







































English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

Vol. 4, No. 1, 2021, pp. 25-33  25 

 

        10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3336                              http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index            eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id 

Integrated task on students’ writing quality: Is it more effective? 

Hieronimus Canggung Darong   

Universitas Katolik Indonesia Santu Paulus, Jalan Ahmad Yani 10 Manggarai NTT Tenda, Watu, Ruteng, Kabupaten Manggarai,  

Nusa Tenggara Tim. 86511, Indonesia 

hieronimusdarong@gmail.com 

 

How to Cite: Darong, H.C. (2021). Integrated task on students’ writing quality: Is it more effective? English 
Language Teaching Educational Journal, 4(1), 25-33. doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3336 

1. Introduction 

A great number of research studies have been focusing on the role of task design in foreign or 
second language learning, (In’nami & YoKoizumi, 2016; Leaper, 2014; Nitta & Nakatsuhara, 2014). 
The interest is mainly inspired by the learners' experiences as well as teachers’ expectation regarding 
the quality of the spoken performance. Yet, many studies on writing are becoming increasingly 
familiar and have already widely seen as a great source of writing inquiry. Writing, as the field of the 
second language, considers the authenticity and meaningfulness of connecting writing with other skills 
(Plakans, 2010). 

Traditionally, writing assesses other skills independently and examines global construct and 
individual experiences in response to a given exposure. This old-fashioned type of measurement was 
changed into the integrated one. Writing, then, was not seen as an isolated, solitude construct, and 
independent assessment task. The skill of writing is not concerned with autonomous but, rather allied 
with reading, listening and speaking (Plakans, 2010). 

  Integrated writing tasks that include distinctive language skills such as both reading and listening 
skills are mostly considered as tools to determine the writing quality academically. They are 
predominantly investigated by many researchers in relation to language writer’s strategy use and 
performance (GhaVamnia, Tavakoli, & Esteki, 2013; Gu, 2014; Yang & Plakans, 2012)(Grace & 
Malang, 2018), task representation, (Pertiwii, Dian, Ngadiso, & Drajat, 2018; Plakans, 2010; Shi & 

 

A R T I C L E  I N F O 

 

ABST RACT  

 

 

Article history 

Received 04 January 2021 

Revised 29 March 2021 

Accepted 20 April 2021 

 Integrated tasks are popularly known and accepted as an effective way of 
improving students’ writing quality. However, it is still not clear to what 
really accounts for its effectiveness. This study examined whether the 
students who were facilitated by integrated task achieved higher writing 
quality than those who were not. Twenty - two students participated 
within the group experiment utilizing a counterbalance technique in 
controlling the order effect. In the first session, twelve students were 
asked to write an essay based on an integrated (INT) task while the other 
12 wrote based on an independent (IND) task. Then, the task division was 
switched in the second writing session. Students’ writing quality were 
scored by three raters and were analyzed descriptively and inferentially 
using Wilcoxon signed rank test (WSRT). The results confirmed that the 
quality of students’ writing using both integrated and independent tasks 
was not significantly different. There are still other aspects contributing 
to writing quality. Thus, task types do not guarantee the students’ writing 
quality.  

 

 

This is an open access article under the CC–BY-SA license. 

    

 

 
Keywords 

independent task  

integrated task  

quality of writing  

 

https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3336
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26 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Darong (Integrated task on students’ writing quality: Is it more effective?) 

Ma, 2016) and scoring system in conjunction with writing performances of different context, (Gebril 
& Plakans, 2013; Knoch & Sitajalabhorn, 2013; Sawaki, Quinlan, & Lee, 2013; Wolfersberger, 2013).  

However, the investigation on the quality of writing was, in fact, carried out and was considerably 
influenced by various factors such as the strategy of giving task to the students, (Abrams & Byrd, 
2017; Rassaei, 2014; Thi, Nguyen, Pham, & Pham, 2015; Wette, 2014) and accounts for task scores 
and rater skills effect, (Barkaoui, 2014; In’nami & YoKoizumi, 2016; Ling, Mollaun, & Xi, 2014; 
Plakans, Gebril, & Bilki, 2016; Shin & Ewert, 2015; Yan, 2014). The test takers’ proficiency level 
and comprehensive corrective feedback, (Cho, Rijmen, & Novak, 2013; Kuiken & Vedder, 2014; 
Zhang, 2017) were also the main concern of the previous research studies. 

