Effect of prompt type on test-takers’ writing performance and writing strategy use in the continuation task

Shi, Bibing; Huang, Liyan; Lu, Xiaofei

doi:10.1177/0265532220911626

Cited by 50 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It was employed in this study particularly because it was implemented in one of the largest English tests for EFL learners, and it also overlapped with some widely accepted theoretical frameworks (Ellis, 2008). It was also widely used as an analytical instrument in L2 writing studies (Shi et al, 2020).…”

Section: Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Written Corrective Feedback Strategies Employed by University English Lecturers: A Teacher Cognition Perspective

Wei

Cao

2020

Sage Open

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Examining EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ beliefs and cognition has become an essential area of research as teachers are seen as active decision makers. This study addresses teachers’ beliefs as specific to the strategies they employ when providing corrective feedback to students’ writing. Drawing on Ellis’s typology of written corrective feedback and Borg’s teacher cognition theory, this survey study investigated university EFL lecturers’ self-reported strategy use in the provision of feedback to students’ written compositions. A total of 254 respondents completed this survey from universities in Thailand, China, and Vietnam. The findings showed that the teachers provided different types of strategies, namely, high-demand (e.g., students’ response to feedback required), low-demand (e.g., correcting all errors), and no-demand feedback in relation to their students’ proficiency levels. Their choices of high-demand feedback strategies seemed to be associated with their pre- and in-service professional training experiences as well as contextual factors including local cultural influence and limited resources; whereas their uses of no-demand and low-demand feedback strategies seemed to be associated with their prior language learning experiences and classroom teaching practice. This study also revealed an inconsistency between teachers’ cognition about provision of feedback and their reported feedback strategy use. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research were also proposed.

show abstract

Section: Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Written Corrective Feedback Strategies Employed by University English Lecturers: A Teacher Cognition Perspective

Wei

Cao

2020

Sage Open

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Four groups of Chinese EFL learners participated in a continuation task with four different prompts, namely, bare prompt, framed prompt, vocabulary prompt, and framed vocabulary prompt [4]. Results showed that the more complex prompt type significantly improved the participants' overall writing scores, syntactic complexity, cohesion, as well as source-use features [4]. Thus, their study confirmed that a more complex prompt type stimulates a better writing performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…This can be illustrated as the ratio of the number of content words to the total number of words, the proportion of relatively unusual or advanced words, and the range of a learner's vocabulary as displayed in a text [19]. However, when it comes to the quantification of lexical complexity in the specific writing task, four indices from Coh-Metrix were adopted in a recent study concerning the effect of prompt type, namely MTLD (Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity), Incidence of content words (i.e., the sum of noun incidence, adverb incidence, adjective incidence, and verb incidence per 1,000 words), WRDCacwm (mean concreteness for content words) and WRDlacwm (mean imageability for content words) [4].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although some studies have touched upon several task-related factors, such as the test-takers' interest in the source text [2] and the degree of its linguistic complexity [3], the effect of the prompts given has not been systematically examined. Shi, Huang, and Lu investigated the effect of prompt types in the continuation task and confirmed that more complex prompt types stimulate better writing performance [4]. However, for one specific prompt type, the effect of its level of complexity on the EFL's writing performance remains unclear.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Only Shi et al investigated the effect of the prompt type in the continuation task. Four groups of Chinese EFL learners participated in a continuation task with four different prompts, namely, bare prompt, framed prompt, vocabulary prompt, and framed vocabulary prompt [4]. Results showed that the more complex prompt type significantly improved the participants' overall writing scores, syntactic complexity, cohesion, as well as source-use features [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Do EFL Learners Write with Greater Lexical Complexity: Effects of More Sophisticated Vocabulary Prompt in the Continuation Task

Wang¹,

Zhou²,

Mei-fang³

et al. 2022

Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The continuation task, a reading-to-write task that requires students to make the given plot a complete story, is gradually gaining prominence in the National Matriculation English Test in China. Previous empirical studies revealed that alignment effect existed in the continuation task and as students with different proficiency levels actively interact with the source text, their writing performance was facilitated. The present study attempts to investigate whether a more sophisticated vocabulary prompt could facilitate EFL learners' writing performance in the task, specifically from the perspective of lexical complexity. Our findings confirmed the expected alignment effect and discovered that greater lexical complexity resulted from an increase in the concreteness and imageability of the content words, which was viewed as an evidence of a better grasp of the nature of narrative writing required in the continuation task. In addition, the results suggest that the alignment effect is formed due to the activation for more concrete scenes.

show abstract

The Effects of Topic Familiarity on Text Quality, Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency: A Conceptual Replication

Kessler

Solheim

2021

TESOL Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding the effects of second language writers’ topic familiarity on their subsequent writing performance has been a subject of great interest to researchers in second language acquisition and TESOL. However, prior studies have tended to suffer from multiple methodological limitations (e.g., no interrater reliability, limited or no control over important variables), which may call into question their results. In this conceptual replication, we highlight some of these issues by revisiting an influential study by He and Shi (2012), which explored the effects of ESL students’ topic familiarity on their writing performance as assessed by measures of text quality and complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Apart from highlighting the differences in our studies’ designs (e.g., the CAF measures and statistical analyses used), we highlight the similarities and differences in our findings. Finally, we close with a call for increased replication research in this area.

show abstract

Effect of prompt type on test-takers’ writing performance and writing strategy use in the continuation task

Cited by 50 publications

References 38 publications

Written Corrective Feedback Strategies Employed by University English Lecturers: A Teacher Cognition Perspective

Written Corrective Feedback Strategies Employed by University English Lecturers: A Teacher Cognition Perspective

Do EFL Learners Write with Greater Lexical Complexity: Effects of More Sophisticated Vocabulary Prompt in the Continuation Task

The Effects of Topic Familiarity on Text Quality, Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency: A Conceptual Replication

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About