=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2193/paper14
|storemode=property
|title=A Study of Students’ Self-Regulated Revision on Writing
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2193/paper14.pdf
|volume=Vol-2193
|authors=Fuhui Zhang, Li Ding, Hui Xiao
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ectel/ZhangDX18
}}
==A Study of Students’ Self-Regulated Revision on Writing==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2193/paper14.pdf
A study of students’ self-regulated revision on writing
Fuhui Zhang 1 and Li Ding 1 and Hui Xiao 1
1 Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China
Zhangfh330@nenu.edu.cn
Abstract. Student writing development is not likely to happen without revision.
In this computer-assisted learning era, revision is increasingly practiced as a
self-regulated process. Students can regulate their revision behaviors through
cognitive strategies like goal-setting or social strategies like peer review. We
examined possible effects of writing goals together with peer review on college
students‘ self-regulated revision in order to better understand how to enhance
that revision. We asked one research question in particular. What kinds and ef-
fects of revisions did students produce in the digital learning context of the cur-
rent study? 52 U.S. college students participated in this study. During the 16-
week semester, students were instructed to write two papers (with writing goals
written at the end), each in two drafts. When they finished writing each draft,
they submitted documents into an online writing and peer review system (Peer-
ceptiv), reviewed peer papers, gave required comments and ratings, wrote re-
flections based on peer review, and then revised and resubmitted their drafts.
We found that students made targeted revisions. High level revisions occupied a
bigger percentage in terms of changes of sentence numbers. Revision-caused
writing score improvement was not tremendous, but statistically significant.
Keywords: self-regulated revision, Peerceptiv, Third Keyword.
1 Introduction
Deep, lasting learning of any subject matter requires self-regulation, including writ-
ing. Writing, as a complex cognitive task, entails self-regulation to orchestrate the
sub-processes, and adjust writing efforts for better writing achievement (Schunk &
Zimmerman, 2007; Harris, Graham, MacArthur, Reid, & Mason, 2011). The im-
provement in writing is gradual, which needs serious efforts from both instructors and
students. Computer technology provides facilitation tools to increase writing practice
and feedback and helps transforming writing into a self-regulated learning process.
High levels of self-regulation are required from a student writer in the ―usually “self-
planned, self-initiated and self-sustained” writing activities (Zimmerman, 1997, p.73).
Many researches pointed out students‘ lack of self-regulation capacity and aimed to
elicit and develop self-regulation strategies in students (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987;
Zimmerman, 1997; Nilson, 2013). Self-regulated learning has become an area of in-
terest within writing research, though the writing specific self-regulation research is
still scarce. Self-regulation of writing is interwoven with students‘ use of cognitive,
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social and behavioral strategies. Students make use of their repertoire of sources and
strategies to regulate their writing behaviors, through cognitive strategies like goal
setting and social strategies like seeking peer assistance. The present study aims to
shed light on the respective and collaborative impacts of writing goals and peer re-
view as social cognitive strategies on students‘ revision.
1.1 Revision strategies through goal setting and peer review
Goal setting and peer review are both important self-regulation strategies to en-
hancewriting and revision. Even though goal setting is an effective and flexible inter-
vention technique, there has been less focus in the literature on goal setting interven-
tions than on teacher and student feedback (Graham & Perin, 2007). Goal setting, as
an integral component in strategy instruction together with feedback, needs to be giv-
en more importance. In addition, little research has been done by integrating goal
setting and feedback into writing performance enhancement (Schunk & Schwatz,
1993; Alitto, et al., 2016), though the two probably interact proactively in promoting
writing performance. Also, previous studies on goal setting‘s effects on revision
dealwith teacher-set goals for younger learners. From a self-regulation perspective,
college students‘ decision making in writing and revision is largely based upon the
mental representation of their own goals. In a self-regulated online writing environ-
ment for college students, elicitation of students‘ self-generated writing goals approx-
imates more the reality of student writers‘ inner mental processes and decisions in
writing.
