translate into Chinese. 4. Revealing mental processes, writing and problem-solving
strategies: from a pen-and-paper to a computer-assisted
writing setting
Introspections have been adopted by second language researchers as a
research method to investigate the mental activities of adolescent and
adult learners while they are engaged in different learning tasks, includ￾ing reading (McKeown & Gentilucci, 2007; Yoshida, 2008), listening
(Yeldham & Chen, 2014, 2016), linguistic knowledge (Vinther, 2005) and
traditional pen-and-paper writing (Cumming, 1990; Roca de Larios,
Manchon, Murphy & Marin, 2001, 2006, 2008; Sasaki, 2004; Wang &
Wen, 2002). As previously reviewed, introspective data allow researchers
to learn more about the composing process and strategies to handle writ￾ing and related problems in a traditional pen-and-paper writing situation
since the 1990s.
While verbalization plays an essential role in understanding mental
activities and the composing process (Hayes & Flower, 1980), Bosher
(1998, p. 215) found out from the verbal protocols of three Southeast
Asian L2 college students that they attended to five aspects of their writ￾ing in a pen-and-pencil environment. The five aspects were (1) content
(gist), (2) organization and structure of written discourse (discourse
organization), (3) purpose of the text (intention), (4) use of English (lan￾guage use), and (5) procedural issues from text generation to writing
(procedure). According to her analysis, the students paused because they
were attending to gist most (33 times), followed by language use (26
times) and procedural issues (26 times). In order to solve problems
related to writing, the students returned to the text or their memory (28
COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING 5
times) or assessed the content or language issues (13 times). They some￾times simply recognized solutions without any intended search (17
times). As regards the strategies to solve writing problems, identified
were four major categories concerning the search process and results,
and five subcategories about how to do a search by referring to the ori￾ginal article/essay/memory or generating and assessing alternatives
related to gist or language issues (see Appendix 2 for details). It was
found that the students were inclined to do a heuristic search and suc￾cessfully come to a resolution, albeit the search sometimes had
no resolution.
Wang and Wen (2002) studied L2 students’ composing strategies. Five
identified composing strategies were identified, revolving around writing
topics, instructions, writing ideas and writing procedures. They would
also control the writing process by checking grammar, word limit and
time. These students spent two-thirds of their writing time on sentence
structures. Further to all these composing processes and strategies, Wong
(2005) found the metacognitive, cognitive, and affective strategies of his
L2 learners. For instance, the learners would raise questions to help
them brainstorm related ideas and arguments, evaluate a text and one’s
ability; read and re-read the writing topic, materials and clauses or sen￾tences; make major revision by deleting or adding words and sentences;
and make surface-level changes by editing grammar, spelling, and punc￾tuation. They, however, spent most of their time generating their texts
and searching for words or expressions.
Similarly, Roca de Larios et al. (2008, pp. 36–37) found from the ver￾bal protocols that formulation (i.e. converting ideas into language) took
up most of their high, mid and low proficiency levels of L2 writers’ time
among the seven main composing processes and behaviors while they
were writing an argumentative task. The seven composing processes and
behaviors included “reading the prompt”, “task conceptualization”,
“planning”, “formulation”, “evaluation”, “revision” and “meta￾comments”. The amount of time that the writers spent on the seven
composing processes was affected by the learners’ proficiency level.
Stapleton (2010), who studied the composing behaviors of a postgraduate
while writing an academic essay based on logs, retrospective question￾naire and interviews, coded six composing behaviors, two of which were
task-specific and new to the reported categories, namely “research” (i.e.
looking for content/argument-related information ¼ 24%) and
“collaboration” (i.e. seeking feedback/consulting others about the writing
task ¼ 8%). In the same way as the students in Roca de Larios et al.’s
study (2008), converting ideas into language was the behavior that occu￾pied most of the postgraduate’s writing time. While these studies have
6 C. LEE
successfully identified the composing process and a list of composing
and problem-solving strategies that largely describe the behaviors of L2
learners in a pen-and-paper writing environment, there are variations
and the composing behaviors or strategies seem to vary with the task
requirements and L2 learners’ proficiency levels.
Studies on learners’ mental activities and composing strategies while
using or writing on a computer, however, are scant. Vinther (2005)
attempted to investigate the cognitive processes of high, mid and low
proficiency learners while using computer software to learn linguistic
knowledge. Although the focus was not on writing, the study revealed
the ways in which each group of learners managed time and the software
to learn sentence structures, which might be conducive to writing in
future. A recent study of Shintani (2016) examined Google Docs comments in an English composition class, revealing the mental activity of a
Japanese college student while receiving her synchronous corrective feedback on the hypothetical conditional the student had written. The student’s composing process and responses were videotaped and the
recording was played back for the simulated recall. She found the student
noticed the researcher’s online corrective feedback and accessed his
explicit knowledge to self-correct the hypothetical conditional. The student succeeded in mastering the linguistic form in new sentences in the
text. While the introspective method indicated the cognitive process of
this student, and the effects of synchronous immediate online feedback
on writing accuracy, there is limited knowledge about the composing
process and strategies employed by L2 learners in a computer-assisted
writing environment. The difference in L2 learners’ composing process
and strategies in a computer-assisted a pen-and-paper writing context, if
any, will provide valuable evidence to advance our understanding of
writing on a computer, which is an important tool widely used for learning in the new millennium.