Open research questions in Writing and Handwriting Education

What the literature leaves open

• The analysis identifies three primary factors contributing to this phenomenon: (1) the loss of cognitive agency resulting from overreliance on AI, (2) insufficient information literacy, particularly in evaluating and verifying the credibility of information, and (3) the weakening of authorial identity and individual voice.

  A Study on Strategies for Strengthening Writing Agency in the Era of Generative AI : Focusing on the Redesign of Education Objectives in College Writing Education · 2026 · DOI

• Future research may examine similar instructional initiatives used in other components of English writing and may employ quantitative or mixed-method approaches with larger samples to investigate their effectiveness across different contexts. In addition, future studies may examine how contextual factors, such as access to technology and institutional support, shape learning outcomes in online environ- ments. In addition, the study did not include performance-based measures such as writing samples or rubric scores; therefore, the findings are limited to participants’ reported experiences rather than objective measures of learning outcomes. As these conditions may not be present in all educational settings, caution is warranted when considering the applicability of the findings beyond the study context.

  Teaching persuasive essay writing online to first-year undergraduates: A phenomenological study of instructional design and learning experiences · 2026 · DOI

• In addition, future research may examine the long-term impact of AI-assisted Collaborative Online Writing on students' writing development and compare different AI writing platforms to identify the most effective technology for English writing instruction.

  The Effectiveness of COW through the AI Writing Assistant Platform: Moderating Self-Efficacy and Digital Literacy in English Language · 2026 · DOI

• i. Research results reveal that students generally feel positively about writing. The teacher, therefore, should continue and cultivate this positive feeling by offering writing as well as fun and learner, centered tasks. The reason is that the study has shown that students have a good feeling about writing. You can make writing a more meaningful and enjoyable experience for yourself if you use creative writing, journaling, and storytelling in your writing practice. Teachers can enhance the level of motivation and enjoyment that their students experience in the classroom by introducing gamified writing tasks, multimedia prompts, and group assignments. This is especially beneficial for students who still view writing as a less enjoyable activity compared to other forms of expression. ii. It is strongly suggested that educators persevere in the implementation of consistent motivational strategies and the maintenance of supportive environments across all grade levels. Specifically, this is due to the fact that there was not a discernible difference discovered between the various grade levels. Writing interventions, on the other hand, should be designed to address developmental differences and should be grade-specific. The tasks that students in lower grades are required to complete should be simplified through the implementation of these interventions, while the level of complexity and autonomy of the students increases gradually as they progress through higher grades. Taking this approach, which is layered, can be helpful in maintaining consistent growth in writing attitudes through the use of this approach. iii. It is recommended that students receive additional instruction in grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics in light of the fact that they demonstrated advanced performance in terms of content and organization, but only good performance in terms of language development. This is because students demonstrated advanced performance in terms of organization and content. Writing workshops and peer editing sessions are two methods that teachers can use to help students improve their language skills and develop habits of self-editing. Writing workshops and peer editing sessions are two methods that teachers can implement. The incorporation of reading activities that demonstrate effective sentence construction and word choice selection is another method that can be utilized to achieve the goal of increasing linguistic competence and writing fluency. iv. It is recommended that writing instruction be adapted to the developmental stage of each grade level. This is due to the fact that it was discovered that there is a significant difference between the different grade levels.

  Writing Attitudes and Writing Ability: A Correlational Study of Primary Learners at Blue Sky Academy, Vietnam · 2026 · DOI

• Our new study has a diverse group of 100 participants, some as young as 1 or 2 years old. We are following these children across 3 years to better see patterns and differences in their drawing and writing development. Over a third of the children speak multiple languages, some with different written symbols, like Korean, Chinese, and Hebrew. Studying their growth will contribute insights into teaching dual language learners, who are a large and increasing population. We have also introduced a digital component: collecting samples from two classrooms using tablets with a drawing app. Now we can record a child’s drawing process in real time, including where they begin on the screen and the step-by-step progression of their drawing. Finally, we are using artificial intelligence (AI) to score 20% of our 7,000+ samples. Our main goal for the DEW study is to advance research and education related to early literacy development. Our findings might help in identifying and designing ways to support children who are struggling in reading and writing. There is much more to learn about how children go from drawing scribble lines to writing shared symbols in order to communicate in a global world. AI TOOL STATEMENT The author(s) declared that Generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