Even though there have been many research findings showing attention toward writing, most of 
them are focusing on the way of teaching writing which is considered as partial study due to their 
target at linguistic features. As such, there is a tendency to regard it as explicit knowledge through an 
explicit instruction. This present study, on the other hand, concerned the integrated task of writing in 
which explicit knowledge carried out in a focused task of implicit instruction. Besides, the findings 
on the effectiveness of integrated task might not be definitely generalized to the participants’ education 
level. Most of the previous findings found that it is more effective than independent task as it was 
applied on the secondary level and the students who took the admission test to the university. 
However, this result is still questionable for its consistency if it is applied to a different level of 
students, for example, college students who have learned English for a long period of time.  

Based on the aforementioned gap, this study aims to know whether the college students who are 
facilitated by integrated task achieve higher writing quality than those who are facilitated by 
independent task. Then, the study might contribute to teacher viewpoints in employing a particular 
task type for teaching writing. In this respect, the task type should be constructed in such a way that it 
might be of benefit for improving students’ writing quality. 

2. Integrated Task 

In practice, integrated task cannot be separated from independent task. To measure students writing 
quality, the task type in question has been broadly utilized to see the students writing quality. Students 
are required to make an essay independently and examine global construct and individual experiences 
without having any exposures.  Even though it is a challenging work, learning to write through such 
a task type is widely practiced for teachers to gain students’ writing quality. Yet, as time went by, this 
old-fashioned type of measurement was changed into the integrated one. Writing, then, was not seen 
as an isolated, solitude construct, and independent assessment task. The skill of writing is not 
concerned with being autonomous but, rather allied with reading, listening and speaking or being 
integrated, (Plakans, 2010).  

With respect to the remodeling highlighted above, there have been many definitions of integrated 
task proposed by scholars. For example, integrated task is a sort of task in which test takers are asked 
to compose a certain text that display appropriate and meaningful uses of and orientations to source 
evidence, both conceptually such as apprehending, synthesizing, and presenting source ideas from the 
text and textually involving stylistic conventions for presenting, citing, and acknowledging, 
(Cumming et al.2005). Meanwhile, highlighting the construct of reading-to-write tasks, it is regarded 
as an instructional task combining reading and writing for various educational purposes (Delaney, 
2008). Meanwhile, Plakans (2009) has provided the conception by involving other skills. Integrated 
writing task is the task type which elicits writing performance that includes other aspects such as 
reading or listening abilities.  Furthermore, in her other work, a very broad definition is proposed that 
is a task requiring more than one skill for completion (Yang & Plakans, 2012). In the most detailed 
definition, Integrated writing task is a task type in which test-takers are provided with one or more 
language- rich source texts and are asked to compose an essay requiring extraction of the source texts 
for opinions, choosing and constructing ideas, synthesizing ideas from one or more source texts, 
transfiguring the language used in the input, managing opinions and utilizing stylistic conventions 
such as linking ideas and recognizing sources. The rating scale employed to grade such an essay needs 
to consider these features specific to integrated writing tasks (Knoch & Sitajalabhorn, 2013). In short, 
the definitions provided above have confirmed that integrated task particularly in writing task has been 
well- defined in the issue of skill combination and source use. 



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 Darong (Integrated task on students’ writing quality: Is it more effective?) 

