Rachel Reynolds

E110H

Carolyne King

Under Pressure: The Effects of Time Constraints on Writing Performance

Introduction:

Writing under a time crunch is an inevitable constant that is a reality for the population of

American students. Even the most diligent students that complete classroom assignments well in

advance of the due date are still subject to the pressure of standardized writing examinations that

quite literally test the skill of writing under time constraints. During timed writing examinations,

I distinctly remember feeling a pang of pressure every time I would look at the clock and would

immediately regret my decision to do so in the first place. For the longest time, I believed my

quality of writing suffered due to this pressure, as I was more focused on how much time I had

left to respond rather than the actual task at hand. On the other hand, several of my peers would

highlight how they thrived under this pressure. From this experience, I wanted to know in what

ways writing performance is affected when the variable of time is presented in different ways.

While existing studies have clearly established the role of time constraints and task

performance in a general sense, they have not specifically addressed how this can affect writing

performance. In order to specifically study this correlation, I conducted a pilot study of four

students in an honors first year composition class. This study evaluated the writing performance

(quality and quantity) under multiple conditions relating to time constraints. By examining the

correlation between time constraints and writing performance, specific writing conditions can be

identified as “optimal” depending on the goal of the writing, whether it be quantity, quality, or

both. The knowledge of optimal environments can be utilized towards strategies to help aid and

advance the writing process. In this essay, evidence from my study will support my hypothesis

that no knowledge of time constraint produces higher quality writing and limited knowledge of

time constraint produces a higher quantity of writing.

Literary Review:

Though existing studies on the topic of time constraints and task performance have not

specifically addressed how it can relate to writing performance, results from these studies can be

used as conceptual “rules of thumb” that produce overarching statements about human

tendencies. Research indicates that externally imposed time constraints can affect people in a

variety of negative ways. For instance, deadlines (i.e. known time constraints) may induce

people to persevere with obviously inadequate strategies (Betsch, Fiedler, & Brinkmann, 1998),

to become emotionally exhausted (Teuchmann, Totterdell, & Parker, 1999), and to think less

critically about available information (Gilbert, Tafarodi, & Malone, 1993 and Amabile, DeJong,

& Lepper 1976). These consequences contribute to a flawed, stressful writing environment that I

believe is the main contributor towards the decline in quality of writing.

Though the aforementioned studies provide evidence linking known time constraints to a

decline in quality of task performance, that does not mean that known time constraints always

produce negative outcomes. A study done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests

that students who are given externally imposed deadlines that are evenly-spaced (i.e. known time

constraints) produce better-quality work than students who are allowed to impose their own

benchmark deadlines (Ariely & Wertenbroch 2002). The conditions used in the MIT study allow

findings to be directly comparable to the quality aspect of my experiment. In their study,

volunteer students at MIT were separated into three randomly-assigned condition groups, and all

students were given three weeks to proofread three texts that were deliberately planted with 100

spelling and grammar errors each. To relate the conditions of this study to my experiment,

student-imposed benchmark deadlines (condition group 3) compare to no knowledge of time

constraints, as this indicates the student’s perceived control over time benchmarks. A single,

externally imposed end deadline (condition group 2) compares to limited knowledge of time

constraints, as this indicates that the researcher has control over the end time, but the student has

perceived control over time benchmarks. Evenly-spaced externally imposed deadlines (condition

group 1) compare to full knowledge of time constraints, as this indicates that the researcher has

full control over time benchmarks. The results of the experiment showed that the quality of the

evaluation (i.e. the number of mistakes fixed) was best with those in condition group 1, followed

by condition group 3, with condition group 2 producing the worst quality evaluations. If you’ll

recall however, these results directly contrast with the thesis of my study, that no knowledge of

time constraint produces the highest quality writing. Perhaps this indicates that long-term tasks

that have a lack of intense time-constraint induced pressure are better suited for setting

benchmark deadlines that this study has evidence in favor of as opposed to tasks that are given

such tight time constraints that the main goal is to output as much information as possible (i.e.

standardized writing examinations).

