Argumentative Writing to International Student Policies in Canada and Korea

Second language writing has evolved from a focus on linguistic accuracy to recognition of its social, rhetorical, and cognitive dimensions. Hyland (2019) characterizes L2 academic writing as fundamentally a social practice through which writers position themselves within discourse communities and construct knowledge. Argumentative writing, central to academic literacy, requires writers to present claims, support them with evidence, anticipate counterarguments, and construct logically coherent positions (Ferretti & Lewis, 2013).

Research on L2 argumentation has drawn extensively on Toulmin’s (1958) model, which identifies key components including claims, data, and warrants. Qin and Karabacak (2010) found that Chinese EFL students could produce claims and data but struggled with warrants: the logical connections between evidence and conclusions. Critically, Qin and Karabacak (2010) also determined that the uses of secondary elements, such as counterargument claims, counterargument data, rebuttal claims, and rebuttal data, were significant predictors of the overall quality of argumentative papers, whereas the use of claims and data were not correlated with overall quality. This evidence suggests that assessing L2 argumentation requires moving beyond the mere presence of basic structural elements to analyze the sophistication and substance of reasoning. Liu and Stapleton (2014) demonstrated that engagement with counterarguments was associated with more sophisticated reasoning, suggesting that dialogic argumentation promotes deeper cognitive engagement. Stapleton and Wu (2015) developed a multidimensional framework for assessing argument quality, revealing that many L2 learners struggled particularly with providing adequate warrants and engaging substantively with opposing viewpoints.

Central to argumentative writing is stance-taking: how writers express attitudes and commitment to propositions through linguistic resources such as hedges, boosters, and attitude markers (Hyland, 2005). Lee and Deakin (2016) found that successful L2 writers used stance markers more effectively, creating stronger dialogic engagement with readers. However, stance-taking is shaped by cultural background, educational experience, and disciplinary expectations. While Kaplan (1966) associated rhetorical differences with cultural thought patterns, later scholars such as Kubota and Lehner (2004) reframed these differences as socially constructed rather than inherent, emphasizing the influence of educational context and ideology. Contemporary scholarship examines how specific educational contexts shape argumentative discourse while avoiding cultural stereotyping. Research on Korean EFL learners has often focused on organizational patterns and adherence to Western rhetorical conventions (Shin, 2014), with less attention to the substance of their argumentative reasoning. The present study examines not whether Korean students’ arguments conform to Western patterns but what their reasoning reveals about how they perceive policy issues.

Critical thinking in writing contexts manifests through the quality of reasoning, depth of analysis, consideration of multiple perspectives, and logical coherence of arguments (Facione, 1990). However, defining and measuring critical thinking in L2 writing presents particular challenges, as it requires distinguishing between linguistic proficiency and reasoning ability.

The relationship between language proficiency and critical thinking in L2 writing remains contested. While some argue that lower proficiency constrains reasoning expression (Hirvela, 2017), others suggest that critical thinking abilities can transfer across languages with appropriate support. Floyd (2011) found that while language proficiency and critical thinking were correlated, they represented distinct constructs; some students with moderate proficiency demonstrated strong reasoning when given meaningful topics. Paton (2002) revealed considerable variation in reasoning sophistication that could not be explained by proficiency alone, suggesting that prior educational experience, topic familiarity, and task engagement significantly influence reasoning depth.

Kuhn (1991) conceptualizes critical thinking as fundamentally dialogic -the ability to engage with alternative perspectives and construct arguments that acknowledge complexity and uncertainty. This framing is particularly relevant for L2 argumentative writing, where engaging with counterarguments and multiple viewpoints represents advanced reasoning. Kuhn and Crowell (2011) demonstrated that explicit instruction in dialogic argumentation improved adolescents' reasoning abilities, suggesting that critical thinking can be developed through pedagogical intervention.

