The Effects of Task Types and Working Memory Capacity on the Writing Production of Chinese EFL Learners

The current study aimed to examine the effects of two types of writing tasks—an independent writing task and an integrated writing task—on 144 Chinese EFL learners’ writing production in terms of fluency, accuracy, lexical complexity, and syntactic complexity. Additionally, it investigated whether the learners’ working memory capacity has a mediating effect on their writing when responding to the two different types of writing tasks. The participants took an Ospan test to measure working memory capacity. They were then randomly assigned to either the independent writing task group or the integrated writing task group. The findings revealed that, compared to the independent task group, participants in the integrated task group performed significantly better in language accuracy but worse in fluency. The results of this study partially supported Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis (CH). Results showed that working memory capacity has a significant positive effect on syntactic complexity and accuracy; however, its interactive role with task type was only observed in accuracy.