Methods:

Undergraduate Honors students at the University of Delaware from a First-Year

Composition course (N = 4 ; 3 male, 1 female) volunteered to participate in this experiment.

These students were chosen for this experiment due to their proximity to me, the researcher, as

they were concurrently enrolled in the same First-Year Composition course. The fact that the

only participants evaluated were honors students could possibly influence the outcomes of this

experiment; however, because data will be compared internally (where data from each condition

is only compared within the scope of each student and not to other students), the findings can

still be applied as overarching theories. In order to study writing performance and the effect of

time constraints, the participants performed a series of writing tasks under different time

conditions. All subjects were assigned to perform the same experimental tasks and were

completed in the same room for each condition. In this experiment, informed consent was

obtained from all participants.

While “writing performance” was separated into two separate dependent variables: the

response’s quality and its quantity, this study utilized three unrelated universal writing prompts

to evaluate written communication ability (see Appendix A/1). Participants were given a sheet of

lined paper with one of the three assigned prompts printed at the top. They were asked to

handwrite their response to the prompt on the lined paper and continue writing until they were

instructed to stop. To produce analogous results, participants were given exactly five minutes to

respond to each prompt, however this information was presented in different ways. For

Condition 1 (unknown time constraint), participants had no knowledge of when they would be

asked to stop writing. For Condition 2 (non-referential, known time constraint), participants were

told that they would be given five minutes to respond to the prompt, however they had no

external reference as to how much time they had left at any given point. Thus, while participants

knew the time constraint, they had no way to measure it during the actual timed writing; for

example, there was no clock (an external reference) provided, nor did the researcher provide a

verbal count down. For Condition 3 (referential, known-time constraint), participants were told

that they would be given five minutes to respond to the prompt and were provided with a timer

counting down the time they were allotted to complete their response that they could refer to at

any point during the experiment.

The effects of manipulated variable were measured both qualitatively and quantitatively.

In order to comparatively measure the writing performance of responses, all responses were

evaluated and given a numerical writing quality score in a process similar to how national

standardized writing exams such as the SAT and ACT are graded. The rubric that every response

was ranked against evaluates factors such as a developed point of view, focus on the topic

presented, and spelling/grammar (see Appendix A/4). In order to comparatively measure the

writing quantity of responses, the word count for each response was totaled and recorded.

Though using three different prompts to evaluate writing performance could have been a

source of error, precautions were taken to ensure that the influence of this variable on the

outcome of the data was minimal. Prompts were assigned at random for each condition to ensure

that writing quality scores were primarily dependent on the time constraint variable rather than

the difficulty of formulating a response to any one prompt over another. The prompts utilized for

this experiment were selected for their ability to be universally understood and responded to and

could be used to provide comparable results (see Appendix A/2 for data table and full

discussion).

Findings:

The results from this experiment were unequivocally conclusive— students wrote better

in both quality and quantity when remaining time was not able to be referenced. In particular, no

knowledge of time constraint produces higher quality writing while limited knowledge of time

constraint produces a higher quantity of writing (see

Appendix A/3 for full data and calculation table). As a

whole, participants earned the highest writing quality

scores under Condition 1 and the lowest writing quality

scores under Condition 3. Under Condition 3, participants

scored the lowest in basic subcategories such as sentence

structure and grammar usage. This suggests that when

under the pressure of a visibly-known time constraints,

most factors that inhibit writing quality come from

performance error rather than competence error. In other

words, under Condition 3, the participants were more

focused on getting their ideas out in writing rather than

focusing on trivial things that are not pertinent to

understanding their viewpoint, such as grammar usage.

Alternatively, participants as a whole wrote the least under

Condition 1 and the most under Condition 2. This along

with the averaged results (Figure 1 and Figure 2) suggest

that when the participants don’t have to worry about a

deadline, they are focused more on presenting the best

3.8

4

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

5

5.25.05

4.85

4.25

Average Scores

Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

89

118106

Average Word Count

Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3

Figure 1. Average Writing Quality Score of Writing Responses under 3 conditions

Figure 2. Average Quantitative Word Count of Writing Responses under 3 conditions

possible writing they can put out and less on putting out as much info as quickly as possible.