However, Hirvela (2017) argues that L2 writing research has “missed the boat” on argumentation by focusing excessively on linguistic features while neglecting cognitive and social dimensions. As Nussbaum (2008) notes, this structural orientation overlooks the substance of reasoning, including the considerations students emphasize, the values that underlie their positions, and the ways arguments reflect social interpretation. This tendency is particularly evident in research on Korean EFL learners, which has focused primarily on organizational patterns with limited attention to the content of arguments. Korean education has long emphasized exam-oriented instruction and mastery of established knowledge rather than open-ended inquiry (Seth, 2002), which may shape students’ approach to argumentative writing. While this educational tradition may constrain opportunities for exploratory thinking, subsequent research has shown that students’ reasoning ability itself is not inherently weak but depends largely on task design. Stapleton (2001) demonstrated that Asian students’ apparent difficulty with critical thinking often stemmed from unfamiliar topics or insufficient scaffolding, and that they were capable of sophisticated reasoning when tasks provided meaningful contexts and support. This finding has been reaffirmed in Korean EFL contexts, where engaging and authentic topics tend to enhance students’ argumentative engagement. The present study addresses this gap by examining both the stances students take and the reasoning patterns that reveal their underlying thought processes when writing about authentic policy issues.

A focus on authentic, meaningful content such as real policy issues is essential for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and L2 writing pedagogy (Johns, 2015). When students write about international student policies, they participate in public debates and reveal their understandings of national interest, social values, and economic priorities (Benesch, 2001; Flowerdew, 2017). Such authenticity is particularly relevant for this study, which situates students’ writing within real policy contexts to examine how engagement with public debates fosters critical reasoning. While such tasks pose knowledge demands, risks can be mitigated through targeted scaffolding and curated background materials (Wette, 2017). Tasks that engage with complex, authentic issues tend to elicit more substantive reasoning than those based on generic or decontextualized topics (Phakiti & Li, 2011).

However, writing about complex policy debates poses challenges. Students may lack necessary background knowledge about complex policy debates, making it difficult for them to construct informed arguments (Wette, 2017). These risks can be mitigated through careful task design, including the provision of background information, opportunities for discussion and inquiry, and explicit instruction on evaluating sources and considering multiple perspectives. The present study addresses these considerations by providing students with brief background descriptions of each policy context, adapted from official government announcements and media reports. These materials offered essential factual information while leaving room for students to interpret the policies, evaluate their merits, and construct their own positions.

Despite substantial research on L2 argumentative writing, significant gaps remain. First, most studies employ generic topics that, while useful for examining argument structure, fail to engage learners with real-world policy complexity (Hirvela, 2017). Second, research has generally focused on linguistic features or general argumentative competence while paying less attention to reasoning content -what types of arguments students employ and how these reflect social judgments (Paton, 2002). Third, research on Korean EFL learners has emphasized organizational patterns with minimal attention to how their reasoning engages complex issues (Shin, 2014). Finally, few studies examine how learners' reasoning varies across different policy contexts, making it difficult to distinguish general argumentative capacities from context-specific interpretations.

This study addresses these gaps by investigating how Korean university students perceive and interpret contrasting international student policies, Canada’s restriction policy on international students and Korea’s expansion-oriented Study Korea 300K initiative, through argumentative essays in English. By analyzing both the stances students take and the reasoning patterns they employ across two policy contexts, the study demonstrates that L2 argumentative writing tasks, when designed around authentic issues, can provide insights into learners' critical reasoning and social judgment. Students’ essays function not merely as demonstrations of linguistic competence but as windows into how they perceive social issues, what priorities they hold, and how they reason through complex questions of collective decision-making. This expanded understanding of L2 writing as simultaneously linguistic practice, cognitive activity, and social engagement illuminates the intersection of language learning, critical thinking, and civic participation.

This study was conducted in the context of an English composition course at a university located in Seoul, South Korea. The course formed part of the university’s general English program and was designed to help students progress toward producing coherent, extended essays by the end of the semester. A key emphasis of the course was on argumentative writing, in which students were expected not only to develop linguistic competence but also to articulate and defend their own opinions. In this sense, the course integrated the dual aims of fostering English writing proficiency and cultivating learners’ ability to engage in critical thinking.

