Investigating pausology of lower-intermediate and skilled EFL learners’ writing and its relation to writing genres: A keystroke logging study

Abstract

Writing has been a challenging skill for EFL learners to master since they need to learn not only lexical and grammatical resources but also planning and idea presentation in different genres. In this regard, pausological details of a piece of writing (i.e., where and when the pauses take place) can provide a bulk of information about EFL learner’s writing behavior. The present study was, therefore, conducted to examine the pause duration and location of lower-intermediate and skilled EFL learners' writing and their relation to writing genres. For the collection of data, 20 EFL learners (10 lower-intermediate and 10 advanced) took part in the study. Using keystroke logging, writing tasks on five genres of descriptive, personal narrative, argumentative, and persuasive text, as well as a job application, were given to the participants. The recorded data included the percentage of pause duration and pause location (within words, before words, before sentence, and before paragraph) of the lower-intermediate and skilled L2 writers. The statistical analysis of the data indicated that although there was no significant difference between the two groups regarding the overall means of pause duration on five genres, the advanced group had higher means on job application and persuasive writing. Moreover, significant differences between groups on different types of pause locations were found between the two groups. Practical implications for education are further discussed.