1.2 Revision taxonomies
Revision can be identified and revealed through the types of revision writers make
in writing, since revision leaves a record of what has been changed from first draft to
later drafts. Faigley and Witte (1981) tested their taxonomy of revision changes by
coding and comparing only six research samples. Sengupta (1998) further cod-
ing of revision in terms of types, sizes and functions is more explicit in
determining the multi-facet dimensions of revision, the workable count-
ing of the numbers of changes and thus more reader-friendly to be ap-
plied. Later revision categorizations are largely based on the above
mentioned studies to cover the operations, types and functions of revi-
sions (e.g. Min, 2006).
2 Research design
2.1 Research questions
Specifically we asked one foundational question about self-regulated revision behav-
iors. The question is: What kinds and effects of revision do students produce?
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2.2 Research participants
The participants were 52 undergraduate students from a variety of majors enrolled in
an introductory Cognitive Psychology course at this large public university in the
Northeastern United States. These 52 students agreed to include their class tasks in
this research study, and then completed the writing tasks and surveys analyzed here.
These enrolled students are with slightly above average mean on the college entrance
examination SAT scores (max = 800, national means of approximately 500): SAT
math mean=606, SD=69; SAT verbal mean=611, SD=80; SAT writing mean =596,
SD=75. Student writers who complete all four assignments including writing goals,
peer review, self-reflection from peer review and revision fall into 52.
3 Results and Discussion
Across the 52 student draft 1/draft 2 pairings, a total of 476 revision changes were
found. In terms of frequency, each student made an average of 9 revisions (keeping in
mind that some revisions could affect multiple sentences). That is, students were mak-
ing targeted revisions, rather than entirely rewriting their papers. In terms of size,
revision has been made within, equal to or beyond a sentence. Within sentence
boundary, revision happened at format, letter, word, phrase and clause level. Beyond
sentence boundary, revision happened at sentential and paragraphical level. There was
no case of rewriting the paper. 61% revision fell into sizes within sentence boundary,
and 39% revision fell into sizes beyond sentence boundary. The categories and per-
centages are as follows.
citation conclusion other clarity and
interestingness
1% 1% 3% support
0.25%
introduction 22%
0.25%
grammar
28% image
7%
flow
wording
5%
33%
Figure.1. Revision categories and percentages
In terms of effects, revision was explored in two ways. We measured whether or not
students improved paper ratings over drafts. Then, we count frequencies of function
of revisions to measure the contribution of revision. Revision was measured by the
improvement of scores from first draft to second draft. A paired t-test (t(51)=3.92,
p<.002, Cohen‘s d=0.54) of paper ratings from draft 1 to draft 2 showed paper ratings
improved by a mean of 0.21 (out of 7). Slightly more lower-scored Draft 1 papers
tend to improve more in Paper 2 round. It suggests that students did not make revolu-
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tionary progress between drafts, though they did improve through revision and their
improvement were statistically important. Among the revision change categories,
clarity and support, grammar, and wording are the most common categories in revi-
sion, while interestingness, introduction, and conclusion were the least taken care of.
Citation change was a newly emergent category.
In terms of the number of sentences involved in the change, clarity and support occu-
pied the large amount of textual change, which can be seen through the mean number
of sentences change under each category as listed below (Table 1).
Table 1. Mean number of sentences changed under each category
Clarity flow Image* Introdu- Conclusion Interesting- Cita- Wording Grammar
tion ness tion
Mean #
3.4 2.5 NA 4.0 2.3 11.0 6.0 1.0 1.2
4 Conclusion
To summarize, revisions were measured in terms of types, functions, paper rating
improvements and sentence numbers. It is in line with writing research tradition
(Faigley & Witte, 1981; Min, 2006; Sešek, 2016). When students regulate their revi-
sion behaviors, they might not orient towards an absolutely right direction. However,
their revision needs to be analyzed in detail, so as to understand what issues could fall
into their revising action and how revision can be enhanced.
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