An Investigation of How Task Closure and Task Complexity Affect English L2 Writing

Jiyong Lee

Konkuk University

Copyright 2020 KASELL
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how task closure and task complexity interactively affect Korean L2 learners’ writing in terms of lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and accuracy. Although there is an abundance of research on the effects of task complexity on L2 performance, little attention has been paid to the differential effects of tasks that have a predetermined solution (closed tasks) vs. those that do not have a predetermined solution (open tasks). In order to fill this gap, this study investigated the interactive effects of task closure and task complexity on L2 writing, and also employed learner self-ratings and time-on-task to measure the cognitive load of the tasks. The results revealed that task complexity had significant effects on all cognitive load measures and performance measures. Significant task closure effects were also found on all measures of L2 writing. In addition, the interaction between task complexity and task closure significantly affected the level of stress that participants felt during task performance and the accuracy of their writing.

Keywords:

task closure, open tasks, closed tasks, task complexity, L2 writing, English, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, accuracy

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Lee, Jiyong, Postdoctoral researcherDepartment of English EducationKonkuk University120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, KoreaTel: 02) 450-3906Email: luvvie0123@gmail.com