DISCUSSION
The current study was mainly designed to examine the causal relationships among intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, L2 learners’ perceptions of two types of teacher written corrective feedback and writing performance. To this end, this study firstly drew a hypothesized path analysis model (Figure 2) on the basis of the rationales in the literature review. Secondly, this study used the data (Appendix A/B) adopted from Tsao (2018) and checked its reliability with Cronbach’s alpha. In addition, the data about the subjects’ current writing competence was also adopted from Tsao (2018). The valid data (i.e., 330 questionnaires and writing test scores) collected from undergraduate students studying in four North Taiwan universities were utilized for performing path analysis. This chapter will summarize the major findings related to the two research questions in terms of the direct effects and the mediating effects in the empirical path analysis model and discuss their interpretations under EFL educational context.
As can be seen in Table 4, the participants that were intrinsically motivated to write in English were more willing to spend time reflecting on teacher WCF about local issues and the participants that were motivated to write in English by IM-stimulation were willing to
extrinsically motivated to learn English writing would not be motivated to spend time reflecting on teacher WCF about local and global issues. Even for those who were motivated to learn English by the two most autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation, EMid and EMin, would not spend time processing teacher WCF about local and global issues. One possible explanation might account for this phenomenon. Learning L2 writing is a complex and time-consuming process (Nagin, 2003). It may be too demanding for those who are extrinsically motivated to learn English writing to sustain their interests and attention in this long and tedious learning process. In addition, the effects of extrinsic motivation cannot last long (Brown, 2002). Therefore, only those who are intrinsically motivated to learn English writing are willing to spend time reflecting on teacher WCF regarding the local and global issues in their writing, which would indirectly and positively improve their writing scores. A study from Hashemian & Heidari (2013) also showed the similar finding that only intrinsic motivation was positively related to L2 learners’ success in L2 writing. Moreover, the results further revealed that IM-stimulation is the most important type of intrinsic motivation because it is the only type of motivation that could motivate L2 learners to spend time processing teacher WCF both about global and local issues. This might because IM-stimulation is more related to the internal rewarding inside L2 learners when compared with IM-knowledge and IM-accomplishment. Specifically, those who are motivated by IMs
would learn English writing mainly because they experience the pleasure while learning
English writing. However, those who are motivated by IMa and IMk would learn English writing mainly because they experience the feeling of accomplishment in conquering the difficulties and acquire the knowledge of L2 writing in the process of learning English writing respectively. In conclusion, how to strengthen and foster L2 learners’ intrinsic motivation is an important issue because it is the key to motivate L2 learners to reflect on teacher WCF and eventually enhance their L2 writing scores. To intrigue and enhance L2 learners’ intrinsic motivation, teachers could design instructional activities entailing the parts that could satisfy L2 learners’ psychological needs, such as feelings of competence, autonomy and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). By doing so, L2 learners could gradually develop the desire to engage in those activities in anticipation of internally rewarding, which could foster and enhance their intrinsic motivation in acquiring English writing. Moreover, when compared with WCFLocal, fewer forms of motivation could motivate the subjects to spend time processing WCFGlobal. This might correspond to Semke’s (1984) argument that many L2 learners did prefer teacher WCF regarding local issues to global issues.
Besides, as can be seen in Table 4, L2 learners’ writing scores could be enhanced after they reflected on teacher WCF regarding the global issues in their writing. However, their writing scores would not be enhanced after they reflected on teacher WCF regarding the local issues in their writing. This finding was somehow different from some previous studies’
argument that WCF regarding local issues is effective on written performance (Bitchener, Young & Cameron, 2005; Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Hartshorn & Evans, 2015). This might because WCF regarding local issues could only effectively improve grammatical accuracy in L2 writing but could not effectively improve the overall quality of L2 writing. Thus, if L2 learners only spend time reflecting on teacher WCF regarding local issues in their writing, their writing scores will not be improved significantly. Therefore, this finding indicated that teacher WCF concerning global issues plays a very crucial role in improving L2 learners’
overall writing scores.
