The Effect Symmetrical Versus Asymmetrical Scaffolding on Iranian EFL Students' Writing Accuracy

Subject Areas : Journal of Teaching English Language Studies

Poone Abbasi Mesrabadi ¹ , Elmira Hasani ²

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Received: 2025-08-24 Accepted : 2025-09-07 Published : 2025-07-05

Keywords: Scaffolding, Symmetrical scaffolding, Asymmetrical scaffolding, Writing skill, Iranian EFL learners ,

Abstract :

Abstract:

Scaffolding is an umbrella term having various upshots in education. The current study was an attempt to investigate the possible effect of two types of scaffolding- symmetrical/asymmetrical on Iranian intermediate EFL students' learning and to find out what type of scaffolding is more influential. In such doing, utilizing IPT, 75 out of 112 Iranian EFL students were selected and were randomly placed into three groups. The first experimental group consisted of 15 intermediates and 15 EFL intermediates as scaffolders (symmetrical group); another experimental group consisted of 15 intermediates plus 15 EFL advanced learners as scaffolders (asymmetrical group), and the last group consisted of 15 intermediate EFL learners as the control group. A pretest; and after 10 session instruction, the same test as a posttest on writing was administered. In order to analyze the obtained data, one-way ANOVA and independent sample t-test were conducted. The findings indicated that applying both types of scaffolding have a positive effect on Iranian EFL intermediate learners’ writing accuracy. In addition, the results revealed that asymmetrical scaffolding is more influential on writing skill in comparison to symmetrical scaffolding. 

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