THE USE OF RUBRICS TO SELFREGULATE STUDENTS’ WRITING PROCESS PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICE = sử DỤNG BẢNG TIÊU CHÍ CHẤM TRONG VIỆC tự điều CHỈNH QUÁ TRÌNH VIẾT của SINH VIÊN NHẬN THỨC và THỰC HÀNH

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER THE USE OF RUBRICS TO SELFREGULATE STUDENTS’ WRITING PROCESS: PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICE Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Thu Hang, Ph.D Student: Do Hai Yen Course: QH2017.E3 HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2021 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP SỬ DỤNG BẢNG TIÊU CHÍ CHẤM TRONG VIỆC TỰ ĐIỀU CHỈNH Q TRÌNH VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN: NHẬN THỨC VÀ THỰC HÀNH Giáo viên hướng dẫn: TS Nguyễn Thị Thu Hằng Sinh viên: Đỗ Hải Yến Khóa: QH2017.E3 HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2021 ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I, Do Hai Yen, QH2017.E3, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper May 4th, 2021 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This graduation paper would not have been possible without the guidance and the help of several individuals who in one way or another extended their valuable assistance in the preparation and completion of this study First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor - Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Hang - for her constant support and encouragement It was her expertise and research experience that guided me from the initial to the end of this graduation paper Also, I am immensely indebted to 368 first-year Fast track students and three lecturers of the 2B Writing Division Their participation and cooperation throughout the data collection process has been the deciding factor to the completion of this study It is also a pleasure to thank Ms Le Thuy Duong - my academic consultant - for showing kind concern and consideration to me, as well as providing me with critical comments and suggestions for the improvement of my research paper In addition, I owe my beloved family a big thanks for their unconditional love, patience and care when I hurdled all the obstacles in the completion of this thesis I sincerely thank my grandparents for cooking me tasty and nutritious lunch every day, thank my parents for having confidence in me, and thank my little sister for shouldering the burden of housework Words cannot express how grateful I am to all of them and for their sacrifices that were made on my behalf Last but not least, my gratitude is extended to my close friends - Nguyen Thanh Mai, Nguyen Viet Hoang - for standing by me and being sleepless together when I am down and stressed Thank my soulmate - Cao Thi Sao Mai and my deskmates - Pham Khanh Duyen and Duong Kim Dung for having supported me mentally, physically and academically ii ABSTRACT Rubrics are increasingly acknowledged for their potential in facilitating and promoting students’ learning autonomy Research on the instructional benefits of rubrics, nonetheless, centers primarily on content subjects rather than foreign language contexts such as EFL writing classes This paper investigated the relationship between students’ use of rubrics and their writing self-regulation, as perceived by both the students and their instructors Data were collected through questionnaires and follow-up interviews with 368 first-year English-majored students and three university lecturers respectively The findings indicate that in general the rubric was considered useful for fostering the writers’ self-regulation by directing them through the stages of goal-setting, planning, revising and editing Nevertheless, most students favored the use of rubric in setting goals, planning and revising their work rather than in editing, demonstrated by the frequency and rated effectiveness of rubric use in each stage The use of rubric was also associated with other benefits such as clarifying teachers’ expectations or indicating writers’ strengths and weaknesses, though there still existed obstacles mainly related to the language used in rubrics and the kind of support provided to students It is possible that those shortcomings will be remedied by the changes in teachers’ instructions and the creation of more generic versions of the rubric - checklists iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACCEPTANCE PAGE i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problem 1.2 Research aims and Research questions 1.3 Significance of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Organization CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Rubric 2.1.1 Definition of rubric 2.1.2 Rubrics for writing 2.1.3 Types of writing rubrics 2.1.3.1 Holistic and Analytic rubrics 2.1.3.2 General and Task-specific iv 2.1.4 Roles of rubrics 10 2.1.5 Effects of instructional rubrics on students’ writing 10 2.2 Self-regulation 12 2.2.1 Definition of self-regulation 12 2.2.2 Self-regulation in writing 14 2.2.3 Effects of self-regulation on writing 14 2.2.4 Effects of rubrics on writing self-regulation 15 2.3 Related studies 17 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research design 20 3.2 Sampling and participants 20 3.3 Instruments 21 3.3.1 Questionnaire 21 3.3.2 Interview 22 3.4 Data collection procedure 23 3.4.1 Piloting 23 3.4.2 Administration of questionnaire 24 3.4.3 Administration of interviews 24 3.4.3.1 Interviews with students 3.4.3.2 Interviews with lecturers v 3.5 Data analysis 25 CHAPTER 4: FINDING AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research question 1: The way the rubric in the Course Guide is used by 26 students at different stages of the writing process 4.2 Research question 2: Student’s perception of the effectiveness of rubric 34 use for writing self-regulation 4.3 Research question 3: Students’ perceptions of the benefits and obstacles 38 of using rubrics to self-regulate their writing process 4.4 Research question 4: Students’ suggestions to improve the effectiveness 44 of rubric use in writing self-regulation CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Major findings of the study 48 5.2 Pedagogical implications 49 5.3 Limitations 50 5.4 Suggestions for further studies 51 REFERENCES 52 APPENDIX 59 APPENDIX 70 APPENDIX 73 APPENDIX 75 vi ABBREVIATIONS ELT English language teaching L1 First language learner L2 Second language leaner vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES List of tables Page Table Overview of Interviewees’ profile 23 Table Teacher’s support with regard to the use of rubric 27 Table Frequency of rubric use at three writing stages 30 Table The level of rubric’s effectiveness at three writing stages 34 Table The level of rubric’s effectiveness to aspects of writing in Revising 35 stage Table Students’ perceptions of the rubric’s benefits to writing self- 38 regulation Table Students’ perceptions of the rubric’s obstacles to writing self- 40 regulation List of figures Page Figure The roles of a writing rubric 26 Figure Frequency of rubric use for writing self-regulation 28 viii How you use the rubric in the course guide? If you use the rubric, a At which stage(s) did you use it? How often did you use it at each stage? In which stage was that rubric most frequently used? Why? b What did you use rubric at the planning & goal-setting/ revising/ editing stage for? Is it useful/ effective? How? At which stage(s) did you find using rubrics most useful/ effective to your writing self-regulation? c How much of the rubric did you read before you turned in an assignment? How much of the rubric did you read after you got the assignment scored? d What aspect of your writing (task achievement/ coherence and cohesion/ vocabulary/ grammar) did you find most improved with the use of rubrics for self-regulation? How? e How did the use of that rubric affect your creativity? f How did the use of that rubric affect your writing motivation and confidence? g What kind of rubrics you think most facilitates writing self-regulation? If you don't use the rubric, a The use of the rubric seems to help some students but not others Can you explain why you haven’t used that rubric for your writing self-regulation/ why you stop using that rubric? b After this interview, you have intentions to use rubrics (again) (After this question, move directly to question 6) 71 Overall, what are the benefits of using the rubric in the Course Guide to your writing self-regulation? What are the obstacles of using the rubric in the Course Guide to your writing self-regulation? What is your perception of a rubric that facilitates writing self regulation? In your opinion, what adjustment(s) needs to be done to make the existing rubric in the Course Guide more useful to your writing self-regulation in particular, or your learning in general? (What resources you seek out?/ What can teachers differently?) 72 APPENDIX INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR LECTURERS Do you think self-regulation is important to a writing process? Why or why not? In what way you usually guide/ teach your students to self-regulate their writing process? Does that method bring fruitful results? Why or why not? What you think of the role(s) of rubrics to a writing assignment? Do you think that using rubrics is a useful way to help students self-regulate their writing process? Why or why not? In your opinion, how can students employ the rubric in the Course Guide to regulate their writing performance? a How effective is the rubric in each writing stage (goal-setting and planning, revising or editing)? b How effective is the rubric to each writing aspect(coherence and cohesion, vocabulary, grammar or task achievement)? In your opinion, what difficulties can your students cope with when using the rubric in the Course Guide to regulate their writing performance? How you find out? a Do you think the use of the rubric has any effect on the student's creativity? b Do you think the use of the rubric has any effect on the student's writing motivation and confidence? Is that effective positive or negative? What kind of support you give to your students with regard to the use of the Course Guide rubric? a When you think is the most suitable time for teachers to introduce the rubric to students? 73 b Do you think giving instruction is sufficient for students to use the rubric effectively? Some students suggested that giving writing samples marked with the rubric could make the instructions more concrete What you think about this? In your opinion, what adjustment(s) needs to be done to make the existing rubric in the Course Guide more useful to student’s writing self-regulation? 74 APPENDIX Interview Transcription With Lecturers Lecturer X What you think is the role of self-regulation in students' writing process? In my opinion, self-regulation is an important skill that my first-year students should possess, not only in writing but also in other aspects of learning These students, as adult learners, should be able to control and reflect on what they write instead of depending only on their instructor’s comments In what way you usually guide/ teach your students to self-regulate their writing process? How effective is the method? I usually discuss with my students about the features that their writing should include to reach the target level of the course For my first-year students, the target level is B2 for the second term In the discussion, I put guiding questions for my students to figure out themselves what they need Some questions are like “What grammatical features you think your writing should include?”, “What lexical features you think your writing should include?”, etc Students can