  Drawing Into Early Writing: It All Starts with Scribble Lines · 2026 · DOI

• Future implementations of GAI-VGP in L2 writing should address three interrelated priorities. First, scaffolding with fading mechanisms, such as clue-based interactions that prompt inferential reasoning rather than direct correction, can mitigate overdependence by gradually withdrawing support to foster autonomous competence, consistent with Cognitive Load Theory. Second, instructional design should create productive intellectual friction by requiring learners to verify and critically evaluate AI output rather than passively accepting it; Lukešová and Jennings (2026) demonstrate that such constructive engagement shifts attention from surface accuracy toward deeper reasoning. Third, agency-focused instruction should require explicit justification for adopting AI feedback, cultivating agentive literacy and equipping L2 writers to navigate human-AI collaboration critically. To specifically address the monitoring deficit identified in the present study, future designs should incorporate within-task metacognitive prompts that require learners to self-assess coherence and argument development at regular intervals before AI feedback is accessed. Relatedly, because the recorded AI prompts in the present study were relatively limited and appeared to be used selectively at moments of difficulty rather than continuously, future research should examine whether varying levels of AI interaction frequency, and not only its availability, influence the effectiveness of such scaffolding mechanisms.

  Generative AI, visual scaffolds, and metacognition in EFL writing · 2026 · DOI

• According to the findings, it is suggested that teachers should embrace the use of Constructivist and Activity-Based instructional model to improve student engagement, critical thinking, and academic achievement. The educators ought to incorporate the cooperative learning, inquiry learning, problem- solving activities, and real-life application in their teaching practices as opposed to employing only lecture teaching methods. Revision of the curriculum structures should incorporate the learner centred exercises, interactive work and project-based learning elements to the curriculum structure. The schools and education administrators should promote professional development initiatives that equip teachers with skills on how to effectively apply the constructivist and activity-based instructional method. Also, these methodologies should be matched with the assessment systems; particular performance-based evaluations that involve projects, presentations and reflective assessment are required.

  Evaluating the Impact of Instructional Strategies on Students’ Performance: Statistical Evidence from ANOVA and Tukey's HSD Post Hoc Test · 2026 · DOI

• The effectiveness of teaching methodologies should be investigated in the future in various subjects, levels of education, and learning settings so that the research findings can be more generalized. It is suggested that longitudinal studies are required to examine the effect of constructivist and activity- based teaching methods on academic performance and skill development in the long term. Additional research could also investigate the relationship between teaching practices and other aspects like student motivation, learning styles, teacher competency and institutional resources. The use of mixed-method research designs that would integrate quantitative analysis with qualitative classroom observations and interviews may be able to shed more light on the systems under which learner-centred teaching practices might enhance the learning outcomes of learners.

  Evaluating the Impact of Instructional Strategies on Students’ Performance: Statistical Evidence from ANOVA and Tukey's HSD Post Hoc Test · 2026 · DOI

• This suggests that simply using AI is insufficient for learner engagement; the tools must be used in a way that fosters original idea generation and reduces teacher-dependence to be effective. This finding refines the traditional TAM model; it implies that mere "usefulness" or "ease of use" is insufficient for deep engagement.

  Artificial intelligence functions as a cognitive scaffold to influence creativity, autonomy, and writing motivation in higher education · 2026 · DOI

• stages. different Moreover, given their limited exposure to AI, participants may lack the curricular knowledge, frameworks for practical experience, and critical senior engaging students—particularly or AI-related fields—might possess. These factors constrain both the generalizability and depth of the findings. inference. Second, limitations. First, that more those of technical GenAI across those with in Future research should address these limitations by expanding the participant sample. While this research focused exclusively on first-year EAP students with lower language proficiency, subsequent studies could investigate the writing development of students in Years 2 through 4 to explore how the use and perception of GenAI evolve over time. A comparative analysis between STEM and non-STEM majors would also yield valuable insights, potentially revealing how disciplinary differences shape students’ writing strategies and challenges, thereby enabling more tailored and effective EAP instruction.

