The impact of collaborative writing on EFL secondary students’ individual writing performance, writing anxiety, and writing metacognition

Thesis

Recent educational trends emphasize the importance of social interactions in learning communities, a concept rooted in Vygotsky’s sociocultural paradigm, which suggests that collaborative activities enhance learning outcomes. Building on this foundation, this study aims to investigate the long-term pedagogical implications of integrating collaborative writing practices in large EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classrooms in Chinese secondary schools. Specifically, it examines the effect of collaborative writing on individual writing performance, writing metacognition, and writing anxiety. Employing a quasi-experimental design, two rounds of collaborative writing activities were conducted over five weeks with an experimental group consisting of 117 students. A control group of 121 students engaged in regular instruction and individual writing activities with the same writing prompts. A mixed methods approach was employed for data collection, including pre- and post-writing tests to assess individual writing performance, self-report questionnaires measuring writing anxiety and metacognition, and reflective journals completed by participants in the experimental group after each collaborative writing task. The results indicated that both groups experienced significant improvements in writing performance, with no statistically significant differences between them. Multiple group comparisons further revealed no significant differences between control and experimental groups on the change of writing anxiety and metacognition. Content analysis of reflective journals revealed that students mainly reported benefits from collaborative writing rather than negative experiences. This study provides pedagogical insights into the practical implementation of collaborative writing in large EFL classrooms.

Authors: Zhang, K

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-pdpxpxeax
• Type of award: MSc taught course
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: L2 Writing Performance; RDM; writing anxiety; writing metacognition; RDM2024; path analysis; longitudinal study; mixed-methods design; content analysis; collaborative writing; quasi-experimental research
• Subjects: Second language acquisition; Anxiety; Writing; Longitudinal studies; Content analysis (Communication); Education; Research; Authorship--Collaboration