Essay-writing Task Research Articles

Effects of task repetition with consciousness-raising in wiki-mediated collaborative writing on the development of explicit and implicit knowledge

This study investigated whether repetitions of a wiki-mediated collaborative writing task with the intervention of consciousness-raising could enhance learners’ attention to past-counterfactual conditional in English and their explicit and implicit knowledge development. Sixty learners worked in pairs to complete the same essay-writing task four times within a 5-week time frame. One group received deductive consciousness-raising after the initial task performance (TR + DCR); a second group engaged in inductive consciousness-raising (TR + ICR); and a third group only repeated the task (TR, control condition). Explicit and implicit knowledge gains were measured via an untimed grammaticality judgment test (UGJT) and an oral production test (OPT), respectively. On the UGJT, the TR + ICR led to significant immediate and delayed knowledge gains, while the TR + DCR only resulted in immediate enhancement. The TR + ICR resulted in gains in OPT and had some advantage over the TR + DCR and TR. These findings contribute towards our understanding of the effectiveness of consciousness-raising as a focus on form intervention activity between repeated collaborative task performances with respect to explicit and implicit knowledge at relatively higher levels of second language acquisition.

An intervention study on students’ decision-making towards consensus building on socio-scientific issues

ABSTRACT Socio-scientific decision-making necessitates reasoning from multiple perspectives and the use of trade-offs. This study examines how students decide on socio-scientific issues when they engage in an instructional intervention to enhance their socio-scientific decision-making towards consensus building that, in this study, emphasises generating solutions to resolve issues. We developed a socio-scientific issue-based unit for non-science undergraduate students focusing on an intervention that enhances their socio-scientific decision-making around issues regarding a genetically modified organism. Our intervention focused on consensus building wherein students identified multiple conflicts among various stakeholders’ opinions and proposed solutions to resolve them. In particular, students considered the trade-offs of science and technology. This paper presents the results from two intervention studies in which 12 and 49 non-science undergraduate students participated. To confirm that the participants of each study achieved the goal of the curriculum unit, we analysed the solutions students collaboratively constructed at the end of the unit (Analysis 1). We then used a pre- and post-intervention approach to assess students’ independent decision-making (Analysis 2). During the curriculum unit, we assigned students an essay-writing task twice and investigated the quality of their decisions. A comparison of the pre- and post-tests revealed a general shift towards higher-level responses after the intervention. Students’ arguments on socio-scientific issues changed from justificatory arguments to proposals for solutions. These findings demonstrated that the instruction promoted students’ socio-scientific decision-making towards consensus building. Finally, we discuss the implications for socio-scientific issue instruction and the evaluation of students’ decision-making as well as provide suggestions for future work.

Effects of Self-Control on Cheating Among Indonesian College Students

Cheating among college students has long been a concern in the academic field. In addressing this problem, it is imperative to determine in what circumstances college students cheat. Looking into the internal factor, previous research found that the depletion of self-control increased the probability of cheating. To determine whether this result could be replicated in an Indonesian population, we conducted an experimental study. A sample of 63 undergraduates was randomized into two groups, a self-control depletion group (had difficult essay-writing task) and a self-control no-depletion group (had an easy essay-writing task). After writing the essay, the participants were then asked to complete a knowledge task directly on the test sheet and then copy their answers into a pre-marked sheet. Cheating was determined as modified answers from the test sheet to the pre-marked sheet. The results showed a significant difference in modified answers between the depleted and non-depleted self-control group (t = 2.09, p < 0.05). This finding indicates that depletion of self-control affects cheating. This study has a meaningful implication for determining the ideal setting in which the university should conduct their examinations.

예비 국어교사의 교과 논술 과제 설계에 나타난 교과서 텍스트 선택 체험 분석

예비 국어교사의 교과 논술 과제 설계에 나타난 교과서 텍스트 선택 체험 분석

Enhanced Collaborative Teaching Method on the Performance of Students in Essay Writing Task

The art of Writing as a basic language skill in Language Education, is a generative skill that requires a lot of brainstorming in order for Second Language students to meet up with the acceptable communicative competence expected. Where and when individuals collaborate on a given work, the resultant effect is normally encouraging hence this research work examined the effects of collaborative teaching method on the writing task of students. The paperemployed the collaborative pedagogy on enhancing students’ academic performance in essay writing at the Senior Secondary School level. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design approach. The sample consisted of 50 Senior Secondary School final year students. The data generated were subjected to statistical analysis and the results of the analysis showed that there was no significant difference between the pre-test scores of both the control and experimental group which established the homogenuityof both control and experimental groups before the application of treatment on the experimental group . There was no significant difference in the pre-test and post test scores of the students in control group. However the collaborative method which was the treatment had significant effect on students overall performance in essay writing. Therefore,it is recommended that English language teachers could employ this method for improved performance among students. Also, teachers should encourage teamwork among students for the exchange of novel ideas. To this effect, educational institutions could organise and train teachers on how to secure better performance through collaborative pedagogical inputs.