  Student Perceptions of Generative AI (GenAI) Use in Academic Writing: A Case Study of an EAP Module at XJTLU · 2026 · DOI

• employment An analysis of academic disciplines revealed a in STEM significant predominance of non-STEM to compared (60.61%) programs programs (39.39%).

  Student Perceptions of Generative AI (GenAI) Use in Academic Writing: A Case Study of an EAP Module at XJTLU · 2026 · DOI

• To address these challenges, the following strategies are recommended: • Providing explicit instruction on English concepts and terminology to bridge the language gap. • Employing scaffolding techniques to guide learners in identifying main ideas and following instructions. • Encouraging paraphrasing through targeted exercises focused on vocabulary development and comprehension skills. These strategies align with Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, which emphasizes the importance of guided learning to help learners achieve tasks they cannot yet accomplish independently. 28 Edi Firman, Haerazi Haerazi, and Sadaf Dehghani, “Students’ Abilities and Difficulties in Comprehending English Reading Texts at Secondary Schools; An Effect of Phonemic Awareness,” Journal of Language and Literature Studies 1, no. 2 (November 30, 2021): 57–65, https://doi.org/10.36312/jolls.v1i2.613. 29 Miguel Angelo P. Lajom et al., “Enhancing Academic Performance Through Effective Classroom Management and Output Distribution,” International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies 10, no. 3 (2023), https://doi.org/10.23918/ijsses.v10i3p424. 30 Dewi and Saputra, “Problems Faced By Students in Writing English Academic Summary.” 31 Muhammad A. Al Roomy, “Investigating the Effects of Critical Reading Skills on Students’ Reading Comprehension,” Arab World English Journal 13, no. 1 (March 24, 2022): 366–81, https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol13no1.24. 32 Clarin et al., “The Challenges in Paraphrasing Among English Language Students.” Journal of Education and Learning Technology (JELT) 188 Nomlala, L.

  Exploring the Experiences of pre-Service Teachers in teaching Summary Writing for Grade Ten English First Additional Language in the O.R. Tambo Coastal District of South Africa · 2026 · DOI

• Based on the results of the current SR, below are some recommendations for guiding EFL writing instructors, EFL curriculum designers, and departments in improving EFL writing instruction. For classroom practice, EFL instructors should provide brainstorming activities, visual organizers, and background knowledge activation to help the students generate ideas, especially when topics are abstract or unfamiliar. Use familiar, concrete, and relevant writing topics. Link assignments to sustainable development issues, current global events, or widely discussed social topics to reduce cognitive load and increase engagement. Adopt communicative and meaning-focused feedback. Highlight key errors without overwhelming students with extensive error marking, to promote self-editing, confidence, and autonomy. Integrate participation goals and tasks that ask for students’ suggestions, opinions, and personal experiences to encourage meaningful communication and make writing more accessible. Increase in-class writing time under the instructor’s supervision to allow for immediate guidance, reduce reliance on copying, and support the development of process-based writing habits. Page | 33 Classroom Practices, Writing Enhancement and Creativity Among EFL Struggling Students: A Systematic Review For assessment and feedback, use analytic rubrics to enhance transparency as digital or paper rubrics clarify expectations, standardize scoring, and help students monitor their own progress. Train the students in writing rubric interpretation. Teach them how to use rubrics for self-assessment and to strengthen metacognitive awareness and revision skills. Balance accuracy with communication. Assessment should encourage not only grammatical correctness, but also idea development organization, and clarity. Instructors need support in shifting from extensive correction to selective, communicative feedback. Workshops on rubric design, calibration, and fair scoring can improve consistency across instructors. Practical strategies as peer editing, group writing tasks, and participation goals, can reduce instructors’ workload and maintain instructional quality. For EFL curriculum and materials development, step-by-step writing activities in EFL, as idea generation, drafting, revising, and editing, should be systematically integrated into the curriculum. Integrate reading–writing activities. Exposure to models, short texts, and thematic readings supports idea generation and enriches instructors’ content knowledge. Technology should be used to enhance collaboration, feedback, and authentic communication. For EFL department policy, smaller writing classes allow for more individualized feedback and meaningful interaction. Writing should be reinforced across reading, speaking, and grammar courses to build cumulative skill development. EFL departments can support writing centers, peer-tutoring workshops, and extracurricular writing activities to strengthen students’ confidence and practice.

