IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ajp/creelt/v7y2025i2p34-41id7122.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An investigation into the influence of AI tools on syntactic maturation in EFL writers at selected Vietnamese universities

Author

Listed:
  • To Hoai An

Abstract

This study examines the influence of AI-assisted writing tools on the syntactic complexity and writing autonomy of Vietnamese EFL university students. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, the research compared 23 students from Dai Nam University who employed AI tools (e.g., Grammarly, QuillBot, ChatGPT) with 26 students from the Banking Academy of Vietnam who completed equivalent writing tasks without AI support. Quantitative analysis, conducted using the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA), focused on four indices: Mean Length of T-unit (MLT), Clauses per Sentence (C/S), Complex Noun Phrases per Clause (CN/C), and Dependent Clauses per Clause (DC/C). Results showed that the AI-assisted group demonstrated greater gains across all indices, with increases in MLT and CN/C nearing statistical significance (p ≈ .05). Thematic analysis of reflective journals indicated a shift from AI reliance to more autonomous syntactic decision-making. These findings suggest that, when used reflectively, AI writing tools can support syntactic maturation and foster learner autonomy in EFL academic writing. Pedagogical implications for AI integration in non-native English contexts are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • To Hoai An, 2025. "An investigation into the influence of AI tools on syntactic maturation in EFL writers at selected Vietnamese universities," Contemporary Research in Education and English Language Teaching, Learning Gate, vol. 7(2), pages 34-41.
    • Handle: RePEc:ajp:creelt:v:7:y:2025:i:2:p:34-41:id:7122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://learning-gate.com/index.php/2641-0230/article/view/7122/2478
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ajp:creelt:v:7:y:2025:i:2:p:34-41:id:7122. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael Laurence (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://learning-gate.com/index.php/2641-0230/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.