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The frequent requirement on students in higher education to write essays is intended to fulfil three functions: to aid learning, to provide a diagnostic medium, and to assess. This paper examines the rationale for setting essay questions and draws attention to the inadequacy of our knowledge about how the essay can best be used to fulfil these functions. It is argued that the essay can make two important contributions to learning, diagnosis and assessment, concerned with the development of skills and the cultivation of learning style. Suggestions are put forward on how those setting essay questions may, through greater awareness of the problems, seek to improve the effectiveness of the essay in making such contributions to learning.
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Euan S. Henderson (1980) studied this question.
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