggests that writing development is (a) reflective of social historical contexts, (b) variable across local contexts, (c) reflective of classroom curriculum and pedagogy, (d) shaped by social interactions, (e) tied to social identities, and (f) conceptualized as a nonlinear process. It then argues that a social contextual stance on writing development shifts perspective not away from the individual writer and the individual product, but toward seeing that writer and text in multiple contexts that complicate our understanding of writing process.
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This book is a comprehensive introduction to text forming resources in English, along with practical procedures for analysing English texts and relating them to their contexts of use. It has been designed to complement functional grammars of English, building on the generation of discourse analysis inspired by Halliday and Hasan's Cohesion in English . The analyses presented were developed within three main theoretical and applied contexts: (i) educational linguistics (especially genre-based literacy programmes) (ii) critical linguistics (as manifested in the development of social semiotics) and (iii) computational linguistics (in dialogue with the various text generation projects based on systemic approaches to grammar and discourse). English Text's major contribution is to outline one way in which a rich semantically oriented functional grammar can be systematically related to a theory of discourse semantics, including deconstruction of contextual issues (i.e. register, genre and ideology). The chapters have been organized with the needs of undergraduate students in theoretical linguistics and postgraduate students in applied linguistics in mind.
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This article provides an analysis of some linguistic features of school-based texts, relating the grammatical and lexical choices of the speaker/writer to the functions that language performs in school contexts. Broadly speaking, the context of schooling requires that students read and write texts that present information authoritatively in conventionally structured ways. This article describes some of the lexical and grammatical resources—the register features—that realize this context of schooling. It shows that the presentation of information typically requires technical and specific lexis and explicitly stated logical relations. Authoritativeness is reflected in the choice of declarative mood and the use of grammatical and lexical resources instead of intonation to convey speaker/writer stance or attitude toward what is said. A high degree of structure is expected in school-based language, realized through elaboration of noun phrases, sentence rather than prosodic segmentation, and clause-structuring strategies of nominalization and embedding. These features are functional for creating the texts students read and are expected to write at school.
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McGee and Richgels have set the standard in this new edition by clearly and simply explaining the issues addressed in Reading First and Early Reading First legislation that affect the reading instruction of young children. Aligned with the findings of the National Reading Panel, this edition focuses on child-centered instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, comprehension, and interpretation. Without question, this text will be the most talked about resource for prospective teachers of children from birth to age eight. Following a preface, the book presents 12 chapters. Every chapter begins with "Key Concepts" and concludes with "Chapter Summary," "Applying the Information," "Going Beyond the Text," and "References." Chapters in the book include: (1) Understanding Children's Literacy Development; (2) From Birth to Three Years: The Foundations of Literacy Development; (3) From Three to Five Years: Novice Readers and Writers in the Phase of Awareness and Exploration; (4) From Five to Seven Years: Experimenting Readers and Writers; (5) From Six to Eight Years: Early, Transitional, and Self-Generative Readers and Writers; (6) Literacy-Rich Classrooms; (7) Supporting Literacy Learning in Preschool; (8) Supporting Literacy Learning in Kindergarten; (9) Supporting Literacy Learning in First Grade; (10) Supporting Literacy Learning Beyond First Grade; (11) Diverse Learners; and (12) Assessment. An appendix is concludes the book.
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Despite the fact that educational knowledge is massively dependent on verbal learning, theories of learning have not been specifically derived from observations of children's language development. But language development is learning how to mean; and because human beings are quintessentially creatures who mean (i.e., who engage in semiotic processes, with natural language as prototypical), all human learning is essentially semiotic in nature. We might, therefore, seek to model learning processes in general in terms of the way children construe their resources for meaning—how they simultaneously engage in “learning language” and “learning through language.” A number of characteristic features of language development, largely drawn from systemic-functional studies of infancy, childhood, and early adolescence, offer one possible line of approach towards a language-based interpretation of learning.
Development in writing
  • C Bereiter
Bereiter, C. (1980). Development in writing. In W. Gregg & E. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive processes in writing (pp. 73-93). Erlbaum.
En presentation av den sociosemiotiske etnografin som teori och metod [The meaning potential of artefacts. A presentation of social semiotic ethnography as theory and method
  • A Björkvall
Björkvall, A. (2012). Artefakters betydelsepotentialer. En presentation av den sociosemiotiske etnografin som teori och metod [The meaning potential of artefacts. A presentation of social semiotic ethnography as theory and method].
Manual for analytisk kodning af elevtekster
  • J Bremholm
  • K Kabel
  • J Bundsgaard
  • U D Berthelsen
Bremholm, J., Kabel, K., Bundsgaard, J., & Berthelsen, U. D. (2020). Manual for analytisk kodning af elevtekster [ATEL working paper]. School of Education, Aarhus University.
Kompetencetest i Hitte på-projektet
  • J Bundsgaard
Bundsgaard, J. (2016). Kompetencetest i Hitte på-projektet [Assessing competencies in the 'Hitte på' project]. Nationalt Videncenter for Laesning.