make guesses and judgements, and if they are wrong, I can correct them But it is important to engage them into the criteria discussion, which helps them to understand and 75 remember those criteria better What you think of the role(s) of rubrics to a writing assignment? Do you think that using rubrics is a useful way to help students self-regulate their writing process? Why or why not? I think it is beneficial when both instructors and students work along with a rubric which builds upon the target level and states clearly what teachers expect students to in a writing assignment In that way, rubric helps teachers to grade a lot of papers more easily and allows students, first, to understand the assessment criteria, and second, to mirror their work against those criteria, seeing what is strong and what is still weak in their work If they a good job in revision, they are likely to achieve better scores One more thing is students can reason the grade they receive when looking at rubric without detailed explanation from teachers And there could be less disagreement between them because all is clear right in the beginning In your opinion, how can students employ the rubric in the Course Guide to regulate their writing performance? In ideal conditions, students should read the rubric carefully before they start to write, and list all the things they suppose they need for their paper, like the standard for the language or what type of clause/ sentence, etc If having any difficulty in reading comprehension, seek for help from the instructors Then, when writing, students should remember to put those that they have listed into their work Check once again after finish to see if any feature is missed As I mentioned above, even when the grade is given, students can still refer to rubric to see what they are good and bad at What you think are the effects of the use of rubric on students’ writing motivation? 76 I am not sure whether the use of rubric motivates my student to write more or write confidently… I don’t really think so On the other hand, I think using the rubric positively motivates my students at least to review their work after receiving the grade Like, in our course, students write three versions for each assignment When I mark my students’ second draft, I give points to each criterion before writing down the average final one When my students see those smaller points at the first time, they are curious and have me to explain what those points are, seeing why their work deserves that final grade For the next version of that paper and subsequent assignments alike, students tend to the similar, looking at rubric to see why they receive this or that grade, and focus on certain areas of improvements in the third version Imagine if there is no rubric, many students can easily accept the overall result without searching for the rationales behind it What you think are the effects of the use of rubric on students’ writing creativity? Well, in fact, there is no criterion for creativity stated in the rubric, which can demotivate students to write creatively, and can even cause students a fear of having their score subtracted if they write something “beyond the requirement” There is also a possibility that students want t o write creatively, but they not have enough resources to that I mean, most of the first-year students are inexperienced writers, they can have a wide range of inventive ideas, but their English proficiency is not sufficient to present those ideas in words, like what they can in their mother tongue They can be lack of words, lack of grammatical structures, etc., which prevents them from being creative What kind of support you give to your students with regard to the use of the Course Guide rubric? 77 As I said before, I discuss the criteria for each writing task and for the target level B2 of the course with my students It is notable that the writing prompts are different for each assignment while the Course Guide rubric is made usable for all So, we cannot rely on the rubric because sometimes it is too general For each assignment, I make its specific requirements and expectations clear to my students before they write In addition, I remind them to use rubric in peer-check activities, like, giving feedback to each other with the help of the rubric And lastly, I myself use the rubric when marking and commenting on students’ papers, which as indicated in the previous question, motivates the use of rubric among students too a When you think is the most suitable time for teachers to introduce the rubric to students? From my experience, the introduction to rubric should occur after students complete the first version of the very first paper If you ask me why not the beginning lesson, I would say that…first, there are too many things in that lesson to cover, like the course objectives, the number of assignments and their due dates, etc I think such things are more likely to capture student’s attention compared to what a rubric is like and used for, which seems rather theoretical I did ask students to read it at home, saying that it would be helpful later, but I guess little motivation for them to so without my supervision Instead, I try to engage them when it comes to the first version’s in- class peer-check, like, I can ask pairs of students to indicate the mistakes and estimate the score of their partner based on the rubric criteria In that way, they forcefully read it b In addition to presenting instructions, what can be done to help students to use the CG rubric more effectively? 