The process-disruption hypothesis: how spelling and typing skill affects written composition process and product.

This study investigates the possibility that lack of fluency in spelling and/or typing disrupts writing processes in such a way as to cause damage to the substance (content and structure) of the resulting text. 101 children (mean age 11 years 10 months), writing in a relatively shallow orthography (Norwegian), composed argumentative essays using a simple text editor that provided accurate timing for each keystroke. Production fluency was assessed in terms of both within-word and word-initial interkey intervals and pause counts. We also assessed the substantive quality of completed texts. Students also performed tasks in which we recorded time to pressing keyboard keys in response to spoken letter names (a keyboard knowledge measure), response time and interkey intervals when spelling single, spoken words (spelling fluency), and interkey intervals when typing a simple sentence from memory (transcription fluency). Analysis by piecewise structural equation modelling gave clear evidence that all three of these measures predict fluency when composing full text. Students with longer mid-word interkey intervals when composing full text tended to produce texts with slightly weaker theme development. However, we found no other effects of composition fluency measures on measures of the substantive quality of the completed text. Our findings did not, therefore, provide support for the process-disruption hypothesis, at least in the context of upper-primary students writing in a shallow orthography.

Learning Handwriting: Factors Affecting Pen-Movement Fluency in Beginning Writers.

Skilled handwriting of single letters is associated not only with a neat final product but also with fluent pen-movement, characterized by a smooth pen-tip velocity profile. Our study explored fluency when writing single letters in children who were just beginning to learn to handwrite, and the extent to which this was predicted by the children's pen-control ability and by their letter knowledge. 176 Norwegian children formed letters by copying and from dictation (i.e., in response to hearing letter sounds). Performance on these tasks was assessed in terms of the counts of velocity inversions as the children produced sub-letter features that would be produced by competent handwriters as a single, smooth (ballistic) action. We found that there was considerable variation in these measures across writers, even when producing well-formed letters. Children also copied unfamiliar symbols, completed various pen-control tasks (drawing lines, circles, garlands, and figure eights), and tasks that assessed knowledge of letter sounds and shapes. After controlling for pen-control ability, pen-movement fluency was affected by letter knowledge (specifically children's performance on a task that required selecting graphemes on the basis of their sound). This was the case when children retrieved letter forms from dictated letter sounds, but also when directly copying letters and, unexpectedly, when copying unfamiliar symbols. These findings suggest that familiarity with a letter affects movement fluency during letter production but may also point towards a more general ability to process new letter-like symbols in children with good letter knowledge.

Child-level factors affecting rate of learning to write in first grade.

BACKGROUND: Written composition requires handwriting, spelling, and text planning skills, all largely learned through school instruction. Students' rate of learning to compose text in their first months at school will depend, in part, on their literacy-related abilities at school start. These effects have not previously been explored. AIM: We aimed to establish the effects of various literacy-related abilities on the learning trajectory of first-grade students as they are taught to write. SAMPLE: 179 Spanish first-grade students (94 female, mean age 6.1 years) writing 3,512 texts. METHOD: Students were assessed at start of school for spelling, transcription fluency, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, handwriting accuracy, word reading, and non-verbal reasoning. They were then taught under a curriculum that included researcher-designed instruction in handwriting, spelling, and ideation. Students' composition performance was probed at very regular intervals over their first 13 weeks at school. RESULTS: Controlling for age, overall performance was predicted by spelling, transcription fluency, handwriting accuracy, word reading, and non-verbal reasoning. Most students showed rapid initial improvement, but then much slower learning. Weak spellers (and to a lesser extent less fluent hand-writers) showed weaker initial performance, but then steady improvement across the study period. CONCLUSION: Transcription ability at school entry affects response to writing instruction.