A total of 216 undergraduate students enrolled in an English composition course at a university in Seoul, South Korea, participated in this study. All participants were first-year, first-semester students from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors, with ages ranging from 19 to 21 years old. The majority were native speakers of Korean. English proficiency levels ranged from low-intermediate to upper-intermediate, as determined by G-TELP (General Tests of English Language Proficiency) placement tests administered at the beginning of the semester. Participation was embedded within the regular course curriculum. At the beginning of the semester, all students were informed that coursework materials might be used for research purposes and provided their consent accordingly. All students completed argumentative writing tasks as part of their coursework requirements, and essays were collected for analysis with no additional selection criteria applied at the recruitment stage.

The argumentative writing task on international student policies was designed to serve dual purposes of language learning and critical engagement, requiring students to articulate positions on socially and politically meaningful issues: Canada’s restriction policy of international students and Korea’s expansion policy. This task encouraged students to connect language use with real-world contexts. The rationale for this task therefore lies in demonstrating how L2 writing can function not only as a site of linguistic practice but also as a means of exploring students’ perceptions of policy, critical reasoning, and social judgment. It is important to note that the present study does not focus on the linguistic development of students per se, but rather on how learners perceive and interpret the policy issues themselves through their argumentative writing. The analysis therefore centers on the content and reasoning patterns evident in students' essays, rather than on grammatical accuracy, lexical complexity, or other language-focused measures.

To elicit students’ argumentative reasoning, two essay tasks were designed, each addressing a contrasting national policy context. Students were randomly assigned to one of the two topics by class section, which resulted in an unequal distribution of essays across the two prompts. The first task asked students to respond to the question, “Do you agree with Canada’s decision to limit international students due to housing and inflation issues?” The second task prompted students to write about Korea’s expansion policy direction under the Study Korea 300K initiative, with the essay title framed as “Should Korea increase the number of international students?” Because both policy contexts were unfamiliar to many participants, each task was accompanied by a short background description adapted from government announcements and media reports. The inclusion of this background information was pedagogically necessary to ensure that students could meaningfully engage with the topic within the time limits of a classroom essay.

For the Canadian task, the background explained that the cap on international students was introduced in 2024 in response to housing shortages, rising living costs, concerns about low-quality private colleges, and increasing public dissatisfaction with pressures on social services. For the Korean task, the background explained that the government’s goal of raising international student numbers from 200,000 to 300,000 by 2027 was motivated by demographic decline and university survival, as well as anticipated economic benefits and the promotion of Korean culture abroad.

Data collection took place at the end of the 15-week semester, after students had completed all instructional units on argumentative essay writing. The task was conducted as a 60-minute in-class timed writing assessment under controlled conditions, with no access to dictionaries or external resources. Background information for each policy context was displayed on the classroom screen via PowerPoint throughout the writing session to provide necessary contextual scaffolding. A total of 216 essays were collected. However, not all essays demonstrated the level of independent reasoning and structural coherence required for analysis. Essays were excluded from dataset if they merely reproduced the background information without elaboration, or that failed to produce a coherent argumentative essay structure (i.e., introduction, two or three body paragraphs, and conclusion), or lacked a clear stance.

To ensure coding reliability, two course instructors independently reviewed all 216 essays and rated them against the inclusion criteria. Inter-rater agreement was substantial, with Cohen’s kappa of 0.82 (Landis & Koch, 1977). Following this review process, 175 essays were retained for final analysis: 102 essays on Canada (27% exclusion rate from initial 140) and 73 essays on Korea (4% exclusion rate from initial 76). This selection process ensured that the analysis focused not on the reproduction of given information but on students' own argumentative reasoning. While the background descriptions inevitably scaffolded students’ thinking, the data ultimately represent instances where learners appropriated, expanded, or resisted these frames to articulate their own stances. In this sense, the dataset provides a valid foundation for examining how L2 writers construct arguments around complex policy issues. Before analysis, all essays were anonymized and assigned numerical IDs.

The analysis sought to uncover both the orientations that students expressed toward the two national policy contexts and the reasoning structures that underpinned their argumentative discourse. To achieve this, the study employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative procedures designed to capture not only the distribution of students’ stances but also the frequency and depth of the rationales used to support them.

