Why students fail to revise? Analysis of written metalinguistic feedback and cognitive effort on revision success

Metalinguistic explanations are an important component both in supporting the first (L1) and second language (L2) writers, particularly when learning academic writing conventions, and they can be combined with both direct and indirect written corrective feedback (WCF). After receiving WCF, students are often expected to revise their text, and the revision success may vary due to many reasons. While much of WCF research has focused on mechanical and grammatical aspects of feedback on writing, little research has focused on the cognitive perspectives of WCF. This paper investigates the effect of estimated cognitive effort and other explanatory factors on students’ revision success in an online L2 academic writing course for university-level engineering students. The results show that the estimated cognitive load of an individual revision task and especially the student’s overall cognitive load are associated with the revision success. However, the relationship is not trivial, and the students’ background and especially error types have a significant effect. The paper proposes guidelines for detecting excessive cognitive load that increases the risk of revision failures and discusses strategies to mitigate the problem. Furthermore, practical guidelines are proposed for detecting excessive cognitive load and avoiding potential revision failures. • Cognitive effort required by corrective feedback affects revision success. • Successful and unsuccessful revisions are related to different error types. • Instructors should adjust feedback detail based on estimated cognitive effort. • A new method for estimating students’ overall cognitive load (CL). • Estimating CL allows teachers adjust feedback to avoid excessive cognitive load.