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Influencing factors of L2 writers’ engagement in an assessment as learning-focused context

  • Lu Wang

    Lu Wang is a lecturer in the Center for General Education at Tokyo Keizai University. She did her Ph.D. in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction of the Faculty of Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include classroom writing assessment, learner engagement, and teacher assessment beliefs and practices. Her articles have appeared in Assessing Writing, RELC Journal, International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching and Studies in Educational Evaluation.

     ORCID logo     and Bin Shen

    Bin Shen is an associate professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Fuzhou University and Director of Center for Foreign Language Education and Teaching, Fuzhou University. She got her BA in English Language and Culture (Dalian University of Foreign Languages, China), MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) (Teachers College, Columbia University, U.S.A) and PhD in English Education (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China). Her research interests include second language writing, writing motivation, academic emotions and self-regulation. Her articles have appeared in Language Teaching Research, System, Applied Linguistics Review, Frontiers in Psychology, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Journal of Education for Teaching and Studies in Educational Evaluation.

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Published/Copyright: May 28, 2024
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
From the journal International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Volume 63 Issue 4

Abstract

While prior research on engagement in L2 writing mainly focused on engagement with feedback, little is known about the relationship between engagement and the broader formative assessment context. To fill this gap, this study investigated what and how contextual and individual factors influenced three Chinese undergraduates’ engagement in an assessment as learning (AaL)-focused writing classroom. Drawing on data from interviews, stimulated recalls, classroom observation, and documents, findings indicated that student empowerment, instructional scaffolding, and a teacher-student rapport in an AaL context afforded and motivated students to enact engagement. Meanwhile, sociocultural factors such as beliefs regarding teachers as authorities may constrain students from utilizing learning opportunities. Moreover, when there was an alignment between students’ will and capacity at the individual level, as well as contextual factors at instructional, interpersonal, and sociocultural levels, students were more likely to engage in classroom writing assessment.

Keywords: assessment as learning; engagement; L2 writing; contextual factors; individual factors; agency
Corresponding author: Bin Shen, School of Foreign Languages, Fuzhou University, No. 2 Xueyuan Rd, University Town, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, 350108, China; and Center for Foreign Language Education and Teaching, School of Foreign Languages, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, 350108, China, E-mail:

Funding source: Fujian Provincial Social Sciences Fund

Award Identifier / Grant number: FJ2023B030

Funding source: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Council, China Association of Higher Education

Award Identifier / Grant number: 23WYJ0427

About the authors

Lu Wang

Lu Wang is a lecturer in the Center for General Education at Tokyo Keizai University. She did her Ph.D. in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction of the Faculty of Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include classroom writing assessment, learner engagement, and teacher assessment beliefs and practices. Her articles have appeared in Assessing Writing, RELC Journal, International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching and Studies in Educational Evaluation.

Bin Shen

Bin Shen is an associate professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Fuzhou University and Director of Center for Foreign Language Education and Teaching, Fuzhou University. She got her BA in English Language and Culture (Dalian University of Foreign Languages, China), MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) (Teachers College, Columbia University, U.S.A) and PhD in English Education (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China). Her research interests include second language writing, writing motivation, academic emotions and self-regulation. Her articles have appeared in Language Teaching Research, System, Applied Linguistics Review, Frontiers in Psychology, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Journal of Education for Teaching and Studies in Educational Evaluation.

Appendix A: Teaching materials

Appendix B: Students’ writing drafts

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Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2023-0159).

