The Personal Statement as an Indicator of Writing Skill:

A Cautionary Note

Donald E. Powers

Mary E. Fowles

GRE Board Report No. 93-26dR

November 1996

This report presents the findings of a research project tided by and carried out under the auspices of the Graduate Record Examinations Board.

Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ 0854 1

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Acknowledgments

Thanks go to the Graduate Record Examinations Board for providing funding for the research on which this paper is based, to Brent Bridgeman and Hunter Breland for helpful reviews, to Laura Jerq for analyzing the data, ahd to Ruth Yoder for preparing the manuscript.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the personal statement as an indicator of writing skill. The evaluation was based on a comparison of specially-evaluated personal statements with a standardized measure of writing ability requiring examinees to write timed expository essays. A sample of prospective graduate students wrote essays and provided copies of personal statements they had submitted for application to graduate school. A majority of the sample acknowledged receiving help in either drafting or revising their statements. Correlations of the two indicators (test essay and personal statement) with each of several non-test indicators of writing shill revealed that the traditional expository essay was significantly more highly related to nearly all of the indicators. It is suggested that, while the personal statement may provide certain unique and important information about applicants (and thus be valid for this purpose), its validity as an indicator of writing skill is suspect.

The Personal Statement as an Indicator of Writing Skill: A Cautionary Note

Good practice demands that, rather than relying on a single source of evidence, graduate admissions committees (and indeed most other groups making selection decisions) consider a variety of information about applicants. Numerous studies of the validity of admissions processes confirms this: in terms of predicting valued outcomes, the more sources of information available (both test scores and previous academic records, for instance), the better the decisions. (See, for example, Do’nlon, 1984, p.l41-170, for a summary of studies involving the Scholastic Aptitude Test, and Schneider & Briel, 1990, for studies involving the Graduate Record Examinations General Test.)

Good practice also requires that validation efforts focus on specific test score inferences (AERA/APA/NCME, 1985). It is now widely acknowledged that an instrument is not valid in and of itself. Rather, it is the inferences about the meaning and use of test scores that are to be validated (Messick, 1989, p.13). Thus, an assessment may yield valid inferences for some purposes but not for others.

One kind of information that many admissions committees consider, in varying degrees, is evidence of personal qualities as gleaned from applicant-supplied documents, variously called personal statements, statements of purpose (or goals), and letters of intent. Graduate departments apparently find personal statements to be useful in a variety of different ways -- for instance, to infer such desirable traits as motivation, maturity, professional aspirations, depth of knowledge, and commitment to the field. This use is consistent with a substantial body of research on the usefulness of various biodata (e.g., life history events and expectations) for forecasting future success in a number of occupations and academic situations (e.g., Russell, Mattson, Devlin, & Atwater, 1990).

Personal statements may also provide a basis for matching the interests of candidates and prospective advisors and may, in fact, play a key role in decisions about academic advisement. For example, a graduate faculty member responding to a recent survey of admissions practices (Anderson & Ekstrom, 1994) indicated that his department was paying greater attention to the statement of purpose, in his words, “to be certain we can take the applicant where s/he wants to go” and that s/he has a “reasonably well-thought-out rationale for seeking the doctorate.”

The importance of the personal statement is also apparent at the undergraduate level. Wickenden (1982) characterized the personal statement as having two functions in undergraduate admissions -- to allow elaboration of some particularly important facet of the student’s life and to provide another indication of writing ability. Willingham and Breland (1982) noted that the personal statement often contains important life history information that does not appear elsewhere in the college application. Two widely acknowledged problems with personal statements, however, are (1) their uncertain authorship and (2) the frequent lack of any careful and systematic reading, resulting in large part from what Willingham and Breland (1982) described as the “sheer drudgety” (p.35) experienced by admissions committees of having to read them all.

Besides serving as a source of information about the various personal qualities of aspiring graduate students (a use that is not addressed in this paper), the personal statement often serves as an indicator of writing skill at this level also. In 1992 the staff of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) program conducted a national survey of graduate deans and

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faculty to determine interest in the possibility of a GRB writing test. The sutvey revealed that, while some respondents were receptive to the prospect of a writing test, others saw substantial redundancy between the kind of information that would be generated from a writing test and that available from personal statements. Some expressed the belief that personal statements were better indicators of writing skill than were standardized writing measures. (The importance placed on personal statements was evident also to Anderson and Ekstrom (1994) who found, ‘for instance, that in arts/humanities graduate departments, writing samples (which included letters of intent and statements of purpose) assumed as much importance, on average, as did GRE General Test verbal scores and undergraduate course of study, and more importance than GRE quantitative scores, GBE analytical scores, GRE Subject Test scores, quality of the undergraduate institution, letters of recommendation, and the results of personal interviews.)

