Nonlinearity and inter- and intra-individual variability in the extent of engagement in self-reflection and its role in second language writing

Self-regulation plays an important role in second language (L2) writing development (Wilby, 2020; Teng & Zhang, 2020). Hence, engagement in self-regulation is of crucial importance for successful writers (Cleary & Zimmerman, 2012). Self-reflection, one of the three phases of self-regulation (Zimmerman, 2000), was found to be the most paramount phase in L2 writing development (Nitta & Baba, 2014). Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of studies investigating engagement in self-reflection and longitudinal L2 writing development. This multiple case-study employed a time-series analysis to explore the temporal and dynamic changes in the extent of engagement in self-reflection and its possible role in L2 writing development. Six Hungarian English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners composed seven argumentative essays over a seven-month period, one in each month. After finishing the compositions, the participants were asked to comment on the quality of their essays. The essays were analysed for linguistic complexity indices, while the interviews were coded for self-reflective comments. This study found that as the six participants became more engaged in self-reflection, slight improvements were detected in linguistic complexity indices over time. However, both engagement in self-reflection and L2 writing development showed nonlinearity and inter- and intra-individual variability over time.