EFL Students’ Cognitive Performance during Argumentative Essay Writing: A log-file data analysis

Abstract

Abstract The continuing growth of technology has led to a growing interest in online writing tools to gain an in-depth insight into students' cognitive performance. Using Inputlog 8.0, the present work explored undergraduate male and female students’ (N = 72, mean age = 19.7 years) Online Argumentative Writing Performance (OAWP). Participants were provided argumentative writing tasks in two temporal phases: a) composing and b) revision. The log-file data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore any linear or quadratic relations among manifest (i.e., revision frequency, text length, mean R-bursts, total pause time, total active writing time, pause frequency, P-burst frequency, mean typed in P-burst and geometric mean of within-word, between-word, sentence, paragraph pauses) and latent (OAWP) variables simultaneously. The result showed significant linear relations between all variables and OAWP but no quadric relations were observed. Overall, findings suggest that students who employed between-word or between-sentence pause strategy (PS), active writing plus planned pause showed better OAWP, while high frequency of revision and pause at between word boundaries indicated much less successful OAWP. The result indicates that scaffolded revision, worked for L2 students' advantage in making strategic use of time for planning and improvement of written argumentation.