78 Like what I said, I discuss the criteria with them rather than giving one-way instructions I also mark according to four categories of rubric criteria Apart from that, collecting common mistakes of students, showing them anonymously and then having students fix those mistakes with the use of the CG rubric is another method In that way you have both the theory and the examples for it in your hand In your opinion, what adjustment(s) needs to be done to make the existing rubric in the Course Guide more useful to student’s writing self-regulation? I acknowledge that the use of language in the CG rubric is quite general, which makes it hard for students to fully digest the information inside Sometimes, even teachers without much experience struggle with it too To solve this problem, I think instructors play an important role because they should be the one who define the descriptors and remove other veils for students in the first place Instructors can also hold writing conferences with students One-to-one conference seems less feasible due to the lack of time and resources then conferences of group size are more preferable 79 Lecturer Y What you think is the role of self-regulation in students' writing process? Self-regulation is very important to writing in particular and learning in general Selfregulated leaners know what they want to achieve, what they lack and what they should to improve their result In what way you usually guide/ teach your students to self-regulate their writing process? How effective is the method? Before students start to write, I inform them of the evaluation objectives of each assignment, like, the target language and the target skill(s) that they will be tested Then, prior to the return of their first marked papers, I usually introduce the rubric and explain aspects of it to my students, like the features of each band score and the differences among them I also draw students’ attention to specific points that they have learnt in the recent time, which can be writing a topic sentence or supporting a main idea, etc What you think are the roles of a rubric to a writing assignment? When teachers have a rubric in hand, they can follow it for assessment guidelines, reducing their workload around marking With regard to students, firstly, rubrics can orient their personal goals towards the objectives of the writing assignment Then, after the papers are sent back, rubrics enable students to reason their grade by comparing their performance against the published criteria, seeing themselves which level their performances are in In short, I think rubrics bring benefits to teachers’ marking process and students’ self-study, and I appreciate those benefits of rubrics What kind of support you give to your students with regard to the use of the Course Guide rubric? I introduce the rubric to students once in the lesson when I return the Entry to them The entries are marked according to the rubric’s criteria, with points given to four 80 smaller categories before totaling for the final result When students have their papers and the rubric in front of them, I will explain aspects of rubrics clearly with emphasis on the band score of and 8, which are equivalent to the target level of the course 2B Additional comments and feedback, which based on the rubric’s guidelines, are also given to individuals Despite these instructions, however, I am not sure students can bear in mind to employ the rubric for subsequent writing assignments What you think are the effects of the use of rubric on students’ writing motivation? As I have said above, when students know that their papers are assessed with reference to the rubric, they will be motivated to learn and use that set of criteria to revise their work both before and after submission What you think are the effects of the rubric use on students’ writing creativity? Well, I don’t posit that there is a link between students’ use of rubric and their creativity In fact, the rubric is mainly concerned with its four main criteria, as you know, task achievement, cohesion and coherence, vocabulary and grammar, rather than with creativity We are talking about academic writing So, you think that the use of rubrics affects students’ creativity, specifically in terms of vocabulary? No In academic writing, there exist a lot of restrictions about language use The rules even vary among genres Students can be creative with vocabularies, but it is hardly acceptable if their creativity goes “beyond those restrictions”, like using inaccurate or inappropriate words, and as a result, their score must suffer Briefly speaking, it is a matter of accuracy and appropriateness rather than creativity Let’s take another 81 example with idea development If students come up with creative ideas in their mind, still they have trouble communicating and supporting those ideas, I don’t think the set of criteria which describe levels of performance should be blamed for this When you think is the most suitable time for teachers to introduce the rubric to students? In the lesson when the first Entry is returned to students It’s not too soon, nor too late If we introduce it in the beginning, students can easily get frustrated with the rubric because they have nothing but a load of theory in hand Meanwhile, students need practice and of course, examples to visualize the theory they learnt After Entry is returned, students have their own paper and those of other classmates to compare and contrast On the other hand, a belated introduction limits the guiding value of the rubric In your opinion, what adjustment(s) needs to be done to make the existing rubric in the Course Guide more useful to student’s writing self-regulation? The existing rubric can be not very user-friendly with some “too general” terms, but I don’t think we can and should make changes to it In fact, in high-stake exams, there is also an unpublished version of rubric which instruct raters to score accurately and consistently, but it can rarely be leaked out to test-takers This kind of rubric is more closely related to teacher’s training rather than student’s learning Giving samples is