El modelo de respuesta a la intervención en escritura: revisión de medidas de evaluación y prácticas instruccionales / The response to intervention model in writing: a review of assessment measures and instructional practices

La evidencia científica sitúa el modelo de Respuesta a la Intervención como el enfoque clave para la prevención y diagnóstico de las Dificultades de Aprendizaje Específicas en Escritura. La formación del psicólogo educativo en torno a la instrucción en competencia escrita y la monitorización del progreso del alumnado resulta fundamental para desarrollar su labor de orientación al profesorado en la aplicación eficiente de dicho modelo. En este estudio se presenta una revisión internacional de las dos dimensiones clave del modelo: las medidas de evaluación de las habilidades escritoras sensibles al cambio y las prácticas instruccionales empíricamente validadas para la mejora de la competencia escrita. A partir de la revisión de 34 artículos, se analizan la idoneidad de las medidas y tareas de evaluación a utilizar y se discuten las prácticas instruccionales eficaces según el proceso cognitivo de la escritura en el que se focalizan: ortografía, caligrafía o procesos cognitivo de orden superior

Scientific evidence points to the Response to Intervention Model as a key approach to the identification and prevention of learning disabilities in writing. In order to guide teachers in the successful implementation of this model, educational psychologists need to receive training in writing instruction and how to monitor students' progress. In this study, we present an international literature review on the two key dimensions of the model: writing assessment measures that are sensitive to change and empirically validated instructional practices to improve writing competence. Based on the 33 papers reviewed, we analyze the suitability of assessment measures and tasks and discuss several instructional practices according to their focus in a specific writing cognitive process: spelling, handwriting, and high-level cognitive processes

Effects of ADHD on Writing Composition Product and Process in School-Age Students.

Objective: This study examined the relationship between ADHD and writing performance. Method: Students in Grades 3 to 7, 84 with ADHD and 135 age- and gender-matched controls completed a writing task (including process logs), and measures of working memory and attention. Results: Students with ADHD wrote texts of similar length but with poorer structure, coherence, and ideation. In all, 6.7% of the variance in writing quality was explained by whether or not the student had an ADHD diagnosis, after control for IQ and age-within-year, with ADHD students producing text that was less coherent, well structured, and ideationally rich, and spending less time thinking about and reviewing their text. Half of the effect on text quality could be attributed to working memory and sustained attention effects. Conclusion: ADHD has some effect on writing performance, which can, in part, be explained by working memory and attentional deficits.

The online management of writing processes and their contribution to text quality in upper-primary students / La distribución temporal de los procesos de escritura y su contribución a la calidad textual al final de Educación Primaria

Background: The online management of writing processes is an important factor related to the composition of high-quality texts. In the present study we analysed the time that upper-primary students devoted to writing processes, the distribution of those processes during composition and the contribution of both aspects to text quality. Method: 120 upper-primary students were asked to write an argumentative text in pairs under thinking aloud conditions. Verbalizations were analysed considering different writing processes and sub-processes. Results: Upper-primary students rarely used planning and revising processes. Planning, which basically involved content generation, was mostly activated at the beginning of the writing task. Revision, which mainly included reading, appeared at the end. The time devoted to writing processes or the time at which they were activated had no effect on text quality. Conclusions: Not only did upper-primary students make little use of planning and revising processes, it was also ineffective. Thus, there is a need to provide them with high-quality instruction in school from early on

Antecedentes: el manejo temporal de los procesos de escritura es un factor importante que influye en la composición de textos de calidad. En este estudio se analiza el tiempo que los estudiantes de 5º-6º de Primaria dedican a los procesos de escritura, su distribución temporal durante la composición y en qué medida ambos aspectos contribuyen a la calidad textual. Método: 120 estudiantes de 5º-6º de Primaria escribieron un texto argumentativo en parejas usando pensamiento en voz alta. Las verbalizaciones fueron analizadas en base a diferentes procesos y subprocesos de escritura. Resultados: los estudiantes hacen escaso uso de procesos de planificación y revisión textual. La planificación, relacionada principalmente con la generación de información, suele activarse al inicio del proceso de escritura. La revisión, que básicamente implica lectura, aparece al final del proceso escritor. El tiempo empleado por los escritores en los diferentes procesos o el momento en que son activados durante la composición no se relaciona con la calidad textual. Conclusiones: los estudiantes de 5º-6º de Primaria no solo hacen un escaso uso de procesos de planificación y revisión, sino que este es ineficaz. Por ello, es necesario instruir al alumnado en el uso de dichos procesos desde edades tempranas

The online management of writing processes and their contribution to text quality in upper-primary students.

