Factors influencing CET writing performance: Perspectives from college students and teachers in China

Writing is a complex process influenced by numerous factors. This qualitative study investigated college students' perceptions of task-related factors affecting their writing process and final output, as well as teachers' perspectives on factors influencing writing assessment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six undergraduates and two teachers following the completion and assessment of three writing tasks. Via Nvivo 12, data analysis identified key themes: students’ English writing was significantly influenced by task effects, learner factors, and writing planning, while teacher assessment was primarily determined by grammatical accuracy, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and text fluency. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for the development and design of writing tests, online automated writing assessments, and writing rubrics, especially in high-stakes language testing contexts. • Adopts a qualitative approach to explore CET writing performance factors by integrating college students and teachers' perspectives. • Identifies three student-related factors that significantly shape writing processes and outputs. • Reveals four key teacher assessment criteria: grammatical accuracy, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and text fluency. • Offers practical implications online automated writing assessment systems.