Furthermore, Table 5 indicated that the key to propel L2 learners to spend more time reflecting on teacher WCF was intrinsic motivation. As can be seen in Table 5, the participants who were motivated to learn English writing by IMs were willing to spend time processing teacher WCF about global issues. However, it can be further found in Table 5 that those learners would be much more willing to spend time on teacher WCF regarding global issues if they got teacher WCF about local issues beforehand. This finding recognized the importance of teacher WCF about local issues. One reason might account for this phenomenon. Although previous studies that delved into L2 learners’ perceptions of those two types of teacher WCF reported mix findings, most of those studies revealed that L2 learners viewed teacher WCF regarding local issues as the most important type of teacher WCF (Hajian, Farahani & Shirazi, 2014; Leki, 1991; Radecki & Swales, 1988; Simpson,
2006). It might because L2 learners tended to regard error-free writing as a crucial criterion for the so-called good writing (Leki, 1991). On the contrary, few of those studies showed that L2 learners regarded teacher WCF concerning global issues as the most important type of teacher WCF. From L2 learners’ perspective, they might think that it would be more useful and practical to get teacher WCF about local issues in their writing than only get teacher WCF about global issues in their writing. Thus, L2 learners might be more willing to spend time reflecting on teacher WCF regarding global issues in their writing, when they also get teacher WCF regarding local issues in their writing. This suggests that improving global issues in L2 writing might be the key to improve L2 learners’ writing scores, but teachers should also take L2 learners’ perspective into consideration and recognize the importance of giving WCF regarding the local issues in their writing.
In addition, Table 5 revealed another significant finding. It revealed that the sequence that L2 learners process those two types of teacher WCF would be the key to influence the effectiveness of teacher WCF. Specifically, the subjects could benefit the most from those two types of WCF in the sequence from local issues to global issues. One reason might explain this phenomenon. As aforesaid, most L2 learners regard feedback about local issues as the most important type of feedback in their writing (Hajian, Farahani & Shirazi, 2014;
Leki, 1991; Radecki & Swales, 1988; Simpson, 2006). Thus, they will be much more willing to process feedback about global issues if they also get the feedback about local issues. After
enhancing L2 learners’ willingness to process teacher WCF, their scores would be significantly enhanced. Moreover, Gass(1997) stated that L2 learners could only benefit from teacher WCF that they get after achieving five stages, which are “notice input”,
“comprehension input”, “intake”, ‘integration” and “output”. Thus, enhancing L2 learners’
willingness to process teacher WCF could also indirectly contribute to achieve Gass’s (1997) five-stage framework, which could indirectly improved L2 learners’ writing scores. This finding suggests a more effective way for teachers to utilize those two types of teacher WCF in EFL writing class.
Pedagogical Implications
The present study aimed to clarify the causal relationship between intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, learners’ perceptions of two types of teacher WCF and writing performance. It is hoped that the crucial insights into those three variables offered in the current study can conduce to an understanding of what kind of motivation could motivate L2 learners to process those two types of teacher WCF and how those two types of teacher WCF could enhance their writing scores. Based on the research findings, two points of pedagogical implications are presented in the following paragraphs for EFL writing teachers and course designers.
First of all, this study revealed that offering teacher WCF from local to global issues could significantly improved L2 learners’ writing scores. Thus, this study would argue for continued use of teacher WCF in teaching English writing, but in a more effective way. That is, the findings suggested that teachers should give WCF about local and global issues to L2 learners in a sequence from local to global issues. The sequence like this could strengthen L2 learners’ willingness to spend time reflecting on teacher WCF. However, the sequence of offering teacher WCF from local to global issues might be a little hard for L2 learners to edit their writing. Thus, teachers should know how to incorporate this sequence of offering WCF into their English writing courses and L2 learners’ writing processes. Besides, on the basis of
techniques to make the practice of giving WCF more effective and appropriate.
Secondly, teachers should try their utmost to guide L2 learners to develop and maintain their intrinsic motivation in English writing. As revealed in Table 4, the three types of intrinsic motivation (IMa, IMk, IMs) were the key factors to motivate L2 learners to spend time reflecting on those two types of teacher WCF. Among them, IMs plays the most important role. Moreover, Table 4 further revealed that IMs was the only type of motivation that could motivate L2 learners to spend time reflecting on feedback about global issues. This re-emphasized the importance of IM-Stimulation. As aforesaid, to cultivate and enhance L2 learners’ intrinsic motivation in English writing, teachers could start with designing instructional activities entailing the parts that could satisfy L2 learners’ psychological needs.