BACKGROUND: The online management of writing processes is an important factor related to the composition of high-quality texts. In the present study we analysed the time that upper-primary students devoted to writing processes, the distribution of those processes during composition and the contribution of both aspects to text quality. METHOD: 120 upper-primary students were asked to write an argumentative text in pairs under thinking aloud conditions. Verbalizations were analysed considering different writing processes and sub-processes. RESULTS: Upper-primary students rarely used planning and revising processes. Planning, which basically involved content generation, was mostly activated at the beginning of the writing task. Revision, which mainly included reading, appeared at the end. The time devoted to writing processes or the time at which they were activated had no effect on text quality. CONCLUSIONS: Not only did upper-primary students make little use of planning and revising processes, it was also ineffective. Thus, there is a need to provide them with high-quality instruction in school from early on.

Advance planning in written and spoken sentence production.

Response onset latencies for sentences that start with a conjoined noun phrase are typically longer than for sentences starting with a simple noun phrase. This suggests that advance planning has phrasal scope, which may or may not be lexically driven. All previous studies have involved spoken production, leaving open the possibility that effects are, in part, modality-specific. In 3 image-description experiments (Ns = 32) subjects produced sentences with conjoined (e.g., Peter and the hat) and simple initial noun phrases (e.g., Peter) in both speech and writing. Production onset latencies and participants' eye movements were recorded. Ease of lexical retrieval of sentences' second noun was assessed by manipulating codability (Experiment 1) and by gaze-contingent name priming (Experiments 2 and 3). Findings confirmed a modality-independent phrasal scope for advance planning but did not support obligatory lexical retrieval beyond the sentence-initial noun. This research represents the first direct experimental comparison of sentence planning in speech and writing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of teaching planning strategies to first-grade writers.

BACKGROUND: Traditionally writing instruction at the start of school has focused on developing students' ability to spell and handwrite. Teaching children explicit self-regulatory strategies for developing content and structure for their text has proved effective for students in later grades of primary (elementary) education. AIMS: The present study aims to determine whether first-grade students benefit from learning higher-level self-regulating strategies for explicit planning of content and structure. SAMPLE: Five mixed-ability Spanish first-grade classes were randomly assigned either to an experimental condition that received strategy-focused instruction (three classes, N = 62), or to a practice-matched control condition (two classes, N = 39). METHOD: Over 10, 50-min sessions, the intervention taught strategies for writing stories. Writing performance was assessed prior to intervention, immediately after intervention and 7 weeks post-intervention, in terms of both text features associated with written narratives and by holistic quality ratings. RESULTS: Students who received the intervention subsequently produced texts with better structure, coherence, and quality, and a larger number of features associated with narrative texts. These effects remained at follow-up and were not present in the control condition. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that teaching explicit strategies for planning text content and structure benefits young writers even when spelling and handwriting skills are not yet well established.

Timed written picture naming in 14 European languages.

We describe the Multilanguage Written Picture Naming Dataset. This gives trial-level data and time and agreement norms for written naming of the 260 pictures of everyday objects that compose the colorized Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set (Rossion & Pourtois in Perception, 33, 217-236, 2004). Adult participants gave keyboarded responses in their first language under controlled experimental conditions (N = 1,274, with subsamples responding in Bulgarian, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish). We measured the time to initiate a response (RT) and interkeypress intervals, and calculated measures of name and spelling agreement. There was a tendency across all languages for quicker RTs to pictures with higher familiarity, image agreement, and name frequency, and with higher name agreement. Effects of spelling agreement and effects on output rates after writing onset were present in some, but not all, languages. Written naming therefore shows name retrieval effects that are similar to those found in speech, but our findings suggest the need for cross-language comparisons as we seek to understand the orthographic retrieval and/or assembly processes that are specific to written output.

Effects of Direct Instruction and Strategy Modeling on Upper-Primary Students' Writing Development.