Improving academic literacy by teaching collocations

This study explores the effect of teaching collocations on building academic vocabulary and hence improving academic writing abilities. A pre-/post-test experimental design was used to analyse collocations produced in two tasks completed by the study’s participants, English majors at a university in Burundi. They were presented with a completion task and an essay-writing task before and after being exposed to a collocation-based syllabus. The syllabus was designed by selecting target words from the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead 2000) and collocations from the Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English (Crowther, Dignen, and Lea 2002). The awareness-raising approach (cf. Barfield 2009) and an adapted version of McCarthy and O’Dell’s (2005) collocation web model were the techniques adopted for teaching collocations. The results show that participants performed significantly better on the post-test than on the pre-test in their production of collocations in both tasks. This suggests that an intervention contributes towards building students’ productive use of collocations in both cued recall and essay writing, supporting earlier findings (cf. Barfield 2009, Seesink 2007). In light of these findings, pedagogical consequences and avenues for improving higher education students’ use of collocations in writing are discussed.

Self-affirmation increases defensiveness toward health risk information among those experiencing negative emotions: Results from two national samples.

Self-affirmation can promote health behavior change and yield long-term improvements in health via its effect on receptiveness to risk information in behavior change interventions. Across 2 studies, we examined whether the emotional state of the person presented with health risk information moderates self-affirmation effectiveness. Data were collected from 2 U.S. national samples (n = 652, n = 448) via GfK, an Internet-based survey company. Female alcohol consumers completed an emotion induction (fear, anger, or neutral). They then completed a standard self-affirmation (or no-affirmation) essay-writing task, and subsequently received a health message linking alcohol to breast cancer. There was a significant interaction between emotion and self-affirmation conditions, such that self-affirmation reduced the specificity of health behavior change plans among those experiencing negative emotion (Study 1: B = -0.55, p < .001), with consistent but not significant effects for anger (Study 2: B = -.47, p = .069. Among self-affirmed participants, essays were rated as significantly less self-affirming for individuals experiencing negative emotion (or anger). Mediation analyses limited to the self-affirmation condition revealed an indirect effect of negative emotion condition on health behavior change plan specificity via self-affirmation ratings of essay content in Study 1: β = 0.04, p = .041. The salutary effect of self-affirmation on plan specificity was reversed with negative emotion. These findings may be attributed to disruption of the self-affirmation process. Individuals who enter interventions using self-affirmation in a negative emotion state may be less prepared to benefit from other intervention content, and may even be less likely to change health behaviors as a result of the intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record

Do Bosses and Subordinates Make Spontaneous Trait Inferences Equally Often? The Effects of Power on Spontaneous Trait Inferences

Spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) are trait inferences that people make upon exposure to trait-implying behaviors. Extending prior research examining the effects of power on intentional trait inferences, two experiments were conducted to explore the effects of power on spontaneous trait inferences for the first time. Using the essay-writing task (Experiment 1) and the scrambled sentence task (Experiment 2) to activate power within the participants, the results of both experiments showed that high-power individuals more readily drew STIs from trait-implying behaviors than low-power individuals. The current research provides further evidence regarding the functionality of STIs.

Implicit loneliness, emotion regulation, and depressive symptoms in breast cancer survivors.

Among individuals coping with cancer, emotional approach coping-expressing and processing emotions following negative events-has been identified as a potentially adaptive form of emotion regulation. However, its mental health benefits may depend on social-cognitive factors and on how it is implemented. This study examined loneliness as a determinant of emotion regulation associations with depressive symptoms in women with breast cancer. Loneliness was examined as an implicit social-cognitive phenomenon (i.e., automatic views of oneself as lonely), and emotional expression and processing were examined as both explicit and implicit processes. Approximately 11months after diagnosis, 390 women completed explicit measures of coping through cancer-related emotional expression and processing; an implicit measure of expression and processing (an essay-writing task submitted to linguistic analysis); and an implicit association test measuring loneliness. Depressive symptoms were assessed 3months later. Regardless of implicit loneliness, self-reported emotional expression (but not emotional processing) predicted fewer depressive symptoms, whereas implicit expression of negative emotion during essay-writing predicted more symptoms. Only among women high in implicit loneliness, less positive emotional expression and more causal processing during the writing task predicted more depressive symptoms. Results suggest that explicit and implicit breast cancer-related emotion regulation have distinct relations with depressive symptoms, and implicit loneliness moderates effects of implicit emotional approach. Findings support implicit processes as influential mechanisms of emotion regulation and suggest targets for intervention among breast cancer survivors.

