The Value, Logic and Path of Digital Education Enabling the Development of Academic Cognition in English Writing

Based on the concept of integrating digital teaching and English writing academic teaching activities, this study combines the advantages of digital learning platforms with the design of English academic writing teaching activities, focusing on promoting students’ interest in English academic writing learning and teaching effectiveness, with a view to ultimately improving students’ teaching performance in the English academic writing course and students’ English core literacy. In order to ensure the accuracy and scientificity of this research, a large amount of relevant literature was reviewed and sorted out before the experiment in this paper, on the basis of which a student questionnaire was designed for the cognition of English academic writing after digital teaching. The specific questions of the student questionnaire are designed as shown in Table 1, which mainly involves analyzing the learners’ learning attitudes towards English academic writing learning, learning habits of English academic writing learning and learning experiences of English academic writing learning in three dimensions, with a total of 12 questions. In terms of learning attitude, there are 4 survey items, namely “I think learning English academic writing can increase my knowledge” (Q1), “For me, taking English academic writing classes is a joyful thing” (Q2), “As soon as I take English academic writing classes, I can’t keep my spirits” (Q3), and “I feel happy when I do English academic writing” (Q4). The study habits dimension includes three items: “I actively practice English academic writing outside of class every day” (Q5), “I don’t take the initiative to review except for the tasks assigned by the teacher” (Q6), and “I often spend time outside of class to improve my English academic writing skills” (Q7). The learning experience dimension includes 5 survey questions, namely “I wish I could leave the class faster when I am in English academic writing class” (Q8), “I listen attentively to the teacher in English academic writing class” (Q9), “I actively think when the teacher asks questions in English academic writing class” (Q10), “I actively participate in class activities organized by the teacher in English academic writing class” (Q11), and “I actively raise my hand to speak when the teacher asks questions in English academic writing class” (Q12). The student questionnaire is mainly in the form of a Likert scale, and the respondents choose the only option to answer according to their real situation. 5 points for “Strongly agree”, 4 points for “Somewhat agree”, 3 points for “Not sure”, 2 points for “Not very agree”, and 1 point for “Completely disagree”.

In order to ensure the validity and accuracy of the students’ English academic writing cognition questionnaire test, this paper selected 40 students in parallel classes of the same grade for pre-testing before distributing the questionnaire, and analyzed the test results using the software SPSS21.0 to derive the reliability and validity of this questionnaire. The results of the reliability test of the questionnaire on students’ perception of English academic writing are shown in Table 2, the total scale Cronbach α coefficient is 0.867, and the three dimensions Cronbach α coefficients are more than 0.7, which indicates that the internal consistency of the questions in the scale is good and can be used. The results of the validity test of the questionnaire (KMO test and Bartlett’s test of sphericity) are shown in Table 3, the KMO value is 0.824 greater than 0.7, and the significance of the statistical value of the Bartlett’s test of sphericity is 0.000, which is less than 0.001, and reaches the level of significance, indicating that the validity of the data used is better, and it is suitable to be used for factor analysis.

In this paper, the implementation of this teaching program is carried out in University L. Based on the characteristics of the digital teaching platform for English academic writing, and according to the actual situation of the university and the learning characteristics of the students, the research design the teaching of English academic writing before, during, and after class in order to improve the students’ cognition of English academic writing and their writing ability, and to help the students to skillfully utilize English academic writing in real-life scenarios, and the process of the teaching is shown in Figure 3. The study includes two classes, in which the experimental class is class A and the control class is class B. Both classes have 57 students and are graded in parallel. After two years of learning English academic writing, both classes showed good study habits. In several English tests, the average scores were not different from each other, which provided good conditions for the experimental study. The students in class A were more active in learning, the classroom learning atmosphere was more lively, and most of the students were willing to participate in classroom activities. But the class is polarized, and there are about 10 students with weak foundation.

Figure 3.

Teaching scheme design process

Through the study of theoretical knowledge and the analysis of more literature, as well as the analysis of the logical rationale of digital teaching above, it is seen that the experimental class A which carries out the digital English academic writing teaching path should have obvious effects. It is worth mentioning that during the experiment on the experimental class, attention will not be deliberately reduced to the control class or teaching methods will not be used inefficiently or ineffectively. Adhering to the attitude of being responsible for every student, this paper will strengthen the monitoring of the experimental class during the experiment, to avoid the wrong direction leading to the waste of students’ valuable learning opportunities. At the same time, this paper will also use the scientific approach to teaching English academic writing for the control class, in order to be responsible for every student in every class. This is because the use of computers as a medium for transmitting information is quite uncertain. The classroom environment is demanding: a well-equipped computer classroom is necessary. If there are uncontrollable circumstances, such as power outages, internet outages, etc., the class will not be able to proceed. Therefore, this paper will double-check the power and network supply of the classroom in advance to avoid wasting time in case of accidents.

Because there are positive and negative descriptions in the setting of the questionnaire in this paper, such as question Q3 “I can’t get up the spirit when I have English academic writing class”. Therefore, the scores of the reverse description part are finally converted into the scores of the positive description, and according to the calculation of the positive scores, the higher the scores of the students indicate that their level of a certain dimension is higher, while the lower the scores indicate that their level of the corresponding dimension is lower.

By analyzing the questionnaire, this paper conducts a paired-sample t-test on the changes in the learning attitudes, learning habits, and learning experiences of English academic writing of the students in experimental Class A and control Class B before and after the implementation of digital English academic writing instruction, and the results of the specific survey and analysis of the students’ academic perceptions of English writing in Class A and Class B are shown in Table 4. Before and after the implementation of digital English academic writing instruction for students in Class A The correlation coefficients of the three dimensions are all greater than 0.5, indicating that the students’ learning attitudes, learning habits and learning experiences towards English academic writing have some correlation before and after the implementation of digital teaching. The p-value of the students’ attitudes towards English academic writing in Class A is 0.000 less than 0.05, indicating that before and after the implementation of the digital teaching pathway designed in this paper, there is a significant difference between the students’ attitudes towards English academic writing and their attitudes towards the learning of English writing. It has a significant difference. In terms of learning habits and learning experience of English academic writing, the significance values are 0.038 and 0.026 respectively, which are both less than 0.05, indicating that the teaching of English academic writing based on the digital teaching platform can improve students’ knowledge of English academic writing. While there is no significant change in the effect of students’ cognition of English academic writing in class B. The correlation coefficients of paired t-tests are between 0.158 and 0.259, and the significance difference values are all greater than 0.05, indicating that there is no significant difference in students’ academic cognition of English writing before and after the implementation of the traditional English academic writing teaching program.

The results of the specific analysis of the mean and standard deviation of the students’ academic attitudes, learning habits and learning experiences in English academic writing are shown in Table 5. After the implementation of the digital teaching pathway, the academic attitude of students in class A increased from 1.67 to 4.47 points. The students’ English attitude level after the implementation of the digital teaching pathway is in the middle to high level. The mean scores of the students’ attitude towards English academic writing in class B before and after the implementation of the digital teaching pathway are 2.57 and 3.42 respectively, which indicates that the students’ learning attitude has improved, but it is much lower than that of the students in class A, which is 4.47. This indicates that students’ attitudes towards English academic writing have improved after the implementation of the digital teaching pathway, proving that teaching based on digital teaching resources plays a role in improving students’ attitudes towards English academic writing. From the comparison of the data before and after the students’ learning experience of English academic writing in Class A, it was found that the average scores of the survey question Q9, “I listen attentively to the teacher when I attend the English academic writing class,” before and after the implementation of the teaching and learning pathway were 2.98 and 3.76, respectively, which indicated that the students’ experience of the learning experience had been improved, and that the students’ attitudes toward English academic writing in the English academic writing teaching and learning pathway based on digital teaching and learning resources had been improved. In teaching English academic writing using a digital teaching platform, students have more opportunities to participate in classroom teaching activities, and their sense of experience has improved. Overall, the application of the digital English academic writing teaching pathway played a positive role in improving students’ attitudes, habits and experiences in English academic writing, and had a greater impact on students’ perceptions of English academic writing.