Investigating the Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF) Writing Development of First Year Students Over a School Year
| Project/Area Number |
19K00824
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 02100:Foreign language education-related
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| Research Institution | Kyushu Institute of Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
Long Robert 九州工業大学, 教養教育院, 教授 (00284589)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2022)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,030,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥930,000)
Fiscal Year 2021: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2019: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
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| Keywords | Complexity / Accuracy / Fluency / Writing / Syntax / Editing / Proofing / Online grammar checkers / syntactical complexity / accuracy / fluency / CAF / EFCR indicators / variability / editing / proofing / complexity / writing / teacher recommendations / synthesis / in-depth content / reflection / improvement / curriculum / online grammar checkers / on-line grammar checkers / syntactical / lexical complexity / grammatical accuracy / supra patterns |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
A serious educational problem in Japan concerns the teaching and quality of L1 (Japanese) and L2 (English) writing as well as with editing/proofing. This study will focus on six compositions from 120 students over the course of one academic year: the purpose to examine how complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) (time taken to write the number of words) improve, if at all. Students’ writing will be examined at three proficiency levels (designated by TOEIC scores), and, to have some level of generalizability, nine universities will be selected in Kyushu and Honshu.
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Students are under more pressure to produce academic papers that reflect a high level of grammatical accuracy. So, concerning the first achievement, I examined the effectiveness of one online grammar checker (grammarly.com), and compared it to the effectiveness of self-editing. Four universities in Kyushu, Japan were involved, with 199 papers. Ninety-nine essays were proofed by an online grammar checker. The study showed marginal differences between the two methods of proofing, but results indicate that online tools can be useful to identify certain grammatical errors. My second achievement was presented in Zurich, Switzerland, and is now under review with the journal "Assessing Writing." Results showed there was a significant difference between the groups; likewise, fluency did not significantly increase over time, whereas some syntactical complexity variables did show significant increases. The final three research questions, results showed significant differences.
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
The study showed that grammatical online checkers were more effective and that writing classes did not improve (overall) the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of most EFL students. It was apparent that students needed far more guidance in these three areas.
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Report
(5 results)
Research Products
(12 results)
