As reported to me recently by Charles Youngs, professor of English at Bethel Park High School, "To Blog or Not to Blog? A Comparative Study of the Effects of Blogging in the Teaching of Writing in the High School Classroom" (2007), a doctoral study conducted by Nicole L. Roth, Ed.D. at Duquesne University, found that blogging was the most effective journaling technique in the teaching of writing at the high school level.

This study was conducted at Bethel Park High School, in suburban Pittsburgh, as an effort to determine whether the implementation of blogging into the teaching and learning of writing in the high school classroom would benefit student writing skills and increase enjoyment levels throughout the process.

To determine this, three study groups were compared: a hand-writing group, a word-processing group, and a blogging group. Students in all groups worked responded to the same writing prompts in the eleven-week study. The prompts and measures of proficiency were based on Pennsylvania State System Assessment prompts given to test students' writing proficiency. The results of the study clearly indicated that participants who blogged made the greatest gains in writing proficiency throughout the study period, thus proving that blogging is significantly superior to other journaling techniques.

Notably, despite increased performance levels, inclusion of blogging did not impact the level of enjoyment experienced by students any more than traditional instructional writing methods. In general, it appears that students dislike what they perceive as "forced" writing, such as responding to standardized prompts, no matter what method is being implemented.

Dr. Roth notes, "these findings are a beginning, not an end." This study is groundbreaking in that the results indicate that blogging is a superior pedagogical practice in the teaching and practice of writing in the high school classroom. Consequently, the possibilities for implementing blogging into different grade and subject levels are endless.