The first group
consisted of a cluster sample of 18 students registered in a reading or English class in the
Upgrading program at a southern Alberta community college. Students registered in this
course were over age eighteen and had been assessed by the Assessment Centre as having
a scale score of 541-560 in the writing skills section of the Canadian Achievement Test
(CAT). The other participants in the study were 14 classroom children from two Grade 7
rural schools in southern Alberta.