  Classroom Practices, Writing Enhancement and Creativity Among EFL Struggling Students: A Systematic Review · 2026 · DOI

• Ali Falah Hasan AL-Zurfi1 and Hussein Ghanim Abed Al-Shammari2 12 Department of English, Faculty of Education, University of Kufa, Iraq Corresponding Author: Ali Falah Hasan AL-Zurfi, E-mail: [email protected] | ABSTRACT This mixed-methods study investigated the primary barriers encountered by Iraqi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) undergraduates in writing graduation research projects, incorporating dual perspectives from students and faculty. Quantitative data were collected from 126 final-year students using an adapted 29-item questionnaire, while qualitative insights were gathered from 10 faculty members via written interviews. The findings reveal a complex, interconnected web of challenges. The most significant barrier is a profound deficiency in academic writing skills, with students struggling severely to express ideas clearly in written English. This linguistic hurdle underpins and exacerbates other key obstacles: practical deficits in research methodology (e.g., selecting methods, formulating questions), a critical gap between knowledge and practice in academic integrity (leading to unintentional plagiarism), and systemic curricular shortcomings identified by faculty as overly theoretical and misaligned with practical needs. Notably, the study diverges from some regional research by finding that these struggles occur despite high student motivation and positive perceptions of supervisory support, pointing squarely to gaps in foundational training rather than a lack of guidance or interest. The study argues that successful completion of graduation research projects among Iraqi EFL learners is less dependent on final–year supervision and more dependent on the cumulative development of academic writing skills throughout the undergraduate program.

  Barriers to Undergraduate Project Writing in EFL Contexts: Student and Faculty Perspectives · 2026 · DOI

• Based on the findings and conclusions, the following recommendations were proposed: • Provide Adequate Instructional Materials and Resources: Educational authorities and school management should ensure that English are well-equipped with departments textbooks, writing manuals, model essays, and digital learning tools to support effective essay writing instruction. • Reduce Class Sizes and Improve Time Allocation: To enable personalised guidance and feedback, the Ministry of Education reduce should overcrowded classrooms and allocate more instructional time to writing lessons.

  Challenges in Teaching English Essay Writing to Secondary School Students: A Case Study of G.S. Karambo in Karongi District · 2026 · DOI

• is an ongoing process (Al-ghaithi & Behforouz, 2023; Park & Ahn, 2022). The connections between variables are clear, as the quality of feedback affects the mastery of writing components, that writing Indonesian Journal on Learning and Advanced Education (IJOLAE)| p-ISSN 2655-920x, e-ISSN 2656-2804 Vol. 8 (2) (2026) 266-284 273 Holistic Writing Module Through Integrated Feedback: Analysis of Target Situation and Learning Need which subsequently enhances students' holistic writing abilities. In other words, feedback acts as an essential link between the learning process and the production of higher-quality writing. This is consistent with earlier studies that indicate the importance of needs analysis for addressing deficiencies teaching modules (Gebremariam & Hiluf, 2023) and in to are that tailored for guiding the development of teaching modules the characteristics and requirements of students (Ratri & Tyas, 2022). Furthermore, this needs analysis can provide an overview of what students must master in real-world situations (Septiadevana & Abdullah, 2024), particularly concerning holistic writing skills and the use of feedback in their writing. Table 4.

