Effects of Technology-Enhanced Language Learning on Second Language Composition of University-Level Intermediate Spanish Students Page: 70

viewpoints from which to judge the writer's overall communicative effect" (Jacobs et al., 1981,
p. 32) with the total score being the most reliable indicator of a writer's ability.
Extensive technical information regarding the reliability and validity of the Jacobs scale
is provided in the original description of the Composition Profile (Jacobs et al., 1981). Reader
reliability is shown to be .74 for one reader and .85 for two, although the range for 2 readers can
be from .59 to .96.
Atajo log. Another valuable tool for data collection was the logging feature of Atajo, the
word processing program that the students utilized in lab to write compositions. The writing log
of Atajo provides unobtrusive observation of students' use of the software and details the time
the writing assistant is started, each occasion that the databases such as the dictionary, grammar,
or phrases are accessed as well as requests to see examples or have verbs conjugated. A brief
sample follows in Table 1. As seen in this sample log, the student "Duckie" began using Atajo at
11:10:54 then looked up the English word "career" and found one result, the Spanish word
"carrera." Then the student looked up the English word "now" and found three Spanish
equivalents, including the word "ahora." A more extensive example of a log is included as
Appendix K.
Table 1
Sample Atajo Log
11:10:54 BEGS (BeginSession) 4/15/2004 "duckie"
S :\FORL\FLLC\OXFORD9\3DUCKIE.RTF
11:11:47 RSDI (RaiseDict) Spanish "atajo" "shortcut"
11:11:54 SRDI (SearchDict) "career" EnglishWM Items found: 1 "career, race"
"carrera"

70