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Writing task complexity, students’ motivational beliefs, anxiety and their writing production in English as a second language

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Abstract

This study explored the effects of increasing the number of elements and the degree of reasoning on second language (L2) writing and also examined the relationship between writing motivational beliefs and anxiety and L2 writing in simple versus complex tasks. Sixty upper-intermediate L2 learners were invited to write simple and complex argumentative essays and to complete a multidimensional writing motivational beliefs questionnaire and a writing anxiety questionnaire. Multiple measures were taken to detect the effects of increasing task complexity on learners’ L2 writing syntactic complexity and accuracy and the relationship between individual learner factors and each of the L2 writing measures in the simple and complex task. Results show that increasing task complexity result in increases in subordination use and simultaneous decreases in learners’ L2 writing accuracy. The role of motivation and anxiety is more evident in the complex task. These results are discussed with reference to the Cognition Hypothesis and the Trade-off Hypothesis, highlighting the necessity of employing multidimensional measures of motivation and anxiety.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is based on a presentation (Zhang & Rahimi, 2016) delivered in the Invited Colloquium “Researching Task Complexity in Diverse Contexts” of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL 2016), Orlando, FL, USA. We are thankful to the panel members for their very helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92601, Symonds Street, Auckland, 1150, New Zealand

    Muhammad Rahimi & Lawrence Jun Zhang

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  1. Muhammad Rahimi
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Correspondence to Lawrence Jun Zhang.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Individual differences (ID) questionnaire

Please respond to each statement by circling the percentage that matches how well you agree or disagree with the statement. There are no right or wrong answers, and it is important to be as honest as possible. Your teacher will not use your answers to grade you. If you need help reading an item, just ask. Please respond to every item. Here is an example of how to respond to a statement:

figure a

If you circle 0%, it means you definitely do not want to be there. If you circle 50%, you are really unsure if you want to be there. If you circle 100%, you definitely want to be there. If you circle a percentage between 0 and 50%, it means you more or less do not want to be there, and if you circle a percentage between 50 and 100%, it means you more or less do want to be there.

Learner Individual Differences Questionnaire: Writing Anxiety Section

figure b
figure c

Learner Individual Differences Questionnaire: Motivational Beliefs Section

figure d
figure e

Appendix 2: Task difficulty questionnaire

Please respond to each statement by circling the percentage that matches how well you agree or disagree with the statement. There is no right or wrong answer, and it is important to be as honest as possible. Your teacher will not use your answers to grade you. If you need help reading an item, just ask. Please respond to every item. Here is an example of how to respond to a statement:

figure f

If you circle 0%, it means you definitely do not want to be there. If you circle 50%, you are really unsure if you want to be there. If you circle 100%, you definitely want to be there. If you circle a percentage between 0 and 50%, it means you more or less do not want to be there, and if you circle a percentage between 50 and 100%, it means you more or less do want to be there.

figure g

Appendix 3: Writing tasks

Less complex task

Imagine you are the government official in charge of allocating (giving) funds of $5,000,000 worth for public projects. You have received three competing projects for public causes: building a new school for the low-income families in the community, buying new buses to improve old and slow public bus transportation, and building a new dam to resolve water shortage.

You should allocate funds for all projects. Please prioritise (choose and rank) the projects and allocate the amount of the fund based on your own view of the importance of the projects for the local people. Please provide reasons and give examples when needed to make your choices as convincing as possible for the local people.

You have 35 minutes to write. Please write around 250 words. There is no upper limit; you can write as many words as you like to make your decision clear and convincing to the local people.

Thank you for your assistance!

More Complex Task

Imagine you are the government official in charge of allocating (giving) funds of $10,000,000 worth for public projects. You have received six competing projects for public causes: reducing air pollution, creating jobs for the unemployed, building affordable accommodation for the low-income families, providing subsidised healthcare for the low-income families, providing free higher education for the high-achievers, and increasing school budgets.

You should allocate funds for all projects. Please prioritise (choose and rank) the projects and allocate the amount of the fund based on your own view of the importance of the projects for the local people. Please provide reasons and give examples when needed to make your choices as convincing as possible for the local people.

You have 35 minutes to write. Please write around 250 words. There is no upper limit; you can write as many words as you like to make your decision clear and convincing to the local people.

Thank you for your assistance!

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Rahimi, M., Zhang, L.J. Writing task complexity, students’ motivational beliefs, anxiety and their writing production in English as a second language. Read Writ 32, 761–786 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9887-9

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