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An empirical study of the effects of intelligent cognitive diagnostic feedback strategy on L2 writing performance, epistemic structure, and transferability

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Abstract

Second language (L2) writing plays an important role in improving the learners’ language skills of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in terms of language expression and linguistic thinking. Therefore, improving writing skills is still a focus area for EFL learners. To enhance EFL learners’ writing ability and optimize their writing quality, an intelligent-based cognitive diagnostic feedback (I-CDF) strategy is proposed based on the Intelligent Writing Critique System (IWCS). IWCS can provide feedback on students’ English writing learning components, including lexical, syntactic, rhetorical expression, chapter structure, and discourse intention. Hence, the study intends to assess the effects of feedback strategies based on students’ writing scores, self-efficacy, epistemic network structure, and transferability. A quasi-experiment was conducted in two classes at a university in southeastern China, where students were randomly divided into two classes. One (N = 32) was considered an experimental group conducted using the proposed I-CDF strategy, while the other (N = 30) was the control group using the score-based teacher corrective feedback (S-TCF) strategy. The writing experiment lasted for seven weeks. The students would be interviewed at the end of the writing learning activities. The results indicated that the I-CDF strategy improved students’ writing scores and self-efficacy. Furthermore, the epistemic network analysis showed that, compared to the control group, the I-CDF strategy encouraged the students to devote more energy to focus on high-level applications of writing skills such as rhetorical expression and sentence structure collation, optimizing the students’ writing epistemic network of the writing of the students. The interview revealed that the I-CDF strategy supported the experimental group students’ accurate understanding of writing, strengthening the logical structure of the writing. At the same time, the students in the experimental group were satisfied with the I-CDF strategy.

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The data and materials are available upon request to the corresponding author.

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Funding

This research received grants from the Major Cultivating Projects of Leading Talents in Philosophy and Social Sciences of Zhejiang Province (NO. 23YJRC13ZD-3YB); Scientific Research Project from Wenzhou University of Technology (NO. KY202220); Research Project of Zhejiang Provincial Education Department (NO. Y202248992).

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Gang Yang, Wei Zhou and Xiaodong Chen. Project administration were performed by Gang Yang, Wei Zhou. Methodology and supervision were performed Gang Yang and Yun-Fang Tu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Gang Yang, Wei Zhou, Huimin Zhou and Jiawen Li. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xiaodong Chen.

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The ethical requirements for research in this selected university were followed.

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Yang, G., Zhou, W., Zhou, H. et al. An empirical study of the effects of intelligent cognitive diagnostic feedback strategy on L2 writing performance, epistemic structure, and transferability. Educ Inf Technol 29, 2183–2216 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11905-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11905-3

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