1) The document describes a study that examined the impact of using Knowledge Building forums on the development of English language skills for Spanish students. 2) Sixty-seven Spanish students participated in the study, engaging with Knowledge Building forums and completing pre- and post-tests of their English abilities. 3) The results showed that collaborative writing in the forums significantly improved students' English writing skills and comprehension, but did not necessarily improve their vocabulary or specific grammar skills.

1. Using Knowledge Building Forums in EFL Classrooms
Marni Manegre
Ph.D. Candidate
Computer Assisted Language Learning
Education & Technology
Mar Gutiérrez-Colón Plana
Mercè Gisbert

2. What is the Knowledge
Building International
Project (KBIP)

3. 3
The Creation of the Knowledge
Building International Project
Dr. Marlene Scardamalia and Dr. Carl Bereiter - The University of Toronto, Canada
knowledge forum = the software, which was designed as knowledge building communities for use
in classrooms.

4. 4
The Knowledge Building
Principles
The Students will follow the Knowledge Building Principles
1. Improvable ideas
2. Epistemic agency
3. Community knowledge, collective responsibility
4. Democratizing knowledge
5. Idea diversity
6. Knowledge Building discourse
7. Real ideas, authentic problems
8. Rise Above
9. Constructive use of authoritative sources
10. Pervasive knowledge advance
11. Symmetric knowledge advance
12. Embedded, concurrent, transformative assessment

5. 5
A Rise Above of Ideas In English from
Secondary Students At Sant Pau
School, Tarragona

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dXcqUDKB-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EkPpJR0R04
Video Examples

7. Research
Question

8. 8
Research Question
Does participating in the Knowledge Building International Project where students
are writing in English assist in the development of EFL skills?
An analysis of data between pre-tests and post-tests will determine whether there is
evidence for language learning in both Free Answer and Fixed-Choice paradigms.

9. The Experimental
Study

10. 10
Participants
N = 67 Students from Sant Pau. The
students are all 14-years and in
Grade Nine (Class A & Class B).
Five of the students were identified
as “Special Needs” by the school
board, so, although they are
participating in the study, their
information is excluded from the
results of the study.
Sant Paul
Grade 9
Participants
# of Students Special Needs Absent During
Pretest
Participating
Students
Class A (M. 3
pm; TR 4 pm)
34 3 1 30
Class B (TR 10
am; F
33 2 1 30

11. 11
Method
1) Pretest Interview – to collect qualitative data on the participants – each student
will be interviewed to determine their background (exposure to English) and
motivation to learn English.
2) Pretest Quiz – Quiz on Vocabulary & Subject Knowledge of the upcoming
lesson
3) Post-test Quiz – Upon completion of the project, the students will receive a
post-test measuring the same variables
4) Post Test Interview – to collect qualitative data on the experience of learning
on this topic collectively.
Experimental Design of the Study
While the posts in the forums will be analyzed, the main focus of this study is on the following 5 tests:

12. 12
Method
Pre-Test and Post-Test Objectives
This is designed to measure the baseline of the students’ knowledge on the subject
matter. It contains 4 sections:
a) Section I – multiple choice with modal verbs, which is necessary to be
able to discuss obligations and opinions
b) Section II – long answer, which measures syntactic structure and
understanding of the concepts
c) Section III – fill in the blanks, which measures vocabulary knowledge
related to the subjects
d) Section IV – multiple choice, measures vocabulary and general
understanding
The test is designed based on the subject knowledge from B1.1 TEFL textbooks. The students
were assessed at A2 – B1 level and the test is level appropriate.
Experimental Design of the Study

13. Results

14. 14
Results
Analysis of the Data
Class # of Posts % of Posts Classroom Observation
Class A 142 61% Higher Engagement
Class B 90 39% Lower Engagement
Engagement Level of Class A & B
Because there was more engagement from Class A & Class B, the results of the two
clases were analyzed seperately.
Class A appeared to work more diligently and they took the Project seriously.
Class B experienced a lot of disruptions (e.g. during one class a dragonfly flew in the
room and caused chaos, during other classes, they were slow to get started as this
class was first thing in the morning and students were arriving late).

15. 15
Results
Analysis of the Data
Class Tstat Tcrit Confidence Level Hypothesis
Class A -4.75 -2.045 95% Alternative
Class B -2.595 -2.045 95% Alternative
Overall Results
Using a t-test (𝛼 = 0.05) for both clases the Tstat is greater than the Tcrit and therefore
we reject the null hypothesis in favour of the alternative hypothