Incorporating a reflective thinking promoting mechanism into artificial intelligence-supported English writing environments

Automated writing feedback supported by artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has attracted the attention of English as Foreign Language (EFL) researchers. However, there is insufficient evidence and inconsistent conclusions on the actual impacts of AI on students' writing skills. In addition, in the field of EFL writing, there are few studies which have integrated appropriate teaching strategies to promote the effectiveness of EFL writing teaching and learning. Furthermore, it remains unclear how learners can effectively benefit from AI technology-based English writing. To solve this problem, this study proposed a reflective thinking promotion mechanism-based AI-supported English writing (RTP-AIEW) approach to deepen learners' thinking and improve their EFL writing quality. To investigate the effectiveness of this learning approach, a quasi-experiment was conducted in two EFL writing classes in a university. One class (50 students) was the experimental group learning with the proposed RTP-AIEW approach, while the other class (53 students) was the control group learning with conventional AI-supported EFL writing. The results indicated that the proposed approach not only significantly improved the experimental group students' English writing performance, but also improved their self-efficacy and self-regulated learning, and significantly reduced their cognitive load. In addition, students' learning experience and perceptions are also discussed.