The use of technologies to facilitate the writing process: analysis of the effect of RedacText 2.0 platform in the quality of academic texts written by Teacher Training undergraduate students

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study the effect of the web platform RedacText 2.0 on the quality of academic texts written by Teacher Training undergraduate students. RedacText is based on the Didactext Group Model of text production (Didactext, 2003 and 2015) and it has been designed to guide students along the long process of academic text production, through instructional activities that aim the development of cognitive and metacognitive strategies characteristic of the textual production process. For that purpose, a repeated measures study was conducted in which students were requested to write two texts: Text 1 (T1) -written with no help at all- and Text 2 (T2) -written using the web platform RedacText-. The comparison between both texts, through the application of a series of textual indicators of quality, allows the researchers to uphold that the platform is an effective instrument in helping students to improve the quality of some of the aspects of their texts, especially those related to the rhetorical elements, since aspects related to content remained unchanged. For that reason it is necessary to incorporate some modifications in the platform in order to make it a more efficient tool for the improvement of those aspects of writing composition.