Comments of respondents in the GRE writing survey may provide some insight into the role of the personal statement at the graduate level. Those who viewed a writing test as largely unnecessary valued the personal statement as a sufficient indicator of writing ability. Typical of comments that represented this view were the following:

. ..graduate programs have other means [than writing tests] to get meaningful writing samples through the use of the personal statement and portfolios (dean). I cannot see what we would gain from another test score. The applications already contain a statement of purpose, which gives a direct writing sample (economics faculty). All applicants to our graduate program must submit a brief personal essay and an extended sample of their work in literary criticism. These materials are an invaluable part of our admissions process and we have no intention of dropping them, let alone employing a standardized examination as a substitute or supplement (English faculty). We require a personal statement from applicants and encourage students to submit additional writing samples. Thus we feel we have an adequate means of judging students’ writing skills (political science faculty).

Others, however, were somewhat more cautious about the use of personal statements as indicators of writing skills:

One argument I have heard against the writing measure is that most schools already require a personal statement or essay. My response to those who feel the writing measure is redundant is that the latter is a controlled measure and the personal statement can be revised, corrected by a mentor, etc. (dean). The only real advantage of having a GRB writing measure [over a required one- page personal statement] would be its security -- one never knows how much help an applicant has had (dean).

Beyond these anecdotes, however, there is apparently little formal research on the validity of personal statements -- either for assessing writing ability or for determining other desirable applicant qualities. A search of the literature uncovered a variety of advice to students on crafting personal statements so as to gain favor with admissions committees. Applicants were advised to develop their own styles or “voices” (e.g., Murphy, 1991) and to overcome

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reticence to write about themselves (e.g., Ferguson, 1991). They were helped to select suitable topics (e.g., Latham, 1992) or were provided exemplary samples to emulate (Rochester & Mandell, 1990). Some authors have called for a greater reliance on the more qualitative aspects of college applications, including personal statements (e.g., Hawkins, 1993). A few research efforts have studied the characteristics of personal statements that seem to influence admissions officers (e.g., Paley, 1994) and the kinds of impressions that seem to be made by personal statements (e.g., Hatch, Hill, & Hayes, 1993).

Perhaps the most systematic study involving personal statements was the landmark study of the use of personal qualities in undergraduate college admissions by Willingham and Breland (1982), who noted that, because personal statements are rarely if ever formally evaluated, little is known about either their reliability or their validity. Willingham and Breland (1982) did cite one study by Nichols and Holland (1963) that reported a modest relationship between the creative thinking and originality exhibited in personal statements and nonacademic achievement in the first year of college. These researchers enlisted several colleges that used a common application requiring applicants to “... describe in detail some special interest, experience, or achievement or anything else you would like us to know about you...” (p.210). The investigators then coded these statements both for the quality of writing exhibited and for evidence of outstanding personal qualities. Willingham and Breland (1982) found a systematic positive effect of personal statements on the probability of being offered admission, beyond that predicted from admission test scores and high school rank in class. The effect was noted both for quality of writing and evidence of personal qualities, and it was largest for students in the “uncertain selection zone” -- i.e., for those applicants who had between a 25% and a 75% probability of being admitted on the basis of their academic credentials. The investigators also found that students whose personal statements were well written obtained first-year grade averages that were slightly higher than predicted from their SAT scores and class rank in high school. These students were also nominated at a higher-than-expected rate by their peers as “... showing signs of success in the freshman year” (p.148). Similar results were found with respect to the content (as opposed to the quality of writing) of personal statements. Later, Willingham (1985) established that the overall quality of personal statements (content and writing quality considered together) was predictive of attaining academic honors during college. It appeared, however, that the prediction of this particular accomplishment resulted mainly from the content of the statement, not the quality of writing that was exhibited. Willingham and Breland (1982) concluded that personal statements deserve attention in the admissions process, especially if they could be given “a clearer substantive focus” (p.lBl), which might render the statement more amenable to evaluation as a writing sample.

Obiectives

The validity of the personal statement as a source of information about the personal qualities of applicants to graduate school is not addressed here, only its validity as an indicator of writing skill. The questions of interest here were the following. Is a standardized measure of writing skill largely redundant with the personal statement (statement of purpose) for determining writing skills? In what sense, if any, is one a better indicator of writing skill than the other? To what degree does the validity of the personal statement as an indicator of writing skill depend on the extent to which it is written solely by the applicant? Our hypothesis was that, for the following reasons, the standardized writing measure should better reflect writing skill than the personal statement. It was expressly designed to elicit such skill, it is based on

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topics that have survived careful pretesting (to ensure that they are accessible to most examinees and capable of eliciting a sufficient range of responses), and it is administered under standardized conditions, thus in all likelihood reflecting fewer sources of extraneous variation than the personal statement.

Method

For a study of several alternative writing exercises being considered as components of a GRE writing test, a total of 475 GRE General Test examinees were recruited from GRE test takers who took the test between January and May, 1994. (The main results of that study have been reported in detail elsewhere, Powers, Fowles, & Boyles, in press.) The sample was geographically diverse and, with few exceptions, represented the GRE test-taking population quite well in terms of demographic characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, undergraduate major, and undergraduate grades.

Study subjects were invited to testing centers at 15 locations across the country, where, under standardized conditions, approximately two-thirds of the subjects wrote two traditional issue-based expository essays, one in 40 minutes and the other in 60 minutes. Altogether, four different topics were used. An example is the following:

“What we call progress is a matter of exchanging one problem for another.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? Support your position with reasons and examples drawn from areas such as your own reading and academic studies, your observations of people and events, or your personal experience.

Examinees also provided information on various non-test indicators of writing proficiency: (1) self estimates of how their writing skills compare with those of other students (well above average, somewhat above average, about average, somewhat below average, or well below average) (2) self evaluations of success (“not at all successfuY’ to “extremely successfuP) with various writing processes (thinking about an assignment, organizing, revising, and developing an effective writing style), (3) se lf evaluations of success with several kinds of writing (personal writing, creative writing, persuasion, analysis, criticism, description/explanation, examination writing, and applied writing), (4) self reports of grade averages in college courses that involved writing, (5) grade on the most recent writing assignment, and (6) information on writing-related accomplishments since high school (e.g., writing a feature article, column, or editorial that was published, authoring or co-authoring a paper that was published in a scientific journal, and writing poetry, fiction, or essays that were published). Subjects were also asked to submit both a sample of their recent undergraduate writing and a personal statement, if they had written one as a requirement for application to graduate school. One of the survey questions asked subjects to indicate how much help they had received in drafting and in editing/revising their statements. Table 1 provides a brief description of the various indicators.

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Table 1

Summary Description of Non-Test Indicators of Writing Skills

Category Description

S e l f E v a l u a t i o n ( P e r c e p t i o n s )

Comparison with peers

Success with the processes of writing

Success with various kinds of writing

A c h i e v e m e n t s ( A s s e l f - r e p o r t e d b y s u b j e c t s )

Grade average in courses involving writing

Grade on most recent writing assignment

Documentable accomplishments in writing

I n d e p e n d e n t E v a l u a t i o n s

Writing sample evaluated according to a) grade assigned by

professor b) holistic rating provided

by speciahy trained readers

“How do you think your writing compares with that of other students in your field?” (Responses on a five-point scale from “well below average” to “well above average.“)

A score based on reported success in college courses with four different writing activities -- thinking about assignments, organizing, revising, and developing an effective writing style. (Responses on a five-point scale ranging from “not at all successfuP to ‘extremely successful.“)

A score based on reported success in college courses with seven different kinds of writing -- personal, creative, persuasive, analytical/critical, descriptive, examinations, and applied. (Responses were on a five-point scale ranging from “not at all successfuP to “extremely successful.“)

Grade average in courses that required at least some writing.

Grade on the most recent assignment for which a report, essay, etc. was required.

The number of writing-related accomplishments reported. Responses were to an inventory asking about twelve different accomplishments such as writing (and publishing) articles, technical manuals, speeches, etc.

Study participants were asked to provide a typical example of writing they had done for a course. The request was for a paper of ten or fewer pages drawn from the student’s recent writing. Acceptable examples were essays, term papers, book reviews, lab reports, proposals, or case studies. Writing samples were scored by readers using a six-point holistic score scale. Professor-assigned grades were reported on a standard A to F scale.

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Trained essay readers (college faculty previously experienced in essay scoring) evaluated both the timed essays and the personal statements. Each essay was scored independently by two readers on a one-to-six holistic score scale ranging from 1= seriously deficient in writing skills to 6= presents a thorough and insightful response to the question and demonstrates mastery of the elements of effective writing. The scoring rubric emphasized the following qualities: understanding of the subject discussed, development/support of ideas with well-chosen, relevant examples, ability to present/sustain a focused discussion, ability to express ideas clearly, ability to use language fluently (with varied sentence structure and appropriate vocabulary), and ability to apply the elements of effective writing (grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization). Several weeks later, a subset of readers scored personal statements on the same 6-point scale. Readers were encouraged to evaluate only the quality of the writing exhibited, not any of the other desirable personal qualities that might be manifested in applicants’ statements. Even so, however, readers reported that a generaI sense of content, and even “tone,” sometimes contributed to their judgements.

