On the Effect of Cooperative Writing on Students’ Writing Ability, WTC, Self-efficacy, and Apprehension

Abstract

Co-authoring is a type of cooperative writing which requires students to cooperate in order to write. The present study is carried out to see whether cooperative writing affects students’ levels of writing ability, writing apprehension, writing self-efficacy, and writing WTC. Two intact classes have participated in this study. A conventional group (n= 31), and a cooperative (n= 36) participated in the study. The students in the experimental group were writing essays in groups of four, helping each other during the process of writing; on the other hand, in the control group, the whole procedure was done individually. The analysis of the data revealed that the writing ability of the students in cooperative group improved significantly more than that of the students in the conventional group. The further analysis showed the superiority of cooperative writing classes in the affective domain. The results of the present study shed more light on the efficiency of cooperative writing in terms of both writing ability and affective factors. A set of pedagogical implications are also provided.