Not only did the average writing quality scores and word counts of all the participants

follow these trends, each individual participant’s writing quality score and word count followed

the trends as well; there were no

outlying data points. As shown in

the Individual Overall Writing

Quality Scores graph (Figure 3),

every participant earned the highest

writing quality score during

Condition 1 when writing under

no knowledge of time constraints.

For Condition 2, with limited knowledge of time constraints, every participant either matched or

fell behind the writing quality score earned during Condition 1. Most significantly though, every

participant earned their lowest writing quality score during Trial 3, with full knowledge of time

constraints. This suggests that when a time reference is readily available, writers tend to get

distracted by this information and focus less on the quality of their responses. As shown in the

Individual Word Count graph

(Figure 4.), every participant wrote

the least amount of words during

Condition 1, with no knowledge of

time constraints. Every participant

wrote the most amount of words

during Condition 2, with limited

Participant A Participant B Participant C Participant D0

1

2

3

4

5

6 5.65 4.8 4.8

5.6

4.4 4.6 4.85

3.6 3.84.6

Individual Overall Writing Quality Scores

Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3

Figure 3. Individual Writing quality scores of Writing Responses under 3 conditions

Participant A Participant B Participant C Participant D0

20406080

100120140160

83 79 75

119128

10796

141

11099

89

126

Individual Word Count

Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3

Figure 4. Individual Quantitative Word Counts of Writing Responses under 3 conditions

knowledge of time constraints. During condition 3 with full knowledge of time constraints,

participants wrote a quantity of words within the range of the amounts written in Conditions 1

and 2.

Even though the data collected was accurate and attempted to eliminate error wherever

possible, the nature of how the experiment was ultimately executed resulted in conclusions that

are inevitably and inherently flawed. The conclusions drawn from the data collected in the

survey are not enough to be considered the overarching constructs that dictate how all students

perform writing tasks under time constraints. Further, more extensive research is necessary in

order to produce a definitive solution due to the small pool of students evaluated in this

experiment.

Results in Summary:

Condition 1: Unknown Time Constraints

o Produced highest writing quality scores, but lowest word counts

Condition 2: Limited Knowledge of Time Constraints

o Produced either the same or slightly lower writing quality scores than

Condition 1, but highest word counts

Condition 3: Full Knowledge of Time Constraints

o Produced lowest writing quality scores, and an intermediate word count

The outcomes of this experiment are relevant and advantageous to students writing under

high-pressure scenarios, as the environment can be manipulated to the goals of the writing based

upon the conditions listed above.

Implications/Discussion:

This study is particularly relevant to high school teachers and students, especially

upperclassmen preparing for standardized writing examinations such as the ACT and SAT. By

examining the correlation between time constraints and writing performance, students can tailor

the optimal conditions to the goals of standardized writing. Per the findings of this experiment,

this in turn can be used as a strategy to help increase scores earned on said examinations.

Because standardized writing examinations emphasize that scores are earned entirely as a result

of quality of writing (i.e. the ability to achieve benchmarks listed from the rubric) rather than

quantity, the optimal strategy for this environment would be Condition 1: no knowledge of time

constraints. Unfortunately, as any student who has ever taken a standardized writing examination

will tell you, replicating Condition 1is impossible; the time allotted for each section is spoken

aloud prior to and printed clearly at the top of every examination. Therefore, the next best

strategy for this environment would be Condition 2: limited knowledge of time constraints, as

this condition produced either the same or slightly lower writing quality scores than Condition 1.

Though Condition 2 is theoretically possible in a standardized writing environment (as every

standardized writing examination I have ever taken has required the proctor to write the time

remaining on the board rather than announce it out loud), the student must be able to resist the

temptation to sneak a glance of outside informants of the time they have remaining.

In an environment other than standardized testing in which the main purpose of writing is

not on the quality of the writing but rather to reach an “end goal” word count by any means

necessary (i.e. the “Shitty First Draft” (Lamott 1994) and other non-graded writing), the optimal

writing strategy would be Condition 2: limited knowledge of time constraints. In this

environment, similar to standard writing examinations, the student must be able to avoid outside

informants that indicates the time they have remaining.

