A study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of an English composition telecourse in terms of skills and student attitudes and to compare its effectiveness with parallel classroom courses, to determine whether telecourse students constituted a distinct population, to obtain student evaluations of the two course methods, and to determine the reasons for the high rate of telecourse withdrawal. Pre- and post-test student compositions from random samples of classroom and telecourse students were evaluated by independent raters on eight criteria, and a semantic differential instrument was similarly utilized to assess attitudes toward writing self-concept, method of instruction and English. In addition, a Student Background Survey, grade distributions, and a survey of telecourse dropouts were utilized in the study design. Findings revealed significant improvement by both groups in composition skills, with telecourse students obtaining significantly higher scores in three areas; similar course grade distributions; similar improvement in writing self-concept, but more positive course attitudes among classroom students. "Personal problems" were most commonly cited by the 52% of the telecourse students who withdrew. Telecourse students were significantly different from on-campus students along several dimensions. (JDS)