"Motor fluency" refers to the ease with which an action can be performed and several studies have shown how it can modulate various cognitive processes, such as memory and decision making. To investigate these implications of motor fluency, typing-based paradigms have been proven to be useful. In this literature, based on pioneering…

This paper argues that traditional threshold-based approaches to the analysis of pauses in writing fail to capture the complexity of the cognitive processes involved in text production. It proposes that, to capture these processes, pause analysis should focus on the transition times between linearly produced units of text. Following a review of…

To writing anything on a keyboard at all requires us to know first what to type, then to activate motor programmes for finger movements, and execute these. An interruption in the information flow at any of these stages leads to disfluencies. To capture this combination of fluent typing and typing hesitations, researchers calculate different…

Multiple factors simultaneously interact during the writing process. The effect of these interacting factors must be considered if writing is studied as a dynamic and complex process that constantly changes. Based on that premise, the study aims to determine how the interaction between the reading medium and the communicative purpose of a writing…

Computer-mediated social learning contexts have become increasingly popular over the last few years; yet existing models of students' cognitive-affective states have been slower to adopt dyadic interaction data for predictions. Here, we explore the possibility of capitalizing on the inherently social component of collaborative learning by using…

Keystroke logging is used to automatically record writers' unfolding typing process and to get insight into moments when they struggle composing text. However, it is not clear which and how features from the keystroke log map to higher-level cognitive processes, such as planning and revision. This study aims to investigate the sensitivity of…

We present an empirical study on the use of keystroke analytics to capture and understand how writers manage their time and make inferences on how they allocate their cognitive resources during essay writing. The results suggest three distinct longitudinal patterns of writing process that describe how writers approach an essay task in a writing…

In response to COVID-19, universities worldwide experienced drastic and sudden changes including the need to shift to online teaching and assessment. Following previous research suggesting that individual differences in typing skills could influence text quantity and quality, we investigated whether university students' typing speed is related to…

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) for Math still use traditional data input methods: computers' keyboard and mouse. However, students usually solve math tasks using paper and pen. Therefore, the gap between the manner the students work and the requirements imposed by these typing-based systems expose students to an extraneous cognitive load,…

This special issue is devoted to describing and evaluating new methods for analyzing online writing processes in a second language (L2). As all the contributors have stated, the aim is to identify the cognitive processes underlying writing. The ultimate aim is to employ observations and experimental manipulations of these processes to build…

When responding to a writing task, writers spend a significant amount of their time not writing. These periods of physical inactivity, or pauses, during writing provide observable and measurable cues as to when, where, and how long writers halt to plan and/or revise their texts. Consequently, examining writers' pausing patterns can provide…

We used an unobtrusive approach, keystroke logging, to examine students' cognitive states during essay writing. Based on data contained in the logs, we classified writing process data into three states: text production, long pause, and editing. We used semi-Markov processes to model the sequences of writing states and compared the state transition…

Most research into second language (L2) writing has focused on the products of writing tasks; much less empirical work has examined the behaviours in which L2 writers engage and the cognitive processes that underlie writing behaviours. We aimed to fill this gap by investigating the extent to which writing speed fluency, pausing, eye-gaze…

This study investigates the effects of a scenario-based assessment design on students' writing processes. An experimental data set consisting of four design conditions was used in which the number of scenarios (one or two) and the placement of the essay task with respect to the lead-in tasks (first vs. last) were varied. Students' writing…

In an age when students are increasingly expected to demonstrate technology-based writing proficiency, fluency challenges with word processing programs can pose a barrier to successful writing when students are asked to compose using these tools. The current study was designed to determine whether differences existed in typing fluency and digital…