With such conceptions mentioned above, integrated writing tasks have been assumed widely as an 
effective task to measure student writing quality. Then, it is not surprising this type of task has been 
largely used by the teachers to examine students’ writing quality. They are provided with reading 
material and require students to construct a text based on the information given in the text. 
Subsequently, the questions are given to the students for the sake of their text.  (Knoch & 
Sitajalabhorn, 2013). In other words, the students are required to summarize the text given by the 
guidance of predetermined questions. A modification of the task in question is a reading stimulus with 
two or more texts. In this regard, learners might compose to synthesize several source texts or confront 
ideas on the similar issue then think of their stance and write a text to argue it. The elaboration might 
be by taking the main ideas from the passages with their own ideas and examples to combine (Grabe 
& Zhang, 2013). This task type, in fact, is not only upon reading input but also in listening skill. In 
the TOEFL test for example, the students or test takers might be asked to compose or summarize, 
synthesize their opinions after they listen to a text. As such, reading or listening text are regarded as 
an alternative writing task serving as a tool highlighting topical information, text rephrasing blueprint, 
and writing evaluation (Hayes, 1996).  

Progress reports in the field have shown different findings. Integrated task is still considered 
difficult as the students have limited reading and writing proficiency, the challenge of reading long 
passages, a lack of fluency in reading and limited L2 background knowledge, and relatively little 
experience (and practice) integrating reading and writing skills for academic purposes. Besides, 
students also face challenges with L2 reading/writing tasks that require a large amount of inferencing 
(Grabe & Zhang, 2013; Zhang, 2017). Apart from those mentioned the factors that affect performance 
on such tasks contributed to the quality of writing. For example, different test taker variables on the 
performance on integrated task might lead and influence task difficulty (Cho, Rijmen, & Novák, 
2013). Differently, the quality of performance on RTW tasks might be determined by human raters 
who make scores. Rater and rater-related interaction effects account for the considerable degree of 
variance in ratings. In this context, the rater variable is one of the main consideration and often affects 
score reliability in assessing students’ writing quality (Barkaoui, 2014; Ling, Mollaun, & Xi, 2014; 
Plakans, Gebril, & Bilki, 2016; Shin & Ewert, 2015; Yan, 2014). Along with the same line, regardless 
of analytic rating domain could capture the difference in variability of test takers’ proficiency utilized 
in the reading to write (RTW) task, person and rater facets contributed to score variability in students’ 
writing quality (Cho, Rijmen, & Novak, 2013; Kuiken & Vedder, 2014; Shin & Ewert, 2015; Zhang, 
2017). As such, those two variables need to be taken into account. Meanwhile, In’nami & YoKoizumi 
(2016) emphasized that context, methods, scoring criteria, might lead to varied performance over 
tasks. Consequently, the task should be constructed in such a way that it really measures what to 
measure.  

Thus, empirically, Reading to Write (RTW) as an integrated task might be seen differently in the 
context of its focus. This might be seen as a learning tool as the focus is on skill combination and 
source use (Knoch & Sitajalabhorn, 2013). Yet, this tends to be considered as an alternative task 
(Hayes, 1996). This provides a topical idea, text revision types, and writing assessment, (Shin & 
Ewert, 2015). However, regardless of how it is viewed, reading to write task is concerned with the 
ability in the sense of reconstructing any single information from the source text which, in turn, be 
synthesized into students’ composition. As such, the task refers to the process level which influences 
and affects their understanding and the ability during the task completion. However, to date the 
examination toward the level where the integrated task is applied has not yet been sufficiently 
investigated. In this regard, a clear picture of students’ writing quality needs to be examined for the 
sake of having a clear insight into what and how the integrated task should be employed. 

3.  Method  

This study was carried out in 2020. Twenty-two students of English Study Program, enrolled in a 
single class, participated in the study. There were seven males and fifteen females.  Before entering 
the college, they studied English for 6 to 8 years including the time in which they were given treatment. 
At the time of the investigation, the subjects were taking a compulsory 100 minutes essay class. 
Sentence writing course was given in advance, as a requirement to the essay class and all succeeded 
up to this level. All the participants have not taken any standardized English proficiency test.  

This is a within group- experimental study that utilized a repeated measure design. Counterbalance 
technique was utilized to control the treatment order effect. Each of the students was given both types 



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 Darong (Integrated task on students’ writing quality: Is it more effective?) 

of task in which they had to write an argumentative essay twice both integrated and independent. 
Before asking the students to write, in the first session, the researcher divided the students into two 
sub-groups. The first group consisting of eleven students was given an independent (IND) writing task 
and the second group involving the rest eleven students were given an integrated (INT) task. Both 
were given 10 minutes to read a passage, and then write their essay in 30 minutes. In the following 
session, the task administrations are switched.  

