Abstract
The present study attempts to give an account of how students represent writing task in an EAP course. Further, the study is intended to discover if learners’ mental representation of writing would contribute to their written performance. During a 16-week term, students were instructed to practice writing as a problem solving activity. At almost the end of the term, they were prompted to write on what they thought writing task was like and also an essay on an argumentative topic. The results revealed that students could conceptualize the instructed recursive model of writing as a process-based, multi-dimensional and integrated activity inducing self-direction and organization while holding in low regard the product view of writing. The findings also demonstrated that task representation was related to the students’ writing performance, with process oriented students significantly outperforming the product-oriented ones. Also, it was found that task representation components (ideational, linguistic, textual, interpersonal) had a significant relationship with the written performance (\(\upbeta =0.59\); Sig.: 0.006). The study can have both theoretical and practical implications with regard to the factors involving the students’ writing internal processes and their effects on written performance.
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This study was not funded by any institute, organization or university but conducted through the authors’ mutual agreement and division of labor.
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The study did not contain any animal-related investigation, and all the procedures involving the human participants have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution and the informed consent from the individual participants obtained on the condition of anonymity and confidentiality.
Appendices
Appendix 1
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1.
Prompt on task representation adapted from Nicolas-Conesa et al. (2014)
According to what you have learned in your writing course, please write a journal entry trying to explain to a prospective student in our department what you think good academic writing is and what it involves.
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2.
Prompt for writing task (Argumentative Essay) adopted from Raimes (1987)
Success in education is influenced more by the students’ home life and training as a child than by the quality and effectiveness of the educational program. Do you agree or disagree?
Appendix 2
Rating scale Raters were required to rate the essays using the five specified components, each to be scored along the scale of 1–5; 1 shows the lowest score on that component, say, content, and 5 the highest. Receiving the full score on each component would result in 20. For example, if a student obtains 5 on all the components, his total score will be 20.
Components/points | Description | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Content | Meaningful and relevant arguments | |||||
Language | Correct use of language: structure, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation | |||||
Organization | Clear pattern of development: main ideas, supporting materials, cohesion and coherence | |||||
Appropriacy | Smooth, interesting, clear flow of information to be effortlessly received by the reader | |||||
Total score |
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Zarei, G.R., Pourghasemian, H. & Jalali, H. Language Learners’ Writing Task Representation and Its Effect on Written Performance in an EFL Context. J Psycholinguist Res 46, 567–581 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-016-9452-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-016-9452-0