Effects Of Field-dependent/Field-independent Cognitive Style On Non-English Majors’ Automated Writing Evaluation Feedback-based Writing

Automated writing evaluation systems have been widely applied to the field of English learning to improve learners’ writing proficiency in recent years because they can provide instant feedback for learners to revise their drafts.With the help of automated writing evaluation feedback,learners display different writing-related achievements.The existing studies on automated writing evaluation feedback are mainly related to its effectiveness.Studies have suggested that field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles can affect learners’ writing by influencing processing,organizing and constructing information.However,the existing studies on field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles in writing are mainly concerned with teacher feedback and peer feedback.Field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles in writing concerning automated writing evaluation feedback have been under-researched.Thus,this study examined the effects of field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles on learners’ automated writing evaluation feedback-based writing.Under the guidance of the individual differences,this study,through a semester-long automated writing evaluation feedback-based teaching experiment,adopted quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the different effects of field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles on non-English majors’ writing in terms of complexity,accuracy and fluency.In addition,it explored whether field-dependent and field-independent non-English majors had different perceptions of automated writing evaluation feedback-based writing.In the experiment,60 non-English majors were selected as the participants.They were classified into 30 field-dependent learners and 30 field-independent learners according to their scores of Cognitive Style Figure Test which was conducted at the beginning of the study.In the whole experiment,participants were required to finish a pretest as well as four writing tasks,submit writing texts to the automated writing evaluation system and revise their writing based on automated writing evaluation feedback.Afterwards,they were asked to finish a post-test followed by a questionnaire and semi-structured interview.Three participants selected from field-dependent and field-independent learners respectively based on their writing improvements were invited to finish the interview.Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data from the pretest and post-test,the questionnaire and semi-structured interview,the major findings are summarized as follows:Firstly,compared with field-dependent cognitive style,field-independent cognitive style showed more advantages in improving non-English majors’ automated writing evaluation feedback-based writing complexity and accuracy,but field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles failed to influence non-English majors’ writing fluency significantly.Secondly,both field-dependent and field-independent non-English majors held positive attitudes towards automated writing evaluation feedback-based writing and field-independent non-English majors were more satisfied with it in terms of writing proficiency and learner autonomy in writing.Field-dependent non-English maj ors considered automated writing evaluation feedback authoritative,while field-independent non-English majors regarded automated writing evaluation feedback as unreliable,which led to their different actions in dealing with automated writing evaluation feedback.Based on the above findings,this study testified the different effects of field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles on non-English majors’ automated writing evaluation feedback-based writing complexity,accuracy and fluency.Theoretically,this study might contribute to the existing studies on field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles in writing and enrich the studies on the specific effectiveness of automated writing evaluation feedback.Practically,the findings of this study could help English teachers and students take full advantage of different cognitive styles and make better use of automated writing evaluation feedback.