It is believed that the satisfaction of L2 learners’ psychological needs, such as feelings of competence, autonomy and relatedness, could make L2 learners feel internally rewarding and thus strengthen their intrinsic motivation (Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 2000). To focus on enhancing L2 learners’ IMs, teachers could pay more attention to satisfy L2 learners’ feelings of relatedness, which could make L2 learners experience much more pleasure during discussing English writing with other people and during the process of learning English writing. Specifically, some factors could be included into the instructional activities that could enhance L2 learners’ intrinsic motivation, such as optimal challenges (Deci & Ryan, 1985, p. 123), positive performance feedback (e.g., Deci, 1971; Harackiewicz, 1979),
autonomy-supportive environment (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). On the contrary, some factors should be excluded from the instructional activities to avoid diminishing L2 learners’
intrinsic motivation, such as tangible reward (Deci, Koestner & Ryan, 1998), threats (Deci &
Cascio, 1972), deadlines (Amabile, DeJong, & Lepper, 1976), and competition pressure (Reeve & Deci, 1996).
To sum up, the direct and mediating effect shown in the empirical path analysis model give two major pedagogical implications in teaching L2 writing in EFL learning context.
Firstly, this study argued for continued use of teacher WCF in L2 writing courses but in a more efficient way. This study further recommended L2 writing teacher to deliver those two types of WCF in an effective sequence. Secondly, this study recognized the importance of intrinsic motivation for L2 learners to acquire English writing and give some suggestions for teachers to cultivate and enhance L2 learners’ intrinsic motivation in English writing.
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Studies
The present study clarified the causal relationships between intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, L2 learners’ perceptions of two types of teacher written corrective feedback and writing performance by examining a hypothesized path analysis model (Figure 2) with the data adopted from Tsao (2018). The results provided an empirical path analysis model (Figure 2), which clearly revealed the causal relationships between those three variables.
This model could give EFL teachers several pedagogical implications in teaching L2 writing.
Despite the merits that provided by this study, some limitations of the study still deserve to be aware of.
Firstly, the valid data (i.e., 330 questionnaires and writing test scores) that this study used were collected from undergraduate students studying in four North Taiwan universities.
The research sample was relatively small and restricted to certain types of students. Therefore, the results obtained in this study could not be fully representative of all university students in Taiwan. Future study can include the subjects from different age group, schools, and areas so as to obtain much better generalization results.
Secondly, the questionnaire (Appendix A/B) was administered by the subjects’ class teachers and the instructions about how to fill in the questionnaire were given beforehand.
Therefore, to some extent, the truthfulness of the subjects was still a concern. Future study
as in-depth interviews. This might lead to other meaningful and interesting results and increase the truthfulness of the participants.
Lastly, most previous studies have been conducted to examine the relationship either between SDT-related variables and writing performance or between L2 learners’ perceptions of teacher WCF and writing performance. Few of them delve into the causal relationship among SDT-related variables, L2 learners’ perceptions of teacher WCF and writing performance, so this study was intended to fill up this gap. However, in addition to SDT-related variables, there are still other factors that would influence L2 learners’
perceptions of teacher WCF. Therefore, to further explore the related topic, several other related factors should be taken into account, such as possible L2 selves.
Conclusion
The empirical path analysis model of this study revealed the specific causal relationships between SDT-related variables, L2 learners’ perceptions of two different types of teacher WCF and writing performance. Specifically, this empirical path analysis model displayed the direct effects and mediating effects among those three variables. In this model, the importance of intrinsic motivation was re-emphasized because it was the key to motivate L2 learners to spend time processing teacher WCF, which could eventually enhance their writing scores. Most importantly, the mediating effects of WCFLocal and WCFGlobal implied a more effective way of utilizing teacher WCF. That is, teachers should offer WCF to L2 learners in a sequence from local to global issues, which could efficiently enhance L2 learners’ writing scores. To sum up, this study clarified the causal relationships among those three variables and made contribution to the issues about how to motivate L2 learners to reflect on teacher WCF and how to efficiently enhance L2 learners’ writing scores through those two types of teacher WCF. Although limited by the inclusion of only three variables, this study still paved the way for future research in examining causal relationship among other variables.
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