TY  - JOUR
T1  - Effects of Task Complexity on Narrative Writing Performance among
ESL Learners
AU - Ismail, Lilliati 
JO  - Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
VL  - 14
IS  - 23
SP  - 8883
EP  - 8890
PY  - 2019
DA  - 2001/08/19
SN  - 1816-949x
DO  - jeasci.2019.8883.8890
UR  - https://makhillpublications.co/view-article.php?doi=jeasci.2019.8883.8890
KW  - Cognitive complexity
KW  -narrative writing
KW  -Robinson’s cognition hypothesis
KW  -Skehan’s trade-off
hypothesis
KW  -ESL
KW  -high-complexity group
AB  - There has been burgeoning interest in investigating the effects of cognitive load on task performance
among second and Foreign language learners in the past few decades. Two cognition constructs that have
dominated the discussion on the effects of cognitive complexity on language performance are Robinson’s
cognition hypothesis and Skehan’s trade-off hypothesis. While Robinson argued that increasing task
complexity levels would result in heightened attention to accuracy and complexity, Skehan posited that more
demanding tasks would result in a depletion of attention for certain aspects of language production. The
current study investigated the effects of high and low complexity tasks in terms of here-and-now versus there
and-then, under pre-task and no pre-task planning conditions on narrative writing performance. The participants
were 65 English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. The t-test results indicated that the high complexity task
resulted in significantly higher syntactic complexity levels and greater fluency. However, results of the accuracy
measure showed that the low-complexity group achieved a significantly higher mean score compared to the
high-complexity group. Thus, this study lends partial support to both Robinson’s cognition hypothesis and
Shehan’s trade-off hypothesis. The study also has pedagogical implications in designing and manipulating
online materials for use with pedagogical tasks in the language classroom.
ER  -