Two topics with equal complexity were selected after consulting with their English teacher. The 
topic for the first session that was given to both independent and integrated tasks was about the teacher 
knowledge and ability. The second session was about the social status and material possession. Both 
topics convincingly and effectively held the students’ interest and elicited clear standing points 
generating their idea for argumentation. Each student was asked to write an essay consisting of 400 
hundred words in 40 minutes based on the topic given. 

Holistic scoring rubric was applied to score students writing, two experienced teachers with 
master’s degrees and are still taking a doctoral program in English language department participated 
in the scoring process. For the sake of subjectivity, the teacher and researcher were not involved as 
the raters. After writing activity, the researcher coded the essays based on the names and was given to 
the raters with anonymous work. The scores then were analyzed using descriptive statistics which in 
turn were followed by inferential statistical analysis (Wilcoxon signed rank test -WSRT) to compare 
the quality of students’ writing produced through both task types. 

4. Findings and Discussion 

4.1. Findings 

The primary goal of this study is to investigate the difference between the quality of students’ 
writing which is composed based on integrated and independent tasks. The result of descriptive 
statistical analysis in Table 1 showing the means of the writing using integrated task (Reading to write) 
was 3.54. Meanwhile, the means of writing using independent task was 3.36. The means of both 
writing, in which integrated tasks are bigger than independent were analyzed by using Wilcoxon 
Signed Ranks Test (WSRT). 

Table 1.  Descriptive Statistics of the Quality of Independent and Integrated Writing Task 

Group N Mean Std. Deviation Min        Max 
INDQ 22 3.3636 .72673 2.00 5.00 

INTQ 22 3.5455 .59580 3.00 5.00 
a. INDQ = Independent Task Group 

b. INTQ = Integrated Task Group 

Table 2.  Rank of Task Types 

 N Mean   Rank Sum of Ranks 
INTQ – INDQ Negative Ranks 4a 5.88 23.50 

Positive Ranks 7b 6.07 42.50 

       Ties 11c   
       Total 22   

a. INTQ < INDQ 

b. INTQ > INDQ 

c. INTQ=INDQ 

With respect to the ranks as displayed in Table 2, there were four students belonging to a negative 
rank. It means that the students who were given an integrated task got lower score than the students 
who were given an independent task. Seven students were in positive rank which means that the 
integrated task gives more benefit toward the quality of writing than the independent task. Meanwhile, 
eleven students were in an equal position. They got the same scores indicating that their quality of 
writing was similar as they wrote and were treated by both the integrated and independent task. This 
indicates that the integrated task did not affect the majority of the students’ writing quality. The 
integrated task results were only differently found in seven students whose scores were better than as 
they were asked to write using independent tasks. 



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 Darong (Integrated task on students’ writing quality: Is it more effective?) 

Table 3.  Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test 

 INTQ – INDQ 
Z -.884b 

Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) .377 

 

In response to the research question and regarding the effectiveness of using integrated task yielded 
surprising results as shown in Table 3. Based on negative rank (b), the result of the analysis indicated 
that the quality of students’ writings using integrated (INTQ) task (Reading to Write) were not 
significantly different from those who were given the independent task (Z=-.884, p > 0,05). It means 
that students could write essays in an equal quality regardless of the task types. Saying it differently, 
the facilitation of reading to write was not effective. 

It is notable that the three raters used the same scoring rubric for both independent and integrated 
task. What is meant here is that the focus of the raters was not only on the products so long the rubric 
embodies them in the criteria but also language use component was taken into consideration. In 
addition, holistic rating raters’ attention are concerned much more on grammar and vocabulary as the 
linguistic features than rhetorical features in determining the overall quality of essay. Regarding the 
feedback, the students writing was more or less dealt with those aspects. This is to say that the 
grammar and vocabulary are regarded as being bad which, in turn, definitely influence the rhetoric 
features development. 