Strategy-focused instruction is one of the most effective approaches to improve writing skills. It aims to teach developing writers strategies that give them executive control over their writing processes. Programs under this kind of instruction tend to have multiple components that include direct instruction, modeling and scaffolded practice. This multi-component nature has two drawbacks: it makes implementation challenging due to the amount of time and training required to perform each stage, and it is difficult to determine the underlying mechanisms that contribute to its effectiveness. To unpack why strategy-focused instruction is effective, we explored the specific effects of two key components: direct teaching of writing strategies and modeling of strategy use. Six classes (133 students) of upper-primary education were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions, in which students received instruction aimed at developing effective strategies for planning and drafting, or control group with no strategy instruction: Direct Instruction (N = 46), Modeling (N = 45), and Control (N = 42). Writing performance was assessed before the intervention and immediately after the intervention with two tasks, one collaborative and the other one individual to explore whether differential effects resulted from students writing alone or in pairs. Writing performance was assessed through reader-based and text-based measures of text quality. Results at post-test showed similar improvement in both intervention conditions, relatively to controls, in all measures and in both the collaborative and the individual task. No statistically significant differences were observed between experimental conditions. These findings suggest that both components, direct teaching and modeling, are equally effective in improving writing skills in upper primary students, and these effects are present even after a short training.

Typing pictures: Linguistic processing cascades into finger movements.

The present study investigated the effect of psycholinguistic variables on measures of response latency and mean interkeystroke interval in a typewritten picture naming task, with the aim to outline the functional organization of the stages of cognitive processing and response execution associated with typewritten word production. Onset latencies were modulated by lexical and semantic variables traditionally linked to lexical retrieval, such as word frequency, age of acquisition, and naming agreement. Orthographic variables, both at the lexical and sublexical level, appear to influence just within-word interkeystroke intervals, suggesting that orthographic information may play a relevant role in controlling actual response execution. Lexical-semantic variables also influenced speed of execution. This points towards cascaded flow of activation between stages of lexical access and response execution.

Reading during the composition of multi-sentence texts: an eye-movement study.

Writers composing multi-sentence texts have immediate access to a visual representation of what they have written. Little is known about the detail of writers' eye movements within this text during production. We describe two experiments in which competent adult writers' eye movements were tracked while performing short expository writing tasks. These are contrasted with conditions in which participants read and evaluated researcher-provided texts. Writers spent a mean of around 13 % of their time looking back into their text. Initiation of these look-back sequences was strongly predicted by linguistically important boundaries in their ongoing production (e.g., writers were much more likely to look back immediately prior to starting a new sentence). 36 % of look-back sequences were associated with sustained reading and the remainder with less patterned forward and backward saccades between words ("hopping"). Fixation and gaze durations and the presence of word-length effects suggested lexical processing of fixated words in both reading and hopping sequences. Word frequency effects were not present when writers read their own text. Findings demonstrate the technical possibility and potential value of examining writers' fixations within their just-written text. We suggest that these fixations do not serve solely, or even primarily, in monitoring for error, but play an important role in planning ongoing production.

Do sixth-grade writers need process strategies?

BACKGROUND: Strategy-focused writing instruction trains students both to set explicit product goals and to adopt specific procedural strategies, particularly for planning text. A number of studies have demonstrated that strategy-focused writing instruction is effective in developing writing performance. AIM: This study aimed to determine whether teaching process strategies provides additional benefit over teaching students to set product goals. SAMPLE: Ninety-four typically developing Spanish sixth-grade (upper primary) students. METHOD: Students received 10 hr of instruction in one of three conditions: Strategy-focused training in setting product goals and in writing procedures (planning and revision; Product-and-Process), strategy-focused training in setting product goals (Product-Only), and product-focused instruction (Control). Students' writing performance was assessed before, during, and after intervention with process measures based on probed self-report and holistic and text-analytic measures of text quality. RESULTS: Training that included process instruction was successful in changing students' writing processes, with no equivalent process changes in the Product-Only or Control conditions. Both Process-and-Product and Product-Only conditions resulted in substantial improvements in the quality of students' texts relative to controls, but with no evidence of benefits of process instruction over those provided by the Product-Only condition. Teaching process substantially increased time-on-task. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings confirm the value of strategy-focused writing instruction, but question the value of training specific process strategies.

