Syntactic complexity has long been taken as a significant factor in determining writing quality by EFL learners. And researchers in recent years have made a lot of efforts to devise and verify a wide ...range of factors or indicators for the purpose of measuring syntactic complexity or predicting EFL writing quality. The present study discussed bases itself on a self-built learner corpus with data collected over three years, with the aim of determining the applicable indices for predicting beginner writing quality. Based on previous research, the present study takes into account such factors as unit length, verb-VAC complexity, and clausal complexity. The results of pairwise comparisons by year indicate that there are significant differences for some indices but not for others. In terms of unit length, the three indicators of mean length of sentence, mean length of Tuni, and mean length of clause can serve as the main descriptive variables for the development of the language of beginners; for clausal complexity, seven indices: coordinate phrases per T-unit, verb phrases per T-unit, clauses per T-unit, coordinate phrases per clause, complex nominals per Tunit, complex nominals per clause and T-units per sentence, are the reliable indicators for beginner writing development. But indices for noun phrase complexity and verb-VAC complexity show no significant difference in the Kruskal-Wallis tests. The findings provide proof for the conclusion that knowledge and skills of modification, coordination, and subordination form the real difficulties for EFL beginners. It provides implications for coursebook design and classroom teaching where beginners are supposed to focus more on breeding awareness and skills in these aspects.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of implementing the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of instruction (Graham & Harris,
2005
; Harris & Graham,
1996
) on ...the writing skills and knowledge of six first grade students. A multiple-baseline design across participants with multiple probes (Kazdin,
2010
) was used to test the effectiveness of the SRSD intervention, which included story writing and self-regulation strategy instruction. All students wrote stories in response to picture prompts during the baseline, instruction, post-instruction, and maintenance phases and stories were assessed for essential story components, length, and overall quality. Participants also participated in brief interviews during the baseline and post-instruction phases. Results indicated that SRSD can be beneficial for first grade writers. Participants wrote stories that contained more essential components, were longer, and of better quality after SRSD instruction. Participants also showed improvement in writing knowledge from pre- to post-instruction.
Offering a multidisciplinary exploration of "flow" and the often-nebulous ways it is conceptualized and operationalized in writing pedagogy, this book addresses a critical gap in writing studies.
...Bringing together practice-based and scholarly perceptions, it outlines the key features and definitions of flow, and identifies pedagogical approaches and opportunities for classroom instruction. Incorporating perspectives from disciplines including classical rhetoric, composition studies, cognitive science, and linguistics, this book provides a diverse overview of the literature on flow in writing pedagogy. It includes two instructional voice-based and rhetorical grammar-based activities that outline how to recognize and improve flow in writing. In doing so, the book also provides clear examples of how to create an inclusive writing pedagogy that incorporates sensory and analytical perspectives to help readers and writers experience flow and meet their writing goals.
As an exploration of flow instruction as it currently stands and might stand in the future, this book will be of interest to students and instructors in the field of academic, professional, and creative writing studies.
This study examined the effect of feedback, feed up (comments on goals and students’ success in achieving goals) and feed forward (comments on the next step in learning during the semester) on ...writing motivation, writing self-efficacy, and writing anxiety. Two hundred and ten female intermediate language learners (agemean = 17.2) were assigned to seven experimental conditions: feedback, feed up, feed forward, feedback + feed up, feedback + feed forward, feed up + feed forward, and feedback + feed up + feed forward (n = 30 for each group). Based on group assignment, the participants received feedback, feed up, and feed forward for 12 sessions and took writing motivation, writing self-efficacy, and writing anxiety scales as pretest and posttest. The results of MANOVA and paired samples t-test comparisons indicated that groups that received feedback significantly improved in terms of self-efficacy. In addition, groups who received feed up and feed forward significantly improved in terms of writing motivation. The results also showed that the combination of feedback, feed up and feed forward could decrease learners’ writing anxiety. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that teachers present feed up and feed forward along with feedback to improve non-linguistic aspects of L2 writing among their students.
A convenience sample of 618 children and adolescents in grades 4 through 10, excluding grade 8, were asked to complete a writing motivation and activity scale and to provide a timed narrative writing ...sample to permit an examination of the relationships between writing motivation, writing activity, writing performance, and the student characteristics of grade, sex, and teacher judgment of writing ability. Female students and older students wrote qualitatively better fictional stories, as did students with higher levels of writing ability based on teacher judgment. With respect to writing activity, more frequent writing in and out of school was reported by girls, better writers, and younger students. In a path analysis, grade and sex directly influenced writing activity, while sex, teacher judgment of writing ability, and writing activity directly influenced some aspects of writing motivation. Overall, teacher judgment of writing ability, grade level, and motivational beliefs each exerted a significant direct positive influence on narrative quality, whereas performance goals exerted a significant direct negative impact on quality.
