The relationship between writing performance of learners of English as a second language and their linguistic text features

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24720281
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Foreign language education
• Research Institution: Gifu City Women's College
• Principal Investigator: KOJIMA MASUMI 岐阜市立女子短期大学, その他部局等, 講師 (40600549)
• Research Collaborator: IWASAKI Hirosada 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 教授 (50232658) ; AKAMATSU Nobuhiko 同志社大学, 文学部, 教授 (30281736) ; KANETA Taku 帝京科学大学, 総合教育センター, 助教 (10759905) ; HARADA Yoriko 東京電機大学, 工学部, 講師 (60714243) ; SAKURAI Takuya 東京電機大学, 工学部, 講師 (60624632) ; ISHII Takumi 筑波大学, 大学院
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 英語教育 / ライティング力 / 語彙の豊かさ / テクスト分析 / メタ分析

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, I have undertaken research into the writing performance of learners of English as a second language and their linguistic text features. First, I focused on lexical complexity features in the learners’ texts, which were subcategorized into lexical diversity and sophistication, comparing the validity of these indices. The results showed that lexical sophistication discriminated the proficiency levels of learners more clearly than lexical diversity measures. Second, I synthesized and meta-analyzed the results of previous studies on correlations between the writing performance of English learners and their text features: namely, fluency, lexical and syntactic complexity, and accuracy. The results indicated that fluency had the highest correlation with overall writing quality, followed by accuracy and lexical and syntactic complexity. Moderator analyses showed that learner age, test environment, and task type were significant moderators of correlational strength.

Free Research Field

人文学