Scaffolding elementary students’ written composition with technology to improve the quality of their writing

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to account for the expeditious decision process novice writers engage in when deciding what to write and how to write it. In this study, explanations of cognitive processes for composing a written text are used, particularly knowledge-telling. Additionally, Recognition Heuristics are tested as a descriptive model to explain their decision-making. Investigating novice writers' default decision-making strategies, it is proposed that novice writers use heuristic decision-making strategies in composition writing through the use of cognitive processes. In this respect, the study employed a protocol that consisted of a recognition task and a preference task. The participants were fourth-grade primary school students (n = 217) at a state school in Istanbul. The students were given 100 items to label as "Recognized," "Slightly Recognized," or "Unrecognized" in the recognition task, and in the preference task, they were shown writing pairs based on their choices in the recognition task. The results showed that writing instructions using recognized and slightly recognized items were chosen at a rate of 65.9% by the participants over unrecognized items. The analysis also revealed that when recognition is the only cue for discriminating, it takes less time to select recognized things. The most plausible reason for this result is that the participant relies on and employs RH in making a decision.