The Effects Of Explicit Strategy Instruction And Peer Support On Elementary School Students’ Writing Effectiveness

Writing is the basic content of learning for elementary school students,and it is also the priority and difficulty of elementary school language teaching.Explicit strategy instruction is a common approach to teaching writing that can significantly improve writing instruction and learning.peer assistance is also an important factor that influences the writing performance of elementary school students.However,whether peer assistance is needed when there are explicit strategies to instruct and the interactive effects of explicit strategy instruction and peer assistance on writing effectiveness are unclear.Therefore,the study was conducted with elementary school students as the participants and narrative writing as the content.Examining the effects of explicit strategy instruction and peer assistance on elementary students’ writing effectiveness.The experiment was conducted with 176 elementary school students as participants,using 2(explicit strategy instruction: with explicit strategy instruction,without explicit strategy instruction)×2(peer assistance: with peer assistance,without peer assistance)two-factor between-subject quasi-experimental design.The experiment was conducted in four randomly selected classes in an elementary school in Yantai,and each class was taught writing eight times by the same examiner.Each session lasts 40-80 minutes and lasts three months.The experiment tested elementary school students’ composition performance,cognitive load,self-efficacy,and motivation to write before the beginning and after the end of teaching.The cognitive load,self-efficacy,and motivation to write of the elementary school students were also tested after the third,fifth,and seventh teaching sessions.Results found:(1)There were no significant differences in narrative performance,descriptive essay performance,self-efficacy,and cognitive load between the elementary school students in the group with peer assistance and the group without peer assistance under the instruction of explicit strategies;Without explicit strategy instruction,elementary students in the peer assistance group had higher narrative and descriptive writing scores,higher self-efficacy,and lower cognitive load levels compared to elementary students in the without peer assistance group.(2)The results of the five tests showed that elementary school students in the explicit strategy instruction-peer assistance group,the explicit strategy instruction-no peer assistance group,and the no explicit strategy instruction-peer assistance group had significantly lower levels of cognitive load and significantly higher levels of self-efficacy;No significant changes in cognitive load levels and self-efficacy of elementary school students in the no explicit strategy instruction-no peer assistance group;There was no significant change in the level of motivation to write among all four groups of elementary school students.(3)Both explicit strategy instruction and peer assistance had a significant positive predictive effect on writing performance.cognitive load,self-efficacy all play a mediating role in this impact.Specifically,both explicit strategy instruction and peer assistance reduced students’ cognitive load levels or increased self-efficacy,which in turn improved writing performance.Conclusions:(1)peer assistance had no significant effect on elementary school students’ writing effectiveness when explicit strategies were guided,and peer assistance was able to improve elementary school students’ writing effectiveness when no explicit strategies were guided.(2)Both explicit strategy instruction and peer assistance reduce the cognitive load level of elementary school students’ writing and increase their self-efficacy,but the level of motivation to write does not change significantly.(3)Both explicit strategy instruction and peer assistance had a significant positive predictive effect on writing performance.cognitive load,self-efficacy all play a mediating role in this impact.