Relations Between Writing Processes and Text Quality: When and How?

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between cognitive activities and text quality: Are qualitatively different texts preceded by different distributions of cognitive activities? The main assumption was that the same cognitive activity might have a different impact, depending on the moment it is engaged in during the writing process. The research material consisted of 40 compositions on two themes, written by 20 ninth-grade students. Thinking-aloud protocols were recorded to assess the writing processes underlying the production of these texts. Data were analyzed by means of multilevel analyses of variance. It appeared that frequency of cognitive activities was not distributed at random over text production. Some cognitive activities appeared to be relatively restricted to the first part of the writing process, whereas others dominated at later stages. The relations between text quality and cognitive activities seemed to depend on the stage in the writing process at which a cognitive activity was employed; the same cognitive activity that showed a positive effect on text quality during one episode showed either a negative effect during another phase or no effect at all. Including time as a variable proved to make results clearer and more specific; the effect of activities having different signs, depending on the episode, would have been absent if the time variable had not been included in the analysis.