Description
Feedback is an important component in teaching academic writing and helps students to learn the conventions needed in writing their bachelor and master's theses. Although written corrective feedback (WCF) has been extensively researched in recent decades within second language (L2) writing instruction, the findings are mixed in terms of understanding which WCF approaches are the most efficient and in which contexts.The general consensus seems to be that less is more, but feedback on just a couple of error types in academic writing tasks can be dissatisfying both for learners to receive and teachers to provide. In the field of writing research, the cognitive processes in writing and revision have typically excluded the analysis of WCF. Nevertheless, the cognitive models of writing and revision processes could allow explaining some of the mixed findings in WCF research.To examine the influence of cognitive load caused by WCF on revision success, this study analyses the metalinguistic WCF and subsequent revisions in student texts. The study was conducted in an online academic writing course for university-level engineering students. The results indicated that cognitive load had a moderately strong correlation with revision success. Particularly, the more cognitively demanding WCF reduced the probability of students being able to revise their texts. Therefore, writing instructors should evaluate the cognitive load of the WCF they give on student writing and adjust the type and focus of feedback accordingly.
| Period | 23 Aug 2023 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction: Education as a hope in uncertain times |
| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 20 |
| Location | Thessaloniki, GreeceShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- Cognitive Skills and Processes
- Engineering Education
- Feedback
- Writing/Literacy