Understanding text-based studies of linguistic development through goals for academic writing

Abstract

Numerous studies of written language development have shown minimal improvement over the course of an instructional period, yet these solely text-based studies offer little explanation for the lack of changes in writers’ language because little is reported about the classroom and the participants. The purpose of this study is to use goal theory to better understand students’ instructional contexts and their writing behaviors as they relate to textual features. We focused on six students in two English for academic purposes (EAP) writing classes, in which we conducted observations and teacher interviews. Students filled out an open-ended survey, wrote two essays using keystroke logging software, and participated in stimulated recall sessions. We first evaluated how instructional goals and practices aligned with students’ goals and writing behaviors. We first found that the instructors’ and students’ language-related goals did not completely match. Students had the goal of improving their language, but teachers focused on more global writing issues. In addition, teachers had a goal that students become independent editors of their language, but students missed opportunities to edit. A secondary yet important methodological finding was that the use of timed writing tasks in text-based studies did not allow students to apply explicit grammatical knowledge that the instructors expected the students to have. Pedagogical, research design, and assessments implications are provided.

Keywords:

• Revision process
• stimulated recall
• goal theory
• accuracy development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jungmin Lim

Jungmin Lim is an Assistant Professor in the College of Liberal Arts at Dankook University. Her research interests are in the areas of second language writing, language testing, and research methods. Her current research projects focus on the use of multimodal writing tasks in English for academic purposes.

Magda Tigchelaar

Magda Tigchelaar is an Assistant Professor of French Studies at University of Toronto Mississauga. Her research interests include second language proficiency testing, self-assessment and second language writing. Her current research centers on language learners’ use of self-assessment materials for evaluating their own language proficiency and the development of language proficiency standards.

Charlene Polio

Charlene Polio is a Professor at Michigan State University, where she teaches in the TESOL and Second Language Studies programmes. She has published widely on second language writing and co-authored Understanding, Evaluating, and Conducting Second Language Writing Research (Routledge, with Debra Friedman). She is currently the co-editor of TESOL Quarterly.