Schedule: 2009-09-11 (16:30 - 17:30)
Poster Presentations and Commercial Exhibition (Exhibition Hall)

Title: An exploration of writing together: Self-efficacy and self-regulation in a wiki-mediated collaborative writing project for EFL learners in Taiwan
Authors: Yu-Chuan Joni Chao
Abstract: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has demonstrated the success of using the wiki software to work together for content creation. This study reports a wiki-mediated collaborative writing project implemented in the writing course for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Taiwan. Participants are 76 English majors in the author’s writing classes. They are grouped in 3 to 4 members to work as a team to complete five-week consecutive tasks that aim at the stages of writing process (viz, pre-writing planning, drafting, peer revising, peer editing and publishing). The pedagogical purpose of implementing this project is three-fold: 1) to provide computer-mediated communication (CMC) as an extension of classroom writing, 2) to provide EFL learners with chances to experience student-centered process writing, 3) and to provide EFL learners with the potential collective benefits from peer interaction. The research purpose of this study is to examine two factors, self-efficacy and self-regulation, that lead to students’ engagement and learning in the online collaborative writing project. Before the project, two questionnaires are used to assess self-efficacy – one about beliefs of students’ capability to write an essay and the other about their rating of outcome expectation in the online collaborative writing project. After finishing the project, participants respond to two questionnaires – one containing six subscales to measure online self-regulated learning (viz, goal setting, environmental structuring, task strategies, time management, help seeking, and self-evaluation) and the other to measure student perceptions of online communication and collaboration involved in the project. Students’ individual contributions and their jointly written text were evaluated as their writing achievement. All measures are collected for structural equation modeling to analyze the effectiveness of self-efficacy and self-regulation on the writing-together project. Meanwhile, a follow-up interview of a focus group is conducted for cross-references that can provide information on what the online collaborative learning experience entails. The quantitative and qualitative data will show how and why writing together via wiki may facilitate writing process and writing outcomes.
Keywords: Collaborative writing, EFL, Self-efficacy, Self-regulation, Wiki

Main topic: CALL supported Content Integrated Language Learning (CLIL)

Biodata: Yu-Chuan Joni Chao is an associate professor in Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics. Her research interest is in writing. She likes to integrate ICT to enhance student learning.
Type of presentation Poster

Paper category (Other)

Target educational sector Higher education

Language of delivery English

EU-funded project No

Schedule:	2009-09-11 (16:30 - 17:30) Poster Presentations and Commercial Exhibition (Exhibition Hall)
Title:	An exploration of writing together: Self-efficacy and self-regulation in a wiki-mediated collaborative writing project for EFL learners in Taiwan
Authors:	Yu-Chuan Joni Chao
Abstract:	Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has demonstrated the success of using the wiki software to work together for content creation. This study reports a wiki-mediated collaborative writing project implemented in the writing course for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Taiwan. Participants are 76 English majors in the author’s writing classes. They are grouped in 3 to 4 members to work as a team to complete five-week consecutive tasks that aim at the stages of writing process (viz, pre-writing planning, drafting, peer revising, peer editing and publishing). The pedagogical purpose of implementing this project is three-fold: 1) to provide computer-mediated communication (CMC) as an extension of classroom writing, 2) to provide EFL learners with chances to experience student-centered process writing, 3) and to provide EFL learners with the potential collective benefits from peer interaction. The research purpose of this study is to examine two factors, self-efficacy and self-regulation, that lead to students’ engagement and learning in the online collaborative writing project. Before the project, two questionnaires are used to assess self-efficacy – one about beliefs of students’ capability to write an essay and the other about their rating of outcome expectation in the online collaborative writing project. After finishing the project, participants respond to two questionnaires – one containing six subscales to measure online self-regulated learning (viz, goal setting, environmental structuring, task strategies, time management, help seeking, and self-evaluation) and the other to measure student perceptions of online communication and collaboration involved in the project. Students’ individual contributions and their jointly written text were evaluated as their writing achievement. All measures are collected for structural equation modeling to analyze the effectiveness of self-efficacy and self-regulation on the writing-together project. Meanwhile, a follow-up interview of a focus group is conducted for cross-references that can provide information on what the online collaborative learning experience entails. The quantitative and qualitative data will show how and why writing together via wiki may facilitate writing process and writing outcomes.
Keywords:	Collaborative writing, EFL, Self-efficacy, Self-regulation, Wiki
Main topic:	CALL supported Content Integrated Language Learning (CLIL)
Biodata:	Yu-Chuan Joni Chao is an associate professor in Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics. Her research interest is in writing. She likes to integrate ICT to enhance student learning.
Type of presentation	Poster
Paper category	(Other)
Target educational sector	Higher education
Language of delivery	English
EU-funded project	No