It is unlikely that these findings can be applied to the majority of academic writing, as

writing assignments are often given with long-term deadlines that have a lack of intense time-

constraint induced pressure that the aforementioned Ariely & Wertenbroch study confirmed as

producing different outcomes. It is significant to mention, however, that in the real world, the

production of quality writing in a limited time frame is a necessary skill in a society that

demands efficiency. By applying these findings, anyone finding themselves in the less-than-ideal

scenario of writing under a time crunch can tailor the optimal conditions to ultimately produce a

better product. Anyone finding themselves tempted to check the clock every few minutes should

first consider the ramifications, and rather just focus on the task at hand.

References

Amabile, T. M., W. DeJong, and M. R. Lepper. "Effects of Externally-Imposed Deadlines on

Subsequent Intrinsic Motivation." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, no. 1

(July 1976): 92–98.

Ariely, D., & Wertenbroch, K. (2002). Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control

by precommitment. Psychological science, 13(3), 219-224.

Betsch, T., Fiedler, K., & Brinkmann, J. (1998). Behavioral routines in decision making: The

effects of novelty in task presentation and time pressure on routine maintenance and

deviation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 861-878.

Burgess, M., Enzle, M. E., & Schmaltz, R. (2004). Defeating the potentially deleterious effects

of externally imposed deadlines: Practitioners’ rules-of-thumb. Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin, 30(7), 868-877.

College Board, The. (2016) Essay scoring before March 2016. Available at:

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat-essay-scoring-before-march-2016

(Accessed: 13 October 2016).

Gilbert, D. T., Tafarodi, R. W., & Malone, P. S. (1993). You can’t not believe everything you

read. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 221-233.

Lamott, A. (1994). Shitty first drafts. Bird by bird: Some instructions on writing and life, 21-26.

Teuchmann, K., Totterdell, P., & Parker, S. K. (1999). Rushed, happy and drained: An

experience sampling study of relations between time pressure, perceived control, mood,

and emotional exhaustion. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 4, 37-54.

Appendix

A/1: Prompts

Prompt A: Is deception ever justified?

Prompt B: Do we need other people in order to understand ourselves?

Prompt C: Do people put too much trust in the guidance of experts and authorities?

A/2: Prompt Comparability

Average Writing Quality Scores

POV/Examples

Organiz-ation Language Sentence

StructureGrammar/Usage

Overall Average

WordCount

Prompt A 5.5 5 4.5 4 4.25 4.65 105Prompt B 5.5 4.75 4.75 4.5 4.5 4.8 101Prompt C 5.5 5.25 4.5 4.25 4 4.7 107

Comparability can be proven by averaging the writing quality scores received and word

count of every participant for each prompt as shown in the table above. If the average writing

quality scores and word counts are the same or similar, the prompts would produce analogous

results. The data collected follows this rule (pscore < .01 ; pword count < .03), and therefore ensures

that the influence of this variable on the outcome of the data was minimal.

A/3: Individual Evaluations

Participant, Condition, Prompt

POV/Examples

Organiz-ation Language Sentence

StructureGrammar/Usage

Overall Score

Word Count

D1B 6 4 5 4 5 4.8 119D2A 6 5 4 4 5 4.8 141D3C 6 5 4 4 4 4.6 126

B1B 5 5 5 5 5 5 79B2A 6 5 4 4 3 4.4 107B3C 4 4 4 3 3 3.6 99

A1A 6 6 6 5 5 5.6 83A2C 6 6 6 5 5 5.6 128A3B 5 5 6 5 4 5 110

C1C 5 6 4 5 4 4.8 75C2B 6 5 4 4 4 4.6 96C3A 4 4 4 3 4 3.8 89

A/3: Average Evaluations

Avg. Writing Quality Score Avg. Word CountCondition 1 5.05 89Condition 2 4.85 118Condition 3 4.25 106

A/4: Scoring Rubric (CollegeBoard 2016)