Research Abstract - Developing Writing Skills of ESL Students Through the collaborative learning strategy

1. Developing the writing skills of ESL
students through the collaborative
learning strategy
Khaled Besher Albesher
Newcastle University, UK
August 2012

2. Statement of the Problem
1. Would students who are involved in collaborative
writing settings produce better written and better
organized essays than students working individually?
2. Are students’ attitudes and perceptions positively
affected by involvement in collaborative learning
settings?

3. Methodology

4. Subjects of the Study
The subjects of the study were:
• 48 male Saudi Arabian university students
– 23 experimental group and were taught to write
essays collaboratively,
– 25 were assigned to the control group and taught to
write essays individually.
Four students from the treatment group were
selected at random for interview at the end of the study.

6. The research questions and the methods used to
answer them are described.

8. Scoring rubric
• The main method for assessing essays in this study is
based on Paulus (1999). Her ‘rubric’ for assessing the
essays was based on a scale from 1 as the lowest
score to 10 as the highest score for six categories of
writing.

9. Six Categories of Writing
1. Organization
2. Development
3. Cohesion/coherence
4. Structure
5. Vocabulary
6. Mechanics

10. Research design and materials
• It was decided to take a quantitative approach to
collecting data for this research, which would be
supplemented by a small amount of qualitative data.
• Since the main purpose of the research was to study
the effectiveness of collaborative learning as a
method of improving ESL students’ writing skills, it
was deemed appropriate to use an experimental
approach.

11. Questionnaires

12. Semi-Structured Interview
• the interview method was also used in this research
to provide supporting or supplementary information
on the students’ attitudes and perceptions
concerning collaborative learning in the form of
collaborative writing.

13. Study sample

14. Data Analysis
• The scores for the students’ essays in both pre- and
post-tests were collected and marked by two expert
teachers using Paulus’s rubric. A higher score in the
post-tests would indicate that a student had
improved.

15. Presentation of Data

16. Scores in
Collaborative
Learning Setting

17. Scores in
Traditional
Learning Setting

18. • As shown in Tables 4.7 and 4.8 above, the students’
essays were marked out of 60. The results showed
that students in both the experimental CL and
control TL groups obtained higher scores in the post-
test than in the pre-test.

19. Summing Up
The results presented in this chapter were based mainly
on the analysis of quantitative data, which consisted of
the students’ scores for their written essays and their
responses to the statements contained in the
questionnaires. These data were supplemented by
qualitative data obtained from the interview
responses.

20. Discussions, Implications and
Conclusions

21. Research Question One
‘Would students who are involved in collaborative
writing settings produce better written and better
organized essays than students working individually?
• Generally, students in the experimental CL group had
improved more than students in the control TL
group.

22. Research Question Two
Are students’ attitudes and perceptions positively
affected by involvement in collaborative learning
settings?
• This shows that the attitudes of students in the
experimental CL group towards collaborative learning
were more positive in the post-test than in the pre-
test.
• that the attitudes of students in the experimental CL
group towards collaborative learning were better
than those of students in the control TL group.

23. Collaborative learning questionnaire
The post-test attitudes of students in TL group
towards collaborative learning had not changed after
involvement in the traditional learning method, as
shown in the mean difference, which was not
significant.
The attitudes of students in the experimental CL
group towards collaborative learning were more
positive in the post-test than in the pre-test.

24. Interview
• interviews were used in this research to provide
either supportive or supplementary information
regarding students’ attitudes and perceptions
concerning collaborative learning in the form of
collaborative writing.

25. Reference:
Al-besher, K. (2012). Developing the writing skills
of ESL students through the collaborative
learning strategy. Newscastle University.
Retrieved from https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/
dspace/bitstream/10443/1836/1/Al-
Besher%2012.pdf