For RQ1, each essay was classified as expressing either support or opposition to the policy prompt based on explicit statements in the introduction and conclusion. A frequency count was conducted to determine the proportion of supportive and oppositional essays for each national policy context.

For RQ2, the focus shifted from what position students took to how they justified it. A two-stage analysis combining quantitative content coding and qualitative discourse interpretation was applied. The inclusion of quantitative analysis in RQ2 was essential for capturing the relative salience of reasoning types across the dataset. The goal was not simply to list the categories of reasoning, but to show which rationales were widely shared among participants, interpreting the students’ reasoning tendencies as emerging patterns of collective judgment.

Through iterative reading and open coding, four major reasoning categories were identified as seen in Table 1. These categories were not mutually exclusive. Each essay could contain multiple reasoning categories, reflecting the multidimensionality of argumentative writing. Each essay was systematically coded for the presence (1) or absence (0) of each reasoning category, allowing for calculation of the percentage of essays that included each type of reasoning, disaggregated by country (Canada/Korea) and stance (support/opposition).

A qualitative layer of analysis followed, focusing on representative excerpts from each category. These excerpts were examined for linguistic and rhetorical features to illustrate how students constructed meaning within each reasoning domain. For example, economic reasoning was often linked to notions of “stability” or “national survival” in Korean essays, whereas in Canadian essays it was frequently connected to “fairness” and “resource management.” This interpretive step added depth to the frequency data, showing that reasoning categories were not only statistical codes but also discursive constructs shaped by context. Through this combination of breadth and depth, the analysis provided a comprehensive account of students’ policy reasoning.

To explore students’ stances toward international student policies, each essay was coded as either supporting or opposing the government policy presented in the prompt. All 175 essays expressed clear and explicit positions, with no ambiguous or neutral cases.

As shown in Table 2, the results show that students demonstrated strong orientation toward supporting each country’s respective policy direction. In the Canadian context, a majority of students (66%) expressed support for the government’s decision to limit the number of international students, while one-third (34%) opposed it. Conversely, in the Korean context, a large majority (84%) supported the government’s plan to expand international student enrollment and only a small minority (18%) disagreed. Although both groups predominantly took supportive positions, the direction of support diverged according to the national context: restriction in Canada and expansion in Korea.

The cross-context comparison thus reveals a mirror-like pattern: students largely agreed with each government’s policy direction, reflecting sensitivity to contextual differences between the two national cases. These stance distributions provide a quantitative foundation for the subsequent analysis of reasoning patterns, which explores the specific rationales students used to justify their positions.

While the stance analysis revealed that students largely supported the respective policy direction of each country, the reasoning analysis examined how and why these positions were justified. The analysis identified four major reasoning categories recurring across both national contexts: economic, educational, socio-cultural, and policy-oriented reasoning. Within each category, students’ arguments reflected both supportive and oppositional perspectives that varied systematically across the two policy issues. By combining quantitative frequency counts with qualitative discourse interpretation, the analysis illuminates how learners constructed their argumentative logic and how their reasoning was shaped by their social positioning within the policy contexts.

Table 3 summarizes the frequency with which each reasoning type appeared across the two policy contexts. Each essay could include multiple reasoning types, and the frequencies represent the number of essays in which each type appeared at least once. The percentages in parentheses indicate the proportion of essays within each stance category that employed each reasoning type.

Discussion

This study demonstrates that Korean university students’ argumentative reasoning in English is highly context-dependent, reflecting how L2 writing operates as both a linguistic and a social practice. When writing about Canada’s restriction policy, students predominantly employed economic and educational reasoning, emphasizing housing shortages, financial strain, and quality protection. In contrast, when writing about Korea’s expansion policy, they drew on socio-cultural reasoning, framing internationalization as a source of cultural exchange, soft power, and global visibility. These findings confirm Hyland’s (2019) view that academic writing is a social act of meaning-making rather than a neutral skill performance, revealing how learners interpret complex issues through contextually grounded reasoning.

