Cognitive Complexity and Written Production in English as a Second Language

Abstract

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of cognitive complexity upon the written production of learners of English as a second language (ESL). Sixty‐three intermediate ESL learners provided written responses to questions at high and low cognitive levels. Their performances at the two cognitive levels were rated for total number of words produced, syntactic complexity, and linguistic accuracy. It was found that a higher order of cognition increased both the amount and the order of syntactic complexity of written English responses. But across the two cognitive levels, the degree of inaccuracy remained stable. It was also found that an increase in cognitive complexity increased variability in terms of total amount of production and syntactic complexity but reduced the dispersion in error incidence. Comparisons between standard deviations and standard errors of estimate pointed to substantial inaccuracy of prediction if generalizations were to be made about ESL performance at a high cognitive level from a knowledge of performance at a low level.