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Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing

Based on Kellogg’s writing model, Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model (LACM), and Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis, our study investigated the effects of cognitive task complexity on syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, accuracy, fluency, and functional adequacy in Chinese L2 students’ a...

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Autores principales: Xu, Ting Sophia, Zhang, Lawrence Jun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10469471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37663340
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1121994
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author Xu, Ting Sophia
Zhang, Lawrence Jun
author_facet Xu, Ting Sophia
Zhang, Lawrence Jun
author_sort Xu, Ting Sophia
collection PubMed
description Based on Kellogg’s writing model, Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model (LACM), and Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis, our study investigated the effects of cognitive task complexity on syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, accuracy, fluency, and functional adequacy in Chinese L2 students’ argumentative writing, when students were under an online planning condition. Sixty-eight participants from a Chinese university were recruited to complete two writing tasks with task complexity varied in terms of [+ argument elements]. The findings showed that increasing task complexity led to decreased subordination in terms of clauses per T-unit and dependent clauses per clause, increased phrasal elaboration in terms of coordinate phrases per clause, and no changes in mean length of T-unit, T-units per sentence, mean length of clause, and complex nominals per clause. Neither significant differences in accuracy nor fluency were found as a function of increasing task complexity. Detrimental effects on functional adequacy in content, organization, and overall scores were identified with the increases in task complexity. The trade-offs between syntactic and lexical complexity and between syntactic complexity and functional adequacy support the basic principle of Skehan’s LACM that human’s information processing capacity is limited and Kellogg’s claim that learners have a limited central executive capacity in writing. Implications of the results of this research are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-104694712023-09-01 Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing Xu, Ting Sophia Zhang, Lawrence Jun Front Psychol Psychology Based on Kellogg’s writing model, Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model (LACM), and Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis, our study investigated the effects of cognitive task complexity on syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, accuracy, fluency, and functional adequacy in Chinese L2 students’ argumentative writing, when students were under an online planning condition. Sixty-eight participants from a Chinese university were recruited to complete two writing tasks with task complexity varied in terms of [+ argument elements]. The findings showed that increasing task complexity led to decreased subordination in terms of clauses per T-unit and dependent clauses per clause, increased phrasal elaboration in terms of coordinate phrases per clause, and no changes in mean length of T-unit, T-units per sentence, mean length of clause, and complex nominals per clause. Neither significant differences in accuracy nor fluency were found as a function of increasing task complexity. Detrimental effects on functional adequacy in content, organization, and overall scores were identified with the increases in task complexity. The trade-offs between syntactic and lexical complexity and between syntactic complexity and functional adequacy support the basic principle of Skehan’s LACM that human’s information processing capacity is limited and Kellogg’s claim that learners have a limited central executive capacity in writing. Implications of the results of this research are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-08-14 /pmc/articles/PMC10469471/ /pubmed/37663340 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1121994 Text en Copyright © 2023 Xu and Zhang. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Xu, Ting Sophia
Zhang, Lawrence Jun
Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing
title Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing
title_full Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing
title_fullStr Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing
title_full_unstemmed Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing
title_short Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing
title_sort effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners’ argumentative writing
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10469471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37663340
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1121994
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