Objective: The objective of this study was threefold: (a) to create a rubric for response complexity (RC), defined as an admixture of response length, grammatical diversity, categorisation, and sophistication; (b) to measure behavioural and cognitive engagement through students' written responses on a school-based written activity, and (c) to…

In this study at a research-intensive public university, a group of eight instructors across a range of disciplines designed a writing assignment in which students (n=104) chose to write to one of three audiences--the teacher, a novice, or an adjacent expert. Students were then asked to complete a questionnaire that included open-ended questions…

Task design features have different effects on second language (L2) production and can be adopted for different pedagogical purposes. However, the synergistic effects of task features were left unexplored in the extant task-based literature. The present study investigated the synergistic effects of two task design features, namely, prior knowledge…

Students face challenging texts and concepts across the disciplines in higher education, and many students lack the reading skills and strategies to make sense of them. The aim of the small study described in this article was to explore the benefits, if any, of the difficulty paper, a written formative assessment that asks students to explore…

Scholars have suggested that reading literature can foster empathy. However, learning empathy through literature in the classroom is understudied. The primary objective of this study was to assess whether affective and cognitive empathy, as demonstrated in student writing, relates to textual attributes, the style of writing prompt, student writing…

Learning to write well is a significant outcome of higher education, as confirmed and illustrated in the Written Communication VALUE Rubric of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Scholars agree that writing and thinking are linked. Thinking about this relationship between writing and thinking in the context of…

Educational videos have become an important part of higher education, providing an important content-delivery tool in many flipped, blended, and online classes. Effective use of video as an educational tool is enhanced when instructors consider three elements: how to manage cognitive load of the video; how to maximize student engagement with the…

Using computer keystroke logs, this study investigated how writing skill affected L2 writers' pausing patterns to gain insights into their management of the cognitive writing processes. The 59 participants, 29 in the more-skilled group and 30 in the less-skilled group, were recruited from a college English course at a key Chinese university. The…

This case study started when I noticed that my ESL (English as a Second Language) students from all over the world had a hard time not only adjusting their writing/textual production to the language but also to the organizational structures of the paragraph I was presenting to them in my intermediate writing class. Considering that my students…

An adaptation of the traditional literary concept of close reading was developed for use in a largely multilingual classroom in which both first language (L1) and second language (L2) students were struggling to comprehend theoretical, lexically dense texts in English. This simplified method of reading a text iteratively and critically is proving…

This research examines whether the ordering of the difficulty of exams can influence student beliefs about their academic abilities and the impact of these beliefs on their performance. The ordering of the difficulty of test items has shown to affect performance. Study One (n = 91) examined college student differences in reaction to a difficult…

Reading academic hypertext documents in college brings a new level of complexity that changes the definition of college reading and literacy. Knowing how to read these unpredictable, nonlinear texts requires familiarity and practice. The author describes the nature and usefulness of hypertext, reviews the challenges of reading hypertext, and…

This study examines student preferences and behavior when navigating online multimedia modules dedicated to teaching cultural aspects associated with an L2, and the contribution of the online multimedia format of the modules to raising interest in these cultural topics. It focuses on student options regarding reading texts on the modules' main…

In the last issue, this journal asked a question on many librarians' minds, and it was pleased with the depth and variety of responses. As suggested by this journal editorial board member Oliver Pesch, readers were asked, "Many libraries have gone to federated searching to win users back from Google. Is it working?" Respondents approached the…

Although research in goal setting has demonstrated that specific, difficult goals lead to better performance, more refined research on the affect of participative decision making and supportive leadership on goal setting has produced ambiguous results. To investigate the relative importance of goal setting, leader supportiveness, and task…