possible, but if a writing sample is made available in the Course Guide, there could emerge demand for samples of the other skills too, thus this idea seems unfeasible I think students should learn from their own writing products, like I have explained in the previous question Other than that, teachers can draw out checklists, which are the simplified version of the rubric but with task-specific information and user-friendly interface 82 Lecturer Z What you think is the role of self-regulation (SR) in students' writing process? Yeah, it’s important that student know how to regulate and play the determining role in their learning As a teacher, I also expect my students have plan about what they should and will SR is necessary to writing in particular, because that skill is hard to master In what way you usually guide/ teach your students to self-regulate their writing process? How effective is the method? I try to give feedback to individual students concerning many aspects such as content, language, etc My feedback can be direct or indirect Indirect feedback are the written comments following their writing Sometimes, I even give suggestions to less competent students who may not be able to figure out the solution to their existing problems themselves Direct feedback is given in class discussion lessons, which can be in the middle and at the end of the course What you think of the role(s) of rubrics to a writing assignment? I use rubric to mark the papers of my students Do you think that using rubrics is a useful way to help students self-regulate their writing process? Why or why not? Rubric can be a tool for writing SR, but I honestly don’t consider it as a useful tool Almost all of the language in the rubric is common words so it is less likely for students to have any difficulty in grasping their surface meanings However, that’s a problem at the same time, like, that kind of language use is not detailed and adequate, which makes it even harder for first-year students to interpreter the underlying information in the 83 rubric As a result, students may not care about the rubric without the teacher’s regular reminders What kind of support you give to your students with regard to the use of the Course Guide rubric? I give instructions, but not very detailed ones I don’t want to overwhelm my students They obviously lack academic experience while using the rubric is not a simple task, like what I said previously But, if students have interest and put questions about the rubric, I am very willing to explain and answer them What you think are the effects of the use of rubric on students’ writing motivation? Well, I think having a rubric in hand reminds students to enhance the overall quality of writing rather than focusing on one or two particular aspects only I observe in my writing classes that many students tend to invest more time on improving some aspects, especially which they are not good at, over other aspects In this case, the rubric can function as a reminder that the points given to each aspect are equal, so, a satisfactory grade requires the parallel quality of criteria What you think are the effects of the use of rubric on students’ writing creativity? I don’t think the use of rubric bears any close relations creativity, especially in the subject Academic Writing Perhaps, sometimes student writers can feel inhibited from using flowery words But logically thinking, it is not a creativity effect because formal language, not flowery one, use is the feature of AW whether there is a rubric or not 84 When you think is the most suitable time for teachers to introduce the rubric to students? Maybe after the first paper is marked and returned At that time, the students probably gain certain experiences with academic writing and have prepared mind to learn about the marking criteria to reason their own result Even if the rubric is introduced at the beginning of the course, it may seem to students as a set of theory only In your opinion, what adjustment(s) needs to be done to make the existing rubric in the Course Guide more useful to student’s writing self-regulation? Admittedly, interpreting the information from the rubric in a thorough and accurate way poses a challenge even to teachers In fact, teachers, like us, have to take special training sessions about it Hence, it comes as no surprise to me that students meet a lot of difficulties dealing with the rubric in the Course Guide For the problem of the language, we can give students a glossary of specialist terms Or simply, teachers can “quantify the criteria”, making it known to students that, for example, at the band with “a wide range of structures”, how many structures they need exactly, at least how many This method seems too technical though, and normally in official tests or exams, those details will not be leaked out Another measure I would suggest is teachers draw up a checklist which acts as a shorted but more specific version of the rubric The checklists can be more flexible, and modified to fit in with a variety of writing genres and prompts Students can compare their products with the checklist, and see what they have achieved or still lack 85 ... KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP SỬ DỤNG BẢNG TIÊU CHÍ CHẤM TRONG VIỆC TỰ ĐIỀU CHỈNH QUÁ TRÌNH VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN: NHẬN THỨC VÀ THỰC HÀNH Giáo viên hướng dẫn: TS Nguyễn Thị Thu Hằng Sinh viên: Đỗ Hải Yến Khóa:... using rubrics to selfregulate their writing process? What are the students’ suggestions to improve the effectiveness of rubric use in writing self-regulation? 1.3 Significance of the study The. .. on the use of rubric for refining their writing skill and process to become self-directed planner, goal-setter, reviser and editor of their written work through the whole process (Saddler and Andrade,