4.2. Discussion 

With respect to the gap, this present study examined the effect of the integrated task reading to 
write (RTW) task toward the quality of students writing in the level of college students who have 
learnt English for many semesters. The counterbalancing effect was fulfilled since the students were 
divided into two groups in terms of having an opportunity in writing using integrated and independent 
task. As such, the method in question was meaningful to avoid experience factors and being fatigue 
toward the writing production.  

The result of this present study is beneficial to our comprehension of the concept of reading to 
write (RTW). As such, this present study might help us to justify the way of employing the task type 
and determine the quality of students’ writing. This is to say that understanding the sort of writing 
atmospheres and tasks are needed and more beneficial for bringing students toward increasingly more 
fluent and coherent expression of their ideas, experiences, and feelings in composing an essay. 
Moreover, as the area of second or foreign language, writing embraces the authenticity and 
meaningfulness of relating writing to other skills (Plakans, 2010). Consequently, language teachers 
and testers should have a good understanding of how writers deal with and compose for integrated 
tasks.  

In a study which was conducted by Gebril & Plakans (2013) in the integrated tasks, the source text 
provides language support. Some keywords and ideas might be taken by the writers which lead them 
to write a longer essay. Besides, having a number of words in the writing are the logical consequence 
of having good language proficiency in comprehending the source text. Likely, the nature of integrated 
tasks is to force the students to process the source materials, understand the idea, synthesize and 
present that source information into writing (Plakans et al., 2016). The requirement to integrate the 
sources in integrated task goes with an expectation that the writers can get some input which might be 
helping them to generate their ideas. This, definitely, would be beneficial in contributing to a higher 
proficiency of the writers in producing writing quality as a product involving the task representation 
and the writing itself. In agreement with the findings above, some previous studies also found that 
reading to writing task had a significant effect on students’ writing, (Zhang, 2017). There was a 
significantly better performance as the students employed reading to write tasks. What language they 
have in the reading passage was proper and helpful to do an essay. In addition (Plakans et al., 2016) 
found that the contribution of integrated writing tasks increases as score level increases.  

However, the findings of this present study contrasts to those previous findings mentioned. As it 
has been proved, the WSRT analysis yielded surprising results. There was no significant difference 
between the use of independent and integrated task in the quality of students' writing. Although it was 
assumed that the integrated task might be better in terms of the quality compared to the independent 
one, providing exposure to writing in which other skills are integrated should not ideally bridge the 
needs of generating ideas into a discourse level as a product.  



30 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   E-ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Darong (Integrated task on students’ writing quality: Is it more effective?) 

This present study mirrors the report of (Plakans, 2010) noting that integrated does not mean to 
make writing easier. The source text might be helpful for some students in understanding the topic of 
the passage which is so-called content schematic task representation. However, some might have 
difficulties in writing or even to consider it as a barrier. Moving further, it is worth mentioning that 
writing using independent task deals with the why the students cope with their background knowledge 
regarding the topic as they concern themselves. Writer’s background knowledge seems influenceable 
in the point of the interpretation toward the given task (integrated and independent tasks). As such, it 
would be beneficial to generate their ideas into writing. In this present study, data of the raw score 
showed that few students could do the writing well. In this context, they might have good background 
knowledge which goes together with the language competence accumulation of the topic which could 
lead them to generating the idea in writing an essay. Meanwhile, the independent task requires more 
writing and cognitively demands more generation, planning, and organization than in the integrated 
tasks in which ideas from reading are definitely summarized. 

Moreover, regarding the scores, without having an exposure of a passage, the students, in fact, 
produced a good quality of writing. It was found that there were four students out of twenty-two who 
have higher scores as they were asked to write by independent task than the students who were treated 
by the integrated task. In agreement with previous research, (Plakans, 2010), other aspects such as the 
background knowledge of the topic given might contribute to the writing. While the integrated task 
was not really supporting as it was assumed. Four students’ writing indicated having no effect on 
writing quality. This, then, weakened the previous studies of (Barkaoui, 2014; Gebril & Plakans, 2013) 
as previously mentioned. 

