Using Learner Trace Data to Understand Metacognitive Processes in Writing from Multiple Sources

Writing from multiple sources is a commonly administered learning task across educational levels and disciplines. In this task, learners are instructed to comprehend information from source documents and integrate it into a coherent written composition to fulfil the assignment requirements. Even though educationally potent, multi-source writing tasks are considered challenging to many learners, in particular because many learners underuse monitoring and control, critical metacognitive processes for productive engagement in multi-source writing. To understand these processes, we conducted a laboratory study involving 44 university students. They engaged in multi-source writing task hosted in digital learning environment. Adding to previous research, we unobtrusively measured metacognitive processes using learners’ trace data collected via multiple data channels and in both writing and reading space of the multi-source writing task. We further investigated how these processes affect the quality of a written product, i.e., essay score. In the analysis, we utilised both automatically and human-generated essay score. The rating performance of the essay scoring algorithm was comparable to that of human raters. Our results largely support the theoretical assumptions that engagement in metacognitive monitoring and control benefits the quality of written product. Moreover, our results can inform the development of analytics-based tools that support student writing by making use of trace data and automated essay scoring.