Enhancing Writing-Related Metacognitions Through a Computerized Writing Partner

The main purpose of this study was to test the general hypothesis that ongoing computerized procedural facilitation with strategies and writing-related metacognitions during writing improves learners’ writing while being helped, as well as leaves a cognitive residue in the form of subsequently improved writing, once that help is removed. Three groups of 20 ninth to eleventh graders participated in the study. One group wrote five essays while being guided by unsolicited continuous metacognitive-like guides presented by a specially designed computer tool (the Writing Partner); a second group received the same guidance but only upon the writer’s voluntary solicitation; and the third group received no guidance and wrote with only a word processor (control group). The study’s main hypothesis was confirmed with respect to the unsolicited-guidance group which wrote better training essays, showed evidence of having internalized the explicitly provided guidance, and demonstrated significant subsequent improvement in writing when no computerized tool was available anymore. The solicited-guidance group and the control group showed virtually no improvement, and unlike in the unsolicited-guidance group, initially poorer writers continued to lag behind initially better writers.