Comparison of reading-writing patterns and performance of students with and without reading difficulties / Comparación de los patrones de lectura-escritura y el rendimiento de alumnos con y sin dificultades de lectura

BACKGROUND: This paper analyses performance and the process used in carrying out a common hybrid task, such as, summarizing a text, from a developmental point of view and comparing the differences between students with and without reading difficulties. METHOD: 548 students typically developing and 54 students with learning difficulties for reading (grades 5 to 8, ages 11 to 14) read and summarized a text using the triple task technique and then they did a comprehension questionnaire. Attention was paid to the various activities undertaken during this task, their cognitive cost, and the organization of reading and writing activities throughout the exercise, together with performance through evaluation of the summary and the reading comprehension questionnaire. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in performance or strategies used for the task between students of primary and secondary education. A linear reading-writing process was mostly employed by both, with greater cost and time needed by primary students. Students with reading difficulties did not show any strategies compensating for the greater difficulty and cognitive cost that the task represents for them. CONCLUSIONS: The effective and strategic use of summarizing as a learning tool seems to demand a specific training for students with or without reading difficulties

ANTECEDENTES: se analiza el rendimiento y el proceso seguido en la realización de una tarea híbrida, resumir un texto, desde un punto de vista del desarrollo y comparativamente entre alumnos con y sin dificultades en lectura. MÉTODO: 548 estudiantes de rendimiento normal y 54 con dificultades en el aprendizaje de la lectura (5º de Primaria a 2º de Secundaria, 11 a 14 años) realizaron la lectura y resumen de un texto, junto a la técnica de la triple tarea, y posteriormente un cuestionario de comprensión lectora. Se analizaron el tipo de actividades realizadas durante la tarea, su coste cognitivo, la distribución de los procesos de lectura y escritura, y el nivel de comprensión lectora. RESULTADOS: no hubo diferencias estadísticamente significativas en el rendimiento o las estrategias usadas durante la tarea entre el alumnado de Primaria y de Secundaria; solo los primeros emplearon un mayor tiempo en la tarea, con un mayor coste cognitivo. Los alumnos con dificultades no mostraron ningún tipo de estrategia para compensar sus dificultades y el mayor coste cognitivo de este tipo de tarea. CONCLUSIONES: el uso estratégico del resumen como herramienta de aprendizaje demanda un entrenamiento específico en alumnado con y sin dificultades

Comparison of reading-writing patterns and performance of students with and without reading difficulties.

BACKGROUND: This paper analyses performance and the process used in carrying out a common hybrid task, such as, summarizing a text, from a developmental point of view and comparing the differences between students with and without reading difficulties. METHOD: 548 students typically developing and 54 students with learning difficulties for reading (grades 5 to 8, ages 11 to 14) read and summarized a text using the triple task technique and then they did a comprehension questionnaire. Attention was paid to the various activities undertaken during this task, their cognitive cost, and the organization of reading and writing activities throughout the exercise, together with performance through evaluation of the summary and the reading comprehension questionnaire. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in performance or strategies used for the task between students of primary and secondary education. A linear reading-writing process was mostly employed by both, with greater cost and time needed by primary students. Students with reading difficulties did not show any strategies compensating for the greater difficulty and cognitive cost that the task represents for them. CONCLUSIONS: The effective and strategic use of summarizing as a learning tool seems to demand a specific training for students with or without reading difficulties.

Comparación de dos programas de instrucción estratégica y autorregulada para la mejora de la competencia escrita / Comparison of two self-regulated and strategic instructional programs for improving writing

Se comparó la eficacia de dos versiones de un programa instruccional centrado en el desarrollo de un dominio estratégico y autorregulado de la composición escrita. En la versión completa, instrucción estratégica, se instruyó usando una combinación de instrucción directa centrada en el desarrollo del conocimiento metacognitivo (explícito, declarativo), modelado del profesor, práctica colaborativa e individual. En la segunda versión, de modelado, el componente de instrucción directa se omitió. Participaron 72 alumnos de 6º de Educación Primaria que recibieron la instrucción en el grupo de instrucción estratégica (N= 24), de modelado (N= 25), o currículum ordinario (N= 23). Se tomaron medidas pre-postest del producto textual, la autoeficacia y el autoconocimiento en la escritura. Los resultados indicaron una mejoría similar de ambos grupos de intervención frente al grupo control tanto en las medidas globales de la calidad textual como en las medidas objetivas basadas en el texto, asociadas a un enfoque más maduro del proceso de escritura, orientado al lector. No se encontraron diferencias entre ambos grupos de intervención. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren que el modelado y la práctica de escritura son suficientes para favorecer el desarrollo de estrategias efectivas de composición escrita en el alumnado de estas edades (AU)

