Writing has been recognized as a core competency for postgraduate students. However, improving writing performance, particularly for first-year postgraduate students, remains an important and challenging task. This study aimed to explore the effects of student engagement in peer feedback on writing performance from cognitive, affective and…

The relationship among three writing motivation and affective constructs (writing self-efficacy, perceived value of writing, and writing apprehension) and writing performance was examined among 273 Chinese fourth graders. The structural equation modelling results showed that the direct path from writing apprehension to writing performance was…

Praise and criticism have long been reported as central feedback designs in academic writing, yet their relative influences on students' reception have not been fully investigated. This study employed six feedback statements (2 valences * 3 writing areas) and collected students' (N = 56) ratings of each statement's perceived comprehension and…

This mixed-method analysis investigates thesis-writing burnout among 117 Chinese postgraduates, probing the patterns, magnitude, and influencing factors. A measurable burnout trend emerges across thesis-writing stages - Thesis-Writing Proposal (TTP), Thesis-Writing 3-Chapter (TW3C), and Thesis-Writing 5-Chapter (TW5C) - peaking (X=4.41) during…

Despite a surge of research interest in feedback engagement in higher education, postgraduate students' engagement with multiple sources of feedback in the context of academic writing is understudied. Informed by the notion of feedback literacy, we explore how Chinese postgraduate students perceive and engage with automated, peer and teacher…

Writing anxiety has been identified as a significant obstacle for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in China, with previous studies indicating that it can negatively affect writing performance. Despite this, most research on writing anxiety in the Chinese EFL context has focused on the relationship between writing anxiety and writing…

This paper explores the reliability of using ChatGPT in evaluating EFL writing by assessing its intra- and inter-rater reliability. Eighty-two compositions were randomly sampled from the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners. These compositions were rated by three experienced raters with regard to 'language', 'content', and 'organization'.…

Digital multimodal composing (DMC) has been receiving increasing attention in the research on English as an additional language (EAL) instruction in higher education. While this approach responds to students' changing writing practices in the digital world, it can create tension with mandated curricula and high-stakes testing regimes that…

Having recently completed my first decade in China's Normal System, in this Point of Departure (PoD) I explore precarity in higher education teaching using four tools: "slipstream," "fugia hacia adelante," "exophony," and autoethnography. This is an exploration in the form of a structured performance of precarities…

The present study investigated the potential of writing in English as a foreign language (EFL) for language learning by manipulating cognitive task complexity based on related models and hypotheses. English essays written by 59 Chinese postgraduate EFL students from different subject areas were analysed with reference to writing complexity,…

Although prior studies have suggested the benefits of a collaborative approach to providing peer feedback in EFL writing, little is known about how students engage in collaborative peer feedback (CPF) activities. This paper reports on a case study involving five Chinese EFL students who collaboratively provided feedback on five argumentative…

Although writing and translation are closely related text productions, their interface has rarely been studied in translator training. This study examined student translators' writing and translation products in terms of their quality, errors and self-perceived mental workload. Data were collected from 11 intermediate-level translation students at…

The present study adopted the structural equation modeling approach to examine Chinese university students' metacognition, critical thinking skills, and academic writing. In particular, this research explored whether awareness in metacognition can foster critical thinking and, thus, lead to enhancement in academic writing. The measure for…

This study investigates the use of formulaic sequences (FS) in academic writings of Chinese learners of English as a foreign language across different levels of studies at a public university in China. Frequency-based formulas were retrieved from a corpus of student academic texts written at five time points between Year 1 and Year 3. The…

This study evaluated the effect of a combined feedback activity (peer feedback, computer-generated feedback and teacher feedback) on students' second language (L2) writing feedback literacy. One hundred and eighty-two Chinese university students participated in this research. Findings revealed that the intervention significantly improved students'…