By focusing on reasoning content rather than surface features, the findings extend prior studies of L2 argumentation (Qin & Karabacak, 2010; Liu & Stapleton, 2014; Stapleton & Wu, 2015). While Toulmin’s structural analysis illuminates argumentative competence through the presence of claims, warrants, and rebuttals, it may not capture what values students prioritize, how they interpret policy contexts, or what social judgments underlie their positions (Hirvela, 2017; Nussbaum, 2008). The present study therefore complements structure-focused research by examining the ideological and interpretive substance of L2 argumentation, revealing how learners engage with authentic policy debates as both linguistic and social actors. Students’ ability to shift reasoning strategies across policy contexts indicates that they were not simply reproducing memorized templates (Lancaster, 2016) but engaging in situated interpretation of real-world problems. Their writing thus aligns with Hirvela’s (2017) call for research that attends to the cognitive and social dimensions of L2 argumentation, where reasoning reveals how learners think, not just how they write. While prior literature, notably Qin and Karabacak (2010), determined that the presence of secondary argumentative elements, such as counterargument claims, counterargument data, rebuttal claims, and rebuttal data, were significant predictors of overall essay quality, this study centered its analysis on the ideological substance of the students' reasoning (i.e., what values they prioritized) rather than the frequency or quality of these structural components. This focus highlights the significance of reasoning coherence and warrants over structural completeness, positioning the study within a content-focused inquiry.

These reasoning patterns also highlight the interplay between critical thinking and contextual framing. Consistent with Atkinson’s (1997) and Kuhn’s (1991) theories of reasoning as culturally situated and dialogic, students displayed critical engagement when tasks provided authentic, meaningful issues. The contrast between the two policy contexts supports Johns’ (2015) argument that authenticity enhances argumentative depth by requiring learners to reason through competing stakeholder perspectives. When the issue involved a domestic policy, reasoning extended to identity and social transformation; when it involved a foreign case, reasoning focused on pragmatic evaluation. This adaptive reasoning suggests that L2 learners are capable of critical thought when given conceptually rich contexts (Wette, 2017).

The study also underscores the powerful influence of task framing on L2 reasoning. Critically, the background materials provided to students explicitly framed the two policies in contrasting ways: Canada's policy was presented as a crisis-driven response to housing shortages, inflation, and quality concerns, while Korea's policy was framed as a strategic developmental opportunity addressing demographic decline and global competitiveness. Students’ essays mirrored these framings, supporting Entman’s (1993) and Lakoff’s (2004) theories that issue framing guides what arguments appear relevant or legitimate. The near-perfect alignment between textual framing and reasoning type indicates that learners’ argumentation was not random but cognitively organized around problem–solution versus aspiration–realization logics. This close adherence raises a crucial tension: Did students merely reproduce the given frame, or did they engage critically within the constraints of the frame? While the framing inevitably constrained the range of available reasoning (Wette, 2017), the diversity of arguments generated within each frame (e.g., opposing Canada’s policy by citing economic benefits and reframing international students as contributors) suggests students engaged in an interpretive act, selectively appropriating the presented frames to articulate their own principled stances, thus demonstrating critical engagement through situated reasoning rather than simple mirroring. This finding echoes Wette’s (2017) caution that background information in writing tasks both enables and constrains reasoning, shaping the interpretive range available to learners.

A further insight concerns writer positionality. When addressing Canada’s restriction policy, students wrote as external observers, often recognizing Canada’s sovereign right to regulate international education while evaluating its efficiency and fairness. In contrast, when writing about Korea’s expansion policy, they wrote as insiders, using collective pronouns and appealing to national goals such as modernization and global competitiveness. This distinction supports Nussbaum’s (2008) claim that argumentation depends on perspective-taking: insider positioning fosters value-oriented and identity-related reasoning, while outsider positioning encourages analytic detachment. Yet, as You (2018) argues, such patterns should not be read as cultural essentialism but as responses to learners’ social roles and educational experiences within evolving discourse practices.