This study compared the efficacy of two versions of an instructional program aimed at developing strategic and self-regulated writing competence. In the full version, strategy instruction, students were taught strategies for producing effective text, using a combination of direct (explicit, declarative, metacognitive knowledge) instruction, teacher modeling, and collaborative and individual practice. In a modeling-only version, direct instruction was omitted. 72 Spanish 6th grade students were taught in one of three groups: Full Strategy Instruction (N= 24); Modeling only (N= 25), and a normal curriculum (no strategy instruction) control (N= 23). Pre and posttest measures of written texts, self-efficacy and self-knowledge of writing were taken. Pre and posttest scores on writing ability tests indicated similar improvement in both intervention groups, relative to control, in both holistic measures of text quality and in counts of text features associated with mature, reader-focused composition. We found no differences between intervention groups. These findings suggest that modeling and student practice alone are sufficient to develop effective writing strategies in typically-developing 6th grade students (AU)

[Comparison of two self-regulated and strategic instructional programs for improving writing competence]. / Comparación de dos programas de instrucción estratégica y autorregulada para la mejora de la competencia escrita.

This study compared the efficacy of two versions of an instructional program aimed at developing strategic and self-regulated writing competence. In the full version, strategy instruction, students were taught strategies for producing effective text, using a combination of direct (explicit, declarative, metacognitive knowledge) instruction, teacher modeling, and collaborative and individual practice. In a modeling-only version, direct instruction was omitted. 72 Spanish 6th grade students were taught in one of three groups: Full Strategy Instruction (N=24); Modeling only (N=25), and a normal curriculum (no strategy instruction) control (N=23). Pre and posttest measures of written texts, self-efficacy and self-knowledge of writing were taken. Pre and posttest scores on writing ability tests indicated similar improvement in both intervention groups, relative to control, in both holistic measures of text quality and in counts of text features associated with mature, reader-focused composition. We found no differences between intervention groups. These findings suggest that modeling and student practice alone are sufficient to develop effective writing strategies in typically-developing 6th grade students.

Combined eyetracking and keystroke-logging methods for studying cognitive processes in text production.

Writers typically spend a certain proportion of time looking back over the text that they have written. This is likely to serve a number of different functions, which are currently poorly understood. In this article, we present two systems, ScriptLog+ TimeLine and EyeWrite, that adopt different and complementary approaches to exploring this activity by collecting and analyzing combined eye movement and keystroke data from writers composing extended texts. ScriptLog+ TimeLine is a system that is based on an existing keystroke-logging program and uses heuristic, pattern-matching methods to identify reading episodes within eye movement data. EyeWrite is an integrated editor and analysis system that permits identification of the words that the writer fixates and their location within the developing text. We demonstrate how the methods instantiated within these systems can be used to make sense of the large amount of data generated by eyetracking and keystroke logging in order to inform understanding of the cognitive processes that underlie written text production.

Identifying the task variables that predict object assembly difficulty.

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the physical attributes of an object that influence the difficulty of its assembly. Identifying attributes that contribute to assembly difficulty will provide a method for predicting assembly complexity. BACKGROUND: Despite object assembly being a widespread task, there has been insufficient research into information processing and cognition during assembly. The lack of research means that the variables that affect the performance of procedural assembly tasks with illustration-only instructions are unknown. METHOD: In Experiment 1, seven physical characteristics (task variables) of assembly objects were systematically varied in a balanced fractional factorial and orthogonal design to create 16 abstract assemblies, which were assembled by 12 participants (6 men and 6 women aged 18-56). A second experiment (20 participants, 8 men and 12 women aged 18 to 52) involved scaled-down models of 8 real-world assemblies. RESULTS: A clear relationship between the task variables and assembly difficulty was found in both studies, and the regression model from the first experiment was able to predict the assembly difficulty timings in Experiment 2. CONCLUSION: The proposed task variables are associated with assembly difficulty, and the regression analysis has shown four of the task variables to be significant predictors of difficulty. APPLICATION: Applications of this research include the use of the regression model as a tool to evaluate the difficulty of assemblies or assembly steps defined by instructions. The task variables can also be used to produce guidelines to ensure that assemblies or assembly steps are manageable.