AI-BASED COGNITIVE SCAFFOLDING WITH ACADEMIC WRITING PERFORMANCE AMONG EFL STUDENTS

Dung Tien Nguyen

Abstract


Academic writing is a core competence for learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), yet it remains one of the most demanding skills since it requires the simultaneous integration of content development, organization, and linguistic accuracy. Many EFL students consequently devote disproportionate cognitive resources to lower-level language concerns, resulting in the possible hindrance to such higher-order processes as coherence building and argument development. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives on cognitive scaffolding and the growing capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to deliver immediate, individualized support, this study investigated whether AI-based cognitive scaffolding could enhance EFL students’ academic writing outcomes and whether such effects could generalize across different dimensions of writing performance. Using a pre-test/post-test experimental design, the study compared students’ writing performance before and after AI-based scaffolding instructions. The research findings indicated that AI-mediated scaffolding produced a significant improvement in students’ overall academic writing performance but the benefits of AI support were selective and domain-specific rather than uniform across all targeted writing dimensions. These findings highlighted both the pros and cons of AI tools in EFL writing instruction and suggested that AI would be effective when being embedded within an integrated pedagogy that combines technological scaffolds with explicit teaching and guided support to address higher-order writing demands.

Keywords


Academic writing, AI-based scaffolding, cognitive scaffolding, EFL students

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.31004/jele.v11i5.2471

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