The relative significance of lexical richness and syntactic complexity as predictors of academic reading performance

Reading academic texts that include mainly university textbooks has been a challenge for EAP learners. There are various reasons for text difficulty; however, linguistic elements were investigated in this study. The aim of this study was to determine whether lexical richness of the readers would be a more potent predictor of their academic reading performance or their ability for producing and processing complex syntactic structures. The study involved 50 ELT teacher trainees, 25 juniors and 25 seniors, at Shahid Madani University of Azerbaijan, Iran. In a standard multiple regression design, the participants were given an opinion essay-writing task and an IELTS academic reading test. Their scores on IELTS academic reading test were regressed against LFP (Lexical Frequency Profile) and MLTU (Mean Length of T-Unit) indexes of their essays. LFP index is a measure of lexical richness adapted to the web for free online access under the name Web-VocabProfile, and MLTU index is a measure of syntactic complexity. Results indicated that the ability in producing and processing complex syntactic structures rather than mere grammatical knowledge can be considered as effective a predictor of academic reading comprehension as lexical richness. Therefore, lexical richness may no longer be supposed as the single most important predictor of academic reading performance.

When Suppressing One Stereotype Leads to Rebound of Another

A known consequence of stereotype suppression is post-suppressional rebound (PSR), an ironic activation of the suppressed stereotype. This is typically explained as an unintended by-product from a dual-process model of mental control. Relying on this model, stereotype rebound is believed to be conceptual. Alternative accounts predict PSR to be featural or procedural. According to the latter account, stereotype rebound would not be limited to the suppressed social category, but could occur for a target from any social category. The occurrence of procedural stereotype rebound was examined across five experiments. Suppression of one particular stereotype consistently led to rebound for social targets belonging to the same or a different stereotype in an essay-writing task (Experiments 1-3) and led to facilitation in recognition of stereotype-consistent words (Experiment 4). Finally, stereotype suppression was shown to impact on assessments of stereotype use but not on heuristic thinking (Experiment 5).

Adolescents' Explanations for Paramilitary Involvement

Current understanding of the motivations of young people who engage in paramilitary activity is poor. The youth bulge literature has made important advances in understanding determinants of political violence at population level; however, the psychological processes that underpin engagement with political violence among young people are less clearly understood. Further, the pathologization of terrorist activity has hampered deeper understanding of the motivations of those who seek to effect change using violence. This article explores the explanations offered by 14—16-year-olds regarding possible motivations of young people who engage in paramilitary activities in Ireland. Seventy-four Protestant and Catholic young people residing in the border regions of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic completed an essay-writing task which elicited explanations for paramilitary involvement. Young people's explanations were multi-levelled and varied, reflecting the breadth and diversity of their personal circumstances and experiences. The essays were analysed using a Grounded Theory approach, which generated four categories of explanations for paramilitary involvement, namely, social identification explanations, family and socialization explanations, developmental explanations and pathological explanations. Though not asked to express a personal judgement regarding such activity, a substantial proportion of respondents did, with females being more likely than males to openly condone or condemn such activity. Discussion and interpretation of these findings centre on understanding of paramilitary involvement in areas affected by political violence.

A Comparison of Spelling Performance Across Young Adults With and Without Dyslexia

In this study, the authors analyzed 2,056 spelling errors produced by 130 young adults (65 with dyslexia, 65 typically achieving), which came from two sources: a standardized spelling test and an impromptu essay-writing task. Students with dyslexia exhibited higher spelling error rates across both tasks. To characterize the inaccurate spelling attempts of both groups, the authors conducted linguistic and item-level analyses. Among unconstrained errors (essay), students with dyslexia had more difficulty than their typically achieving peers with familiar, low-level items (indexed by word frequency and number of syllables). Among constrained errors (spelling dictation), group differences in phonetic plausibility, morphological awareness, and visual accuracy varied by item. These analyses were telling on low-frequency items for which the groups obtained similar (dichotomous) accuracy rates. The authors suggest that diagnosticians and educators employ error analysis to obtain critical information not typically reflected in the standard scores used to make learning disability identification decisions.

Correcting memory improves accuracy of predicted task duration.

People are often inaccurate in predicting task duration. The memory bias explanation holds that this error is due to people having incorrect memories of how long previous tasks have taken, and these biased memories cause biased predictions. Therefore, the authors examined the effect on increasing predictive accuracy of correcting memory through supplying feedback for actual task duration. For Experiments 1 (paper-counting task) and 2 (essay-writing task), college students were supplied with duration information about their previous performance on a similar task before predicting task duration. For Experiment 3, participants were recruited at various locations, such as fast food restaurants and video arcades, and supplied with average task duration for others before predicting how long the task would take. In all 3 experiments, supplying feedback increased predictive accuracy. Overall, results indicate that, when predicting duration, people do well when they rely not on memory of past task duration but instead on measures of actual duration, whether their own or that of others.

Judgment by quantity.

Five studies are presented that demonstrate the influence of computationally simple quantity information on judgment and the regulation of behavior. Study 1 revealed that Ss used the height of a pile of pages of text to judge their proofreading performance, even when pile size was obviously not determined by the amount of text proofread. In Studies 2 and 3, Ss also used nondiagnostic size information to regulate the amount of time and effort they spent on the task. In Study 4, Ss regulated the amount of effort they spent on a complex essay-writing task by using nondiagnostic page length information. In Study 5, nondiagnostic size information dominated objective performance information, but only when the completed task was in full view of the S. A linguistic mechanism is suggested to explain the use of a judgment by quantity strategy.