A Study Of The Influences Of Different Task Types And Task Difficulties On EFL Learners' Performance In Writing Tests

In recent years, a number of researches on task-based language teaching and testing appeared and received increasing recognition. As to testing, most of researches aim to investigate the influence of task types and task difficulties. However, the researches on task-based writing test are few. The multimedia task type is hardly seen in the previous studies. Accordingly, the present study intends to evaluate the influence of different task types (including the multimedia task type) and task difficulties on students'performance in writing test in terms of cognitive process, accuracy, fluency and complexity. Based on Skehan's (1998) framework of cognitive demand of task, the study aims to investigate the influence of task types and task difficulties on the students'performance on writing tasks.Three different task types are designed in the writing test: topic writing task (traditional type), writing task integrating reading with writing (reading type), and writing task integrating listening, watching, reading with writing (multimedia type). The difficulty of each task type has been analyzed by Skehan's (1998) scheme from cognitive perspective.The ratings of students'papers are finished both by the scorers and the students themselves. The scorers are required to give a holistic as well as an analytic score to each paper; the latter is given in terms of the students'performance accuracy, fluency and complexity. And students are required to finish two questionnaires, one is to investigate their general information and their opinions on writing tests, the other is to assess the test takers'performance themselves.The findings of the study show that task type and task difficulty do have great influence on students'performance on their writings. Students performed worst in the multimedia task type with most difficulties. And the students'holistic scores only partly conform to their analytic scores. And the students'self-assessment of tasks has a close relationship with their writing performance.The present study sheds lights on both language testing and language learning. And it gives some implications for the multimedia task used in the future.