Writing analytics across essay tasks with different cognitive load demands

Abstract

Essay tasks are a widely used form of assessment in higher education. Writing analytics can assist with challenges related to using essay tasks at scale and to identifying different issues in academic integrity. In this paper, we combined two techniques to investigate how students’ writing analytics varied across essay tasks with different cognitive load, considering both their typing behavior (i.e., writing process) and writing style (i.e., writing product). We also examined their relationship across these essay tasks. Findings showed that writing processes change across tasks with different cognitive load: when cognitive load increases, the interword intervals (indicator of planning and/or reviewing processes) increased, the burst length (indicator of translation processes) decreased, and the number of revisions per minute (indicator of reviewing processes) decreased. In contrast to the relation between the writing process and cognitive load, the relation between the writing product and cognitive load was found less clear. The results showed small and mixed effects of the tasks differing in cognitive load on the different writing product metrics. Hence, although the writing product follows from the writing process, the relation between cognitive load and the writing product and process appears to be less straightforward.