Received: 2023-07-11
Accepted: 2024-05-08
Published Online: 2024-05-28
Published in Print: 2025-11-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Learning academic vocabulary through reading online news
  4. A Q methodological study into pre-service Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers’ mindsets about teaching competencies
  5. Assessing written production in L2 Mandarin Chinese: fluency and accuracy
  6. Machine translation as a form of feedback on L2 writing
  7. Acquisition of collocations under different glossing modalities and the mediating role of learners’ perceptual learning style
  8. Unpacking changing emotions in multiple contexts: idiodynamic study of college students’ academic emotions
  9. Exploring L2 learners’ processing of unknown words during subtitled viewing through self-reports
  10. Model text as corrective feedback in L2 writing: the role of working memory and vocabulary size
  11. Exploring learner-related variables in child collaborative writing: interaction mindset, willingness to communicate and proficiency
  12. Contributions of significant others to second language teacher well-being: a self-determination theory perspective
  13. The stone left unturned: boredom among young EFL learners
  14. The impact of out-of-school L2 input and interaction on adolescent classroom immersion and community-L2 learners’ L2 vocabulary: opportunities for interaction are key
  15. Promoting interaction and lowering speaking anxiety in an EMI course: a group dynamic assessment approach
  16. Relationship between learner creativity, task planning, and speaking performance in L2 narrative tasks
  17. Influencing factors of L2 writers’ engagement in an assessment as learning-focused context
  18. The cognitive-emotional dialectics in second language development: speech and co-speech gestures of Chinese learners of English
  19. Impact of task type and task complexity on negotiation of meaning in young learners of Chinese as a second language
  20. Effects of working memory and task type on syntactic complexity in EFL learners’ writing
  21. Assessing effects of source text complexity on L2 learners’ interpreting performance: a dependency-based approach
  22. Incidental learning of collocations through reading an academic text
  23. Listenership always matters: active listening ability in L2 business English paired speaking tasks
  24. Enhancing the processing advantage: two psycholinguistic investigations of formulaic expressions in Chinese as a second language
  25. The effect of form presentation mode and language learning aptitude on the learning burden and decay of L2 vocabulary knowledge
  26. Examining the impact of foreign language anxiety and language contact on oral proficiency: a study of Chinese as a second language learners
  27. The dynamics of changes in linguistic complexity and writing scores in timed argumentative writing among beginning-level EFL learners
  28. Perception of English semivowels by Japanese-speaking learners of English
  29. Corrigendum
  30. Corrigendum to: Development and validation of Questionnaire for Self-regulated Learning Writing Strategies (QSRLWS) for EFL learners
https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2023-0159
Keywords for this article
assessment as learning; engagement; L2 writing; contextual factors; individual factors; agency

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Learning academic vocabulary through reading online news
  4. A Q methodological study into pre-service Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers’ mindsets about teaching competencies
  5. Assessing written production in L2 Mandarin Chinese: fluency and accuracy
  6. Machine translation as a form of feedback on L2 writing
  7. Acquisition of collocations under different glossing modalities and the mediating role of learners’ perceptual learning style
  8. Unpacking changing emotions in multiple contexts: idiodynamic study of college students’ academic emotions
  9. Exploring L2 learners’ processing of unknown words during subtitled viewing through self-reports
  10. Model text as corrective feedback in L2 writing: the role of working memory and vocabulary size
  11. Exploring learner-related variables in child collaborative writing: interaction mindset, willingness to communicate and proficiency
  12. Contributions of significant others to second language teacher well-being: a self-determination theory perspective
  13. The stone left unturned: boredom among young EFL learners
  14. The impact of out-of-school L2 input and interaction on adolescent classroom immersion and community-L2 learners’ L2 vocabulary: opportunities for interaction are key
  15. Promoting interaction and lowering speaking anxiety in an EMI course: a group dynamic assessment approach
  16. Relationship between learner creativity, task planning, and speaking performance in L2 narrative tasks
  17. Influencing factors of L2 writers’ engagement in an assessment as learning-focused context
  18. The cognitive-emotional dialectics in second language development: speech and co-speech gestures of Chinese learners of English
  19. Impact of task type and task complexity on negotiation of meaning in young learners of Chinese as a second language
  20. Effects of working memory and task type on syntactic complexity in EFL learners’ writing
  21. Assessing effects of source text complexity on L2 learners’ interpreting performance: a dependency-based approach
  22. Incidental learning of collocations through reading an academic text
  23. Listenership always matters: active listening ability in L2 business English paired speaking tasks
  24. Enhancing the processing advantage: two psycholinguistic investigations of formulaic expressions in Chinese as a second language
  25. The effect of form presentation mode and language learning aptitude on the learning burden and decay of L2 vocabulary knowledge
  26. Examining the impact of foreign language anxiety and language contact on oral proficiency: a study of Chinese as a second language learners
  27. The dynamics of changes in linguistic complexity and writing scores in timed argumentative writing among beginning-level EFL learners
  28. Perception of English semivowels by Japanese-speaking learners of English
  29. Corrigendum
  30. Corrigendum to: Development and validation of Questionnaire for Self-regulated Learning Writing Strategies (QSRLWS) for EFL learners
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