Another issue came up to this surprising fact is that the complexity of the demands in the task 
compared to the independent one leading to the reconsideration or so-called recirculation of ideas in 
the process of writing. In this regard, language proficiency might be one of the sources toward such 
problem. This present study corroborates the previous findings emphasizing the contribution of 
writing ability in English and English language proficiency are beneficial to the score of the tasks, 
(Barkaoui, 2014; Gebril & Plakans, 2013; Yang & Plakans, 2012). However, it is not the only one and 
one only. Noticing the feedback from the three raters, students have some problems in language 
features resulting in the scores.  

This is to say that the types of task do not really matter in this present study. The total number of 
students whose writing scores were the same, both independent and integrated, does not reflect the 
finding of Abrams & Byrd (2017) saying that the task type improved the overall writing quality 
involving grammatical accuracy and lexical richness. In agreement with Yang & Plakans (2012) and 
Plakans (2010), students’ performance in writing mainly rely on their strategy employing their 
language into production level. As such, the language production deals with an understanding of the 
information from the source text. In other words, this may indicate that task types are not really 
influential in the students’ writing but tend to be influenced by other factors which contribute to the 
writing.  

What is more interesting is that this embraced the students on average, no matter, they belong to 
the independent or integrated task. Yet, there were four students who were supposed to at least better 
as they belong to integrated but then, are negatively positioned from independent. Besides, there were 
also four who are better than those employed independent tasks. Again, the raw score confirmed that 
their language proficiency was another aspect to cope with. Again, this corroborates the findings 
emphasizing the language proficiency and accuracy can result in writing an essay, (Barkaoui, 2014; 
Gebril & Plakans, 2013; Zhang, 2017). Thus, types of tasks do not guarantee the writing quality. Many 
other aspects such as language proficiency, accuracy and background knowledge involving the ability 
to generate idea into a discourse should be taken into account. 

By and large, the students' writing quality by means of the integrated task was not significantly 
different from the independent one. The majority of students writing remain the same in terms of 
having the effect of integrated task (RTW. Then, no matter to what level students belong to, high, 
medium or low, aside from task types, discourse competence and knowledge background are highly 
required. In this regard, the two aspects in question might be of benefit in constructing ideas from 
sentences to a text in employing a certain task type and its complexity. When we choose tasks, it might 
be better to consider those as they also affect writing quality. Any single provided task will be a 
features’ bundle. We might have a task that has simple input, involves the here-and-now and has the 
same topic (features making the task easy) but the information covers much more elements and is not 
well-constructed (features making the task complex). Briefly, a task may be simple in some ways but 
complex in others. 



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 Darong (Integrated task on students’ writing quality: Is it more effective?) 

5. Conclusion 

The study found that the use of integrated task was not more effective than the independent task. 
Regardless of task types, the result of this study should be recognized as a standing point to shed light 
on considering other aspects of the quality of writing. Therefore, this present study provides an 
implication both theoretically and pedagogically. Regarding the theoretical implication, this study 
may contribute to the existing conceptual framework of how to design features and task complexity 
with the involvement of discourse competence.  Meanwhile, the pedagogical implication is concerned 
with what and how a task type is employed. With the consideration of knowledge background and 
language proficiency, the instructional techniques and approaches to employ a task type are highly 
needed in gaining students’ writing quality.   

 Regarding the limitations of this present study, this present finding provides possible paths for 
further studies. First, the understanding of source texts, in fact, might be beneficial or being complex 
for the students or writers. It might be better if further research studies deal with how the correlation 
of understanding the source text, language proficiency with writing quality. Besides, a further research 
might be able to reveal the extent of students’ background knowledge on the topic given that influence 
the quality of writing. As such, it deals with how the students transfer their knowledge by means of a 
language they possess following the possible topic given. Thus, the relation of topic familiarity, 
background knowledge and the language used toward writing quality is another challenging topic to 
deal with in the future. 

 

Declaration 
Author contribution : The author confirms sole responsibility for the following: study 

conception and design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of 

results, and manuscript. 

Funding statement : The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to 

the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. 

Conflict of interest : The author declares no conflict of interest. 

Additional information : The author received no financial support for the research and/or 

authorship of this article. 
 

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E-ISSN 2621-6485 English Language Teaching Educational Journal 33 
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