A Cross-Sectional Examination of the Written Expression Skills of Students with Low Vision, Visual Impairments, and their Sighted Peers

Abstract Introduction: Several studies in the literature have investigated writing skills of students with visual impairment and low vision. However, no research was found to examine the written expression skills of students with visual impairment in terms of text cohesion, text coherence, text quality, text length, and writing time variables. A more comprehensive approach to research on the written expression skills of students with visual impairments and low vision is needed. Methods: In this study, a cross-sectional design was employed to examine the written expression skills of students with low vision, visual impairment, and their sighted peers. Participants of this study consist of 344 secondary school students who were divided into three groups: Visual impairment, low vision, and sighted peers. During the application process, all students were given two different guidelines (six in total) for each text type (memoir, persuasive, informative) and asked to write about the instructions they chose. As a result, all students wrote three different texts. Texts scored on text length, writing time, text quality, coherence level, and cohesion levels. Descriptive statistics and statistical comparisons of groups were provided. Whether written expression skills of students differed according to groups was determined by one-way analysis of variance, which is one of the parametric tests. Results: In this research, the mean of students with visual impairment and sighted peer’s text length and writing time differed statistically. And in this study, the average of students with visual impairment and sighted peer’s coherence level and text quality differed statistically. Discussion: It can be stated that students with visual impairment do not consider their thoughts in integrity, have difficulty in concluding their articles, their texts remain as an introduction, and generally write low-quality texts. In this study, the mean of students with visual impairment, low vision, and sighted peer’s coherence level and text quality differed statistically. There are significant differences between students in all text types except for persuasive text. While there was no difference in memoir and persuasive text at the level of cohesion, were significant differences among students in terms of informative text and total scores. There are studies in the literature that are in line with these results. Thus, it can be said that results obtained from the present research are parallel to the literature. Limitations: The results obtained from this research are limited to memoir, persuasive and informative texts. The variables are limited to text length, writing time, text coherence, text quality, and cohesion level. Having each student write three different texts simultaneously (consecutively) in a single session can be given as another limitation of the research. Conclusions: In this research, memoir, persuasive, and informative text types were used. In future research, texts such as discussion and stories can be writing, or variables such as effort, motivation, and writing tendency can be examining. Further research on fluency and legibility regarding the mechanical aspect of writing can be planning, or spelling mistakes of students with visual impairment can be investigating. Experimental research focusing on teaching writing strategies can be done. Activities should be organized by teachers to motivate students about writing, encourage them, and increase their interests. If teachers include writing activities, this can serve to the improvement of students with visual impairments. Students who try to write should be supported. Considering the limitations of students with visual impairment in terms of writing skills, technologies that will serve these students’ better writing should be used.