Results

A total of 302 subjects wrote expository essays, 155 subjects provided personal statements, and 106 subjects had both test essays and personal statements. Presumably, many of the non-submitters had not at the time of the study been required to prepare statements as a condition of their application to graduate school (or perhaps failed to keep copies or did not wish to submit them to us). The subsample providing personal statements did not differ appreciably from nonproviders on any of the background information (e.g., GRE scores, undergraduate grade average, or quality of the timed essays written for the study) that was available for participants.

When asked how much help they had received in writing their personal statements (none, very little, a moderate amount, or a substantial amount), a majority of subjects (59%) acknowledged that they had received at least some help in editing/revising their statements (34% were given either moderate or substantial help), and a significant proportion (36%) revealed that they had received assistance in drafting their statements (19% were given moderate or substantial help). A total of 15% acknowledged moderate or substantial help in both drafting and editing/revising their statements. A significant proportion of writers (38%) said that they had not received any assistance.

All 155 personal statements were scored once and a random sample @=29) was read by two readers as a check on reliability. The interreader correlation for personal statements was .78. All essays were double scored; the interreader correlations for essays ranged from .77 to .80 across four different topics.

The correlation between scores assigned to essays and those assigned to personal statements was low, only .15. Therefore, on the basis of our sample, the timed essay and the personal statement cannot be considered to provide interchangeable information.

Table 2 compares the correlations of essay scores and personal statement scores with each of the several individual non-test indicators of writing skill and with three composite indices based on multiple indicators. For a fair comparison, the correlation shown for essay scores is the median over two individual essays, rather than the correlation based on the (more reliable) sum of both essay scores. Essay scores bore modest correlations with each of the individual indicators and composites. With few exceptions, personal statement scores did not correlate significantly with any of the various indicators. In a majority of cases, the correlations between essay scores and the indicators were significantly higher than those between personal statements and indicators. We should note that in testing the significance between the (correlated) correlations we

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Table 2

Correlations of Essay and Personal Statement with Alternative Indicators of Writing Skill

Indicator Essay Personal

Statement Difference

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7a. Writing sample, professor-graded

( IJ = 185, 83)

7b. Writing sample, reader-graded

( B = 237, 103)

Composite 1 (indicators 1, 2, and 3)

( n = 299, 153)

Composite 2 (indicators 4, 5, and 6)

( n = 136,44)

Composite 3 (indicators 4, 5, and 7a) (IJ = 184, 83)

.16* -.Ol +.17

.15* .24* -.09

.39** .15 + .24*

.53** -.16 + .69***

.31** .02 + .29*

Comparison with peers .41*** .20* + .21*

( n = 300, 154)

Success with processes of writing .28** .09 +.19

( n = 301, 154)

Success with kinds of writing .32** .09 + .23*

( n = 302, 155)

Grade average in courses involving writing .31** .13 +.18 (Q = 299, 153)

Grade on most recent writing assignment .34** -.04 + .38***

( n = 291, 148)

Documentable accomplishments in writing .30** -.08 + .38*

( n = 142, 48)

&&. The first n in parentheses is for the essay; the second for the personal statement. *p<.o5, **p<.o1, ***p<.oo1

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used the size of the s m a l l e r sample as the number of d e g r e e s of freedom. Thus, our significance test was conservative.

To ensure that the lower correlations for personal s t a t e m e n t s ( v e r s u s the e s s a y s ) were due to the nature of the w r i t i n g and not to d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n subjects who wrote essays versus those who submitted personal s t a t e m e n t s , we r e s t r i c t e d the c o m p a r i s o n to those who provided both d o c u m e n t s . This strategy made little d i f f e r e n c e in the size of the d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n correlations for essays vs. personal s t a t e m e n t s . By far the greatest change in d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n correlations was from -.09 to + .09 for the reader-graded w r i t i n g s a m p l e . (We also e s t i m a t e d , via the Spearman-Brown formula, what the correlations for personal s t a t e m e n t s would have been had they, like the e s s a y s , been scored by two r e a d e r s i n s t e a d of just one. These correlations would have increased by at most .Ol.)