Ultimately, these findings reinforce Hyland’s (2005, 2019) conception of L2 academic writing as a socially and rhetorically situated process. The students’ essays did not merely display structural competence but revealed how they understand governance, globalization, and Korea’s role in the international education landscape. Their reasoning patterns, which are economic rationality for external contexts and socio-cultural idealism for domestic contexts, reflect how L2 writing can serve as a medium for expressing civic awareness and social values.

From a pedagogical perspective, the study supports critical EAP approaches (Benesch, 2001; Flowerdew, 2017; Johns, 2015) that view writing as a site of inquiry rather than formulaic production. The observed context-dependent reasoning supports the conceptual shift advocated by Hirvela (2017) from ‘learning to argue’ (focusing on acquiring the structural architecture of claims, data, and rebuttals) toward ‘arguing to learn’ (using argument as a tool for deeper understanding and analysis). When learners engage with authentic, socially meaningful issues, they are not only developing structural argumentation skills (learning to argue) but are also practicing civic reasoning, using English to analyze, evaluate, and reimagine real-world problems and interpret social values. L2 writing instruction, therefore, should move beyond structural mastery toward cultivating critical literacy: the ability to recognize how issues are framed, assess multiple perspectives, and reason ethically within global contexts.

Conclusion

The core conclusion of this study is that Korean university students’ argumentative reasoning in English is highly context-dependent, reflecting how L2 writing operates as both a linguistic and a social practice. The findings demonstrate that students’ reasoning patterns were context-sensitive and interpretive, showing how learners perceive each policy’s goals, constraints, and moral implications. Empirically, the analysis revealed a systematic contrast: when addressing Canada’s restriction policy, students predominantly employed economic and educational reasoning; conversely, when addressing Korea’s expansion policy, they drew heavily on socio-cultural reasoning. This divergence confirms Hyland’s (2019) view that academic writing is a social act of meaning-making and supports the perspective that L2 academic writing is a situated form of reasoning. By focusing on reasoning content rather than mere surface features, the study aligns with Hirvela’s (2017) call for research that attends to the cognitive and social dimensions of L2 argumentation, where reasoning reveals how learners think, not just how they write. This ultimately contributes to research linking argumentation, critical thinking, and social cognition in L2 contexts.

Several limitations should be acknowledged. First, participants’ proficiency ranged from low-intermediate to upper-intermediate, meaning linguistic constraints may have affected some students’ ability to fully articulate their reasoning, though research suggests proficiency and critical thinking are distinct constructs (Floyd, 2011; Stapleton, 2001). It is also notable that the background information provided to students explicitly framed the two policies in contrasting ways: Canada’s as crisis-driven and Korea’s as opportunity-driven, which likely shaped the types of reasoning students employed. While pedagogically necessary to ensure meaningful engagement within a timed writing context, this asymmetric framing may have constrained students’ interpretive range, making certain arguments (e.g., economic concerns for Canada, cultural benefits for Korea) appear more salient or legitimate than others. Moreover, generalizability is limited, as participants were homogeneous Korean undergraduates from a single institution. Crucially, while prior research based on the Toulmin model (1958) demonstrated that secondary elements such as counterarguments are significant predictors of argumentative quality, this study centered its analysis on the ideological substance of reasoning and did not fully analyze the sophistication of argumentative structure.

Despite these limitations, the findings carry several implications. Pedagogically, the study supports critical EAP approaches, suggesting that authentic, contextualized prompts grounded in real policy debates elicit deeper reasoning and self-positioning. The observed context-dependent reasoning supports the conceptual shift advocated by Hirvela (2017) from ‘learning to argue’ toward ‘arguing to learn,’ highlighting that L2 writers practice civic reasoning and social engagement. The divergence in reasoning patterns also underscores the value of comparative task design to promote metacognitive insight into how context shapes argumentation. For assessment, the study suggests evaluating reasoning quality as distinct from linguistic accuracy, while recognizing that structural elements such as counterarguments remain important predictors of essay quality. Future research should pursue cross-institutional and longitudinal studies to investigate how argumentative reasoning evolves over time. Ultimately, understanding L2 argumentative writing as simultaneously linguistic practice, cognitive activity, and social engagement suggests that instruction must move beyond teaching structure to cultivating the ability to reason critically about authentic issues.