  Holistic Writing Module Through Integrated Feedback: Analysis of Target Situation and Learning Need · 2026 · DOI

• Building on these limitations, several directions for future research emerge. First, there is a clear need for longitudinal and developmental studies that examine how sustained engagement with generative AI tools influences writing competence over time. Such research should move beyond surface-level textual improvements to investigate the evolution of argumentation, rhetorical awareness, and learner autonomy across academic trajectories. Second, future studies should prioritize theoretical integration and construct clarity. Researchers are encouraged to articulate explicit pedagogical and learning theories—such as socio-constructivism, self-regulated learning, or distributed cognition—when designing AI-mediated writing interventions. Clear alignment between instructional design, theoretical framework, and outcome measures will strengthen both internal validity and cumulative knowledge-building. Third, greater attention should be paid to instructional design variables, including levels of scaffolding, degrees of instructor mediation, and the explicit teaching of AI literacy. Comparative studies examining guided versus unguided AI use, or hybrid versus AI-dominant instructional models, would offer valuable insight into pedagogical conditions that support deep learning rather than dependency. Fourth, future research must more systematically address ethical and assessment-related questions. Empirical investigations into authorship attribution, transparency practices, process-based assessment models, and student ethical 134 Journal of Education and Training Studies Vol. 14, No. 4; October 2026 reasoning are essential for developing pedagogically defensible responses to generative AI. Such work would help shift the discourse from policy-driven restriction toward evidence-informed instructional innovation. Finally, expanding the scope of research to include diverse educational contexts—including graduate writing, disciplinary writing, multilingual classrooms, and underrepresented regions—will be critical for advancing a globally relevant understanding of AI-mediated writing instruction. Cross-cultural and cross-institutional comparative studies, in particular, hold promise for identifying context-sensitive pedagogical principles.

  AI-Mediated Writing Instruction in Higher Education: A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence · 2026 · DOI

• Whether suitable serialized story vehicles can be found for different grammatical items, how the gradient of the task chain should be adjusted for different student profiles, and how the evaluation criteria for the continuation writing production task should be set—these questions warrant further investigation in subsequent research.

  Integrating Authentic Context-Based High School English Grammar Instruction with Writing Continuation Tasks——A Case Study on Narrative Text Sequencing via the Simple Past Tense · 2026 · DOI

• To conclude, although our initial environmental scan concirmed that the kinds of practical, transparent statements or stances we had hoped to cind were scarce, and the 2025 rescan suggests that they remain so, we are encouraged and inspired by the conversations we had while conducting this work, as well as the work being done by writing centre and writing-centre-adjacent associations, task forces, and individuals.

  Avoid, Adopt, Adapt: Positions on GenAI in Canadian Writing Centres · 2026 · DOI

• Moreover, the implementation period was limited to six weeks; therefore, the long-term effectiveness of the SRSD model could not be evaluated within the scope of this study.

  Teaching Argumentative Writing to International Students through the Self-Regulated Strategy Development Model · 2026 · DOI

• To tackle the study limitations and broaden the scope of the study, future research should consider the following points: • For cross‑genre and cross‑institutional studies, using a register‑based rubric and reflection coding schema across different genres (eg., narrative, expository, and research writing) in various institutional settings helps test transferability and robustness. • A longitudinal tracking study design is necessary to monitor students’ register control and constructivist indicators across multiple writing tasks and semesters, examining long‑term growth and instructional impact. Integrating corpus tools will enhance the field analysis by tailoring content engagement based on lexical density, variation, and topic‑specific terminology.

  Writing as developmental learning in L2 contexts: An interpretive case study using constructivist and register theory · 2026 · DOI

• In the long run, future studies might consider the possibilities of having direct interventions for the reduction of noun and form error rates, and the effect on the syntactic complexity that might be taken along the way; thus, these would be the factors that very indirectly still support advanced writing proficiency development.