Correlations with GRE G e n e r a l Test scores (verbal, quantitative, and a n a l y t i c a l ) were computed for both essay scores (53, -.Ol, and .30) and personal s t a t e m e n t s (.23, .24, and .25). Personal s t a t e m e n t s exhibited a uniform, statistically s i g n i f i c a n t relationship with each GRE score, while essay scores showed a differential pattern, being r e l a t i v e l y highly r e l a t e d to verbal scores and to a lesser extent to a n a l y t i c a l s c o r e s , but unrelated to quantitative s c o r e s .

As stated above, a secondary question of interest was w h e t h e r or not the validity of the personal statement as an indicator of w r i t i n g skill d e p e n d s on the amount of help that w r i t e r s o b t a i n . To make this determination, multiple r e g r e s s i o n analyses were run in which each non-test indicator was, in turn, regressed on both personal statement scores and two variables i n d i c a t i n g the amount of help the s u b j e c t had received in drafting and in e d i t i n g the s t a t e m e n t . Next, two p r o d u c t variables r e f l e c t i n g the i n t e r a c t i o n of personal statement scores and amount of help were added to the r e g r e s s i o n analyses, and their contribution to p r e d i c t i n g each non-test indicator was d e t e r m i n e d by c a l c u l a t i n g the significance of the increase in the multiple R that was due to their i n c l u s i o n . The h y p o t h e s i s was that the relationship b e t w e e n personal s t a t e m e n t s and the non-test i n d i c a t o r s of w r i t i n g would be g r e a t e r when w r i t e r s had not received any help in drafting or revising their s t a t e m e n t s . For only one of the i n d i c a t o r s (writing a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s ) did the two i n t e r a c t i o n terms c o n t r i b u t e significantly to p r e d i c t i n g any of the non-test i n d i c a t o r s . Even in this case, however, the r e g r e s s i o n w e i g h t s were not r e a d i l y interpretable b e c a u s e of the high degree of collinearity with other v a r i a b l e s . Thus the h y p o t h e s i s was not s u p p o r t e d .

D i s c u s s i o n

To s u m m a r i z e , a sample of GRE test takers wrote timed e x p o s i t o r y essays on g e n e r a l issues and provided copies of personal s t a t e m e n t s they had w r i t t e n for a p p l i c a t i o n to graduate s c h o o l . They also provided a v a r i e t y of non-test i n f o r m a t i o n t h o u g h t to be r e l a t e d to p r o f i c i e n c y in writing. Both essays and personal s t a t e m e n t s appeared to be of c o m p a r a b l e reliability, as evidenced by correlations b e t w e e n two i n d e p e n d e n t readers. However, with few e x c e p t i o n s , essays were more highly r e l a t e d to each of the v a r i o u s non-test i n d i c a t o r s of w r i t i n g skill than were personal s t a t e m e n t s , which were l a r g e l y unrelated to the i n d i c a t o r s . Furthermore, essays bore a p a t t e r n of correlations with GRE G e n e r a l Test scores (a high c o r r e l a t i o n with verbal scores and no c o r r e l a t i o n with quantitative s c o r e s ) that was more s u g g e s t i v e of w r i t i n g a b i l i t y than was the p a t t e r n exhibited by the personal statement ( e q u a l , modest correlations with each of the three scores from the test).

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A majority of study subjects admitted receiving help in drafting and/or revising their statements. Thus, the uncertainty of authorship surrounding personal statements was confirmed. There was, however, no indication in the data that the validity of personal statements as a measure of writing skill was any greater when statements were authored independently by applicants: the relationship of personal statements to non-test indicators of writing did not differ significantly according to the amount of help that writers reportedly received.

One possible limitation of the study is the fairness of the “race” that was run. Whereas essays were standardized, i.e., written to a common stimulus under carefully controlled conditions, the personal statements evaluated here were, in all likelihood, written to a variety of different specifications. Had a standard question been used to elicit all statements, it is possible that the resulting narratives would have been more comparable and possibly more valid as a measure of writing skill. It may also be possible that graduate admissions committees would evaluate the writing skills in personal statements in ways that bear a stronger relationship to non-test indicators of writing skill than did the evaluations made by specially-trained essay readers.

The analyses reported here do not diminish the value of the personal statement for the various purposes described at the outset of this paper -- for example, as a source of information about valued personal qualities and a means for learning about an applicant’s goals and aspirations. The results of our research do, however, cast some rather serious doubt on the validity of the personal statement as an indicator of writing skill, even when carefully evaluated. If graduate (and other) admissions committees are to employ personal statements to evaluate writing skill, it would seem prudent to establish the personal statement as a clearer manifestation of writing proficiency than we have found it to be.

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