Emergence of multiple groups of learners with different writing-development trajectories in classroom: Growth mixture modeling

Abstract To explore factors that may affect learners’ longitudinal developmental trajectories, we investigated whether L2 learners show divergent trajectories of second-language writing development at a group level when they iterate a narrative writing task procedure in class from the perspective of complex dynamic systems theory. One-hundred five university students who were learning English as a foreign language in Japan and spoke Japanese as a mother tongue performed a timed narrative-writing task procedure once a week over one academic year (30 times). A growth mixture model was used to identify three groups with different developmental patterns: stagnating, steadily increasing, and markedly increasing. A general growth mixture model was used to indicate that the three groups had different achievements not only in writing performance but also in the course grade. It was also revealed that the grouping was influenced by the type of reflecting the students did after writing a composition. These findings suggest that individuals orient and act on a task differently, resulting in divergent developmental trajectories even at the group level. The results also indicate that detailed, rather than simple and superficial, reflection on one’s writing may promote learning through task iteration.