  Exploring the relationship between syntactic complexity, error types, and pedagogical implications in advanced writing: A quantitative analysis · 2026 · DOI

• These conclusions, however, are limited by the study’s focus on two cohorts from a single institution and reliance on APA‑specific rubric data; future research should expand across institutions, citation systems, and mixed methods to capture the complexity of source‑integration practices and inform balanced pedagogical interventions.

  Source integration practices and pedagogical implications in English academic writing: A case study of Omani undergraduates · 2026 · DOI

• Also, as the findings presented here are based on relatively lower-achieving students for a short period, the optimal duration and developmental period of intervention for students with different levels of linguistic proficiency remain to be researched. Given that adolescent newcomers’ literacy has been understudied (Cumming, 2023), and that limited academic support programs are available outside schools (Shizha & Makwarimba, 2024), much more work needs to be done to better understand the nature of language and literacy trajectories among adolescent NLs and to meet their needs.

  Supporting Adolescent Newcomers in Literacy · 2026 · DOI

• By asking participants open questions about their teaching contexts, what it means to be a writer now, and the values and strategies that inform their pedagogies, we developed a grounded theory of how writing pedagogies emerge in AI-mediated learning environments.

  “Maybe that's the landscape that's coming?” · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Writing and Handwriting Education

• Impact of ChatGPT on learners in a L2 writing practicum: An exploratory investigation · Education and Information Technologies · 2023 · 510 citations
• The impact of AI writing tools on the content and organization of students’ writing: EFL teachers’ perspective · Cogent Education · 2023 · 361 citations
• Not quite eye to A.I.: student and teacher perspectives on the use of generative artificial intelligence in the writing process · International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education · 2023 · 287 citations
• Making Strategies and Self-Talk Visible: Writing Instruction in Regular and Special Education Classrooms · American Educational Research Journal · 1991 · 232 citations
• Peer feedback on academic writing: undergraduate students’ peer feedback role, peer feedback perceptions and essay performance · Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education · 2018 · 230 citations
• The impact of formative peer feedback on higher education students’ academic writing: a Meta-Analysis · Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education · 2018 · 230 citations
• Investigating students’ cognitive processes in generative AI-assisted digital multimodal composing and traditional writing · Computers & Education · 2023 · 221 citations
• The Effects of Writing on Learning in Science, Social Studies, and Mathematics: A Meta-Analysis · Review of Educational Research · 2020 · 218 citations
• Development of Handwriting Speed and Legibility in Grades 1–9 · The Journal of Educational Research · 1998 · 208 citations
• The impact of using machine translation on EFL students’ writing · Computer Assisted Language Learning · 2019 · 193 citations

Most recent work

• Trajectories of foreign language writing enjoyment in AI-mediated EFL contexts: A latent growth curve modeling study from a complex dynamic systems perspective · Acta Psychologica · 2026
• University Students' Writing Feedback Literacy in the <scp>AI</scp> Era: The Interplay of Generative <scp>AI</scp> Acceptance, Writing Anxiety and Writing Self‐Efficacy in Chinese <scp>EMI</scp> Educational Contexts · European Journal of Education · 2026
• Exploring the impact of a GenAI-supported feedback practice on student feedback literacy in L2 writing · Computer Assisted Language Learning · 2026
• Strategy-based writing instruction for Chinese EFL learners: enhancing L2 writing competence and sustaining emotional well-being · European Journal of Psychology of Education · 2026
• Enhancing learners’ genre competence in proposal writing with data-driven learning · Computer Assisted Language Learning · 2026
• Evaluating the Effectiveness of <scp>AI</scp> ‐Driven Approaches on <scp>EFL</scp> Learners' Expository Writing Skills · TESOL Journal · 2026
• Examining University Students’ Engagement with ChatGPT in English Essay Writing: Interaction Patterns and Perceptions · The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher · 2026
• Generative AI use in EFL writing: associations with originality, critical reasoning, and metacognitive engagement in a Turkish higher education context · Computer Assisted Language Learning · 2026
• Exploring the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence as a Tool to Mediate the Emotional Nature of Feedback in Writing Instruction · TESOL Journal · 2026
• Why Writing? · Scientific Studies of Reading · 2026

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