The Role of Task Complexity and Writing Accuracy Among Pakistani Primary-Level ESL Learners: A Correlational Study

Abstract

Writing accuracy is a major concern in the field of English language teaching especially among primary English language learners (ESL) in the process of acquiring the language resources for their independent writing production. This study aims to investigate the relation between Task complexity and writing accuracy of Primary Level ESL learner Pakistan in the light of Robinson's Cognition Hypothesis and Skehan's Limited Attentional Capacity Model. A quantitative correlational design was used, which consisted of two writing tasks of 20 participants which were selected by using purposive sampling varying cognitive demand. Learners' written answers were evaluated for task completion, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation and capitalization, and use of past tense. Performance patterns were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and Pearson's product-moment correlation was used to investigate the relationship between the scores obtained on the two tasks. Results reported show a high positive correlation between task scores (r = .799, p < .001), which means that those higher scoring on this task also tended to score higher on the other. But this correlation does not by itself determine if increased task complexity is related to increased or decreased accuracy of writing. Thus, this study demonstrates that when studying task complexity in primary-level ESL contexts, it is important to consider the transparency of the task design, reliable assessment procedures, and developmentally appropriate writing instruction. The study concludes that learners’ writing accuracy scores were positively associated across the two writing tasks, indicating consistency in individual performance.

Key words: Task Complexity, Writing Accuracy, Task-based Language Teaching, ESL.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23671356