The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to distinguish writer profiles on the basis of students' cognitive processes and motives for argumentative writing and (2) to study differences in the ...distribution of students' background characteristics and in students' writing outcomes across writer profiles. Participants were students who are enrolled in the academic track of upper-secondary education (aged 16-18). The current study uses questionnaire data from two independent samples (n
sample 1
= 386 students; n
sample 2
= 383 students) and writing test data from sample 1. A hierarchical and k-means cluster analysis was conducted on both samples revealing two clusters: (1) process-oriented writers with a high autonomous writing motivation and (2) writers who reported overall lower levels of cognitive writing processes and who simultaneously were less autonomously motivated to write. Furthermore, we found statistically significant differences between the writer profiles in terms of gender distribution and the results also showed that profile 1 students felt significantly more self-efficacious in argumentation and in regulating their writing behavior compared to students in profile 2. The present study contributes to the limited amount of person-centered profiling studies in writing research, especially since no studies to date have investigated writer profiles by combining cognitive and motivational cluster variables.
Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in the use of automated writing evaluation (AWE) in second language writing classrooms. This increase is partially due to the belief that AWE can ...assist teachers by allowing them to devote more feedback to higher-level (HL) writing skills, such as content and organization, while the technology addresses lower-level (LL) skills, such as grammar. As is speculated, student revisions will then be positively impacted. However, little evidence has supported these claims, calling into question the impact of AWE on teaching and learning. The current study explored these claims by comparing two second language writing classes that were assigned to either an AWE + teacher feedback condition or a teacher-only-feedback condition. Findings suggest that using AWE as a complement to teacher feedback did not have a significant impact on the amount of HL teacher feedback, but the teacher who did not use AWE tended to provide a greater amount of LL feedback than AWE alone. Furthermore, students seemed to revise the teacher's LL feedback more frequently than LL feedback from the computer. Interestingly, students retained their improvement in accuracy in the long-term when they had access to AWE, but students who did not have access appeared to have lower retention. We explain the relevance of our findings in relation to an argument-based validation framework to align our work with state-of-the-art research in the field and contribute to a broader discussion about how AWE can be best provided to support second language writing development.
We had 3 aims in the present study: (a) to examine the dimensionality of various evaluative approaches to scoring writing samples (e.g., quality, productivity, and curriculum-based measurement CBM ...writing scoring), (b) to investigate unique language and cognitive predictors of the identified dimensions, and (c) to examine gender gap in the identified dimensions of writing. These questions were addressed using data from 2nd- and 3rd-grade students (N = 494). Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel modeling. Results showed that writing quality, productivity, and CBM scoring were dissociable constructs but that writing quality and CBM scoring were highly related (r = .82). Language and cognitive predictors differed among the writing outcomes. Boys had lower writing scores than girls even after accounting for language, reading, attention, spelling, handwriting automaticity, and rapid automatized naming. Results are discussed in light of writing evaluation and a developmental model of writing.
There is a general consensus that writing is a challenging task for students with learning disabilities (LD). To identify more precisely the extent and depth of the challenges that these students ...experience with writing, the authors conducted a meta-analysis comparing the writing performance of students with LD to their typically achieving peers. From 53 studies that yielded 138 effect sizes, the authors calculated average weighted effect sizes, showing that students with LD obtained lower scores than their peers on the following writing outcomes: writing quality (–1.06); organization (–1.04); vocabulary (–0.89); sentence fluency (–0.81); conventions of spelling, grammar, and handwriting (–1.14); genre elements (–0.82); output (–0.87); and motivation (–0.42). Implications for research and practice are provided based on these findings.
Due to the lack of life experience and situational experience, it is difficult to arouse pupils’ inner motivation and interest in writing. Therefore, the early stage of Chinese writing may be a ...challenge for Chinese pupils. In order to solve this problem, a spherical video‐based virtual reality (SVVR) experience learning system was developed to help pupils improve their writing performance and interest. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an experiment was carried out in a primary school in Zhejiang province, China. First, a writing pretest was administered in two grade 4 classes. The researchers then randomly selected 40 pupils of about 10 years old with similar writing abilities, and assigned them to an experimental group, which used the SVVR learning method, and a control group, which used the traditional learning method. The researchers observed and recorded the pupils’ writing process and then, interviewed them. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the comprehensive writing performance of the two groups (F = 6.272; p = .017 < .05). The mean of the experimental group (Mean = 73.85) was higher than that of the control group (Mean = 70.00). Moreover, there were significant differences between the two groups in terms of the thematic coherence, structural integrity and linguistic expressiveness of their writing performance. However, there was no significant difference in the achievement of creative thinking. In the experimental group, different levels of learning behavior engagement could affect the structural integrity and language expression of writing achievements, and the degree of writing learning behavior engagement was highly correlated with reading time. Through the interviews, it was found that the pupils in the experimental group were more satisfied with the SVVR learning method than the control group pupils were with the traditional learning method.
Practitioner Notes
What is already known about this topic?
Spherical video‐based virtual reality (SVVR) set a simulated environment enabling students to have in‐depth experience in learning contexts.
Most SVVR studies focused on speaking and writing in middle schools and colleges, while its impacts on young children’s writing performance is generally ignored.
What this paper adds?
An SVVR system based on experiencing learning theory was developed to promote young students’ in‐depth experience and perception in descriptive paper writing.
The proposed approach promoted students’ writing performances, writing experience and learning behavior engagement.
Implications for practice and/or policy
SVVR is a potential technology for implementing experiential learning activities, especially in improving thematic coherence, structural integrity and linguistic expressiveness.
It is worth promoting such a low‐tech and low‐cost experiential learning approach to other courses.
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