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EXAMINING THE RELATIVE EFFECTS OF TASK COMPLEXITY AND COGNITIVE DEMANDS ON STUDENTS’ WRITING IN A SECOND LANGUAGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2021

Ting Sophia Xu Open the ORCID record for Ting Sophia Xu [Opens in a new window] ,
Lawrence Jun Zhang Open the ORCID record for Lawrence Jun Zhang [Opens in a new window]  and
Janet S. Gaffney Open the ORCID record for Janet S. Gaffney [Opens in a new window]
Ting Sophia Xu
Affiliation:
Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland
Lawrence Jun Zhang*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland
Janet S. Gaffney
Affiliation:
Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lawrence Zhang, Faculty of Education & Social Work, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92601, Symonds Street, Auckland 1150, New Zealand. E-mail: lj.zhang@auckland.ac.nz
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Abstract

While many studies have investigated the effect of task complexity on L2 writing, little has been reported on the effects of intended task complexity manipulations on task-generated cognitive demands in L2 writing. This study, therefore, was designed to examine the relative effects of task complexity and cognitive demands on students’ L2 writing. Two argumentative writing tasks were manipulated with varying numbers of elements and reasoning demands to be distinguished either as a simple or complex writing task. Self-ratings and dual-task methodology were adopted to validate the manipulations of task complexity. Thirty-one L2 learners, in the single-task group, were asked to complete two writing tasks and a post-task questionnaire. Participants in the dual-task conditions (30 in Experimental 1 and 31 in Experimental 2) were required to simultaneously complete the primary writing tasks and the secondary tasks. Results from self-ratings and dual-task experiments supported the efficacy of the task complexity manipulations.

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Type
Research Article
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Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , May 2022 , pp. 483 - 506
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© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This work was supported by a joint scholarship for doctoral study offered to the first author by The University of Auckland and the China Scholarship Council. We would like to thank the students for their participation in this research and Guoxing Chen, Ming Yang, and Lihui Song for their assistance in data collection. We also thank the editor-in-chief, Professor Susan Gass, the handling editor, Professor Andrea Révész, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions that have helped improve the clarity of the manuscript.

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