Web-based writing assessment with reward system to enhance students’ writing motivation and writing performance

Research about writing in the tertiary English as a Foreign Language field reveals that student difficulties provide substantial barriers to their academic development and subsequent professional lives. However, little research exists regarding the impact of more rapid feedback on their motivation to write and on the quality of their writing, particularly how web-augmented marking might interact with the use of symbolic rewards for writing quality. It was the purpose of this mixed methods study involving 115 Indonesian students in their first semester of undergraduate study to understand the interactions of marking mode (traditional or web augmented) and symbolic reward (present or absent) on students’ writing motivation and writing performance. Findings reveal that: (a) Web-augmented marking provides clearer, more timely and more comprehensive assessment of student writing; (b) The use of extrinsic, symbolic rewards enhanced both motivation and performance among these undergraduate EFL writing students; (c) The largest increase in motivation and performance occurred when web-augmented marking was combined with symbolic reward; (d) Gender played a smaller role in student response than may have been anticipated. This study is significant because partially automated use of marking schemes on institutional learning management systems is relatively inexpensive in terms of technology and academic workload. Used in combination with a system of symbolic rewards, it apparently increases the speed of feedback on student writing while providing the focus on content that fully automated systems appear to lack. This reduced marking turnaround time seems to lead to increases in students’ motivation and performance to write.