Marlene Aufgebauer from the Department of German as a Foreign and Second Language at University of Vienna will discuss her PhD project on "Cognitive and metacognitive activities during writing processes of German as a foreign language learner".

The specific purpose of the study is to investigate the use of cognitive and metacognitive activities during the writing process. The main research question to be answered in the project is: Which cognitive and metacognitive activities are undertaken by foreign language learners at what point of time during the writing process and what factors precipitate the use of particular activities? Furthermore, it is of interest to this study, how these cognitive and metacognitive activities differ within and between writers while engaging in the production of descriptive and argumentative texts.

In her presentation, Marlene Aufgebauer will introduce her PhD project in a short overview, subsequently she will focus on four different methods (thinking aloud, videography, screen capture videos and keystroke logging) to examine text production and writing processes. The focus of the presentation is to outline the advantages of this mixed methods design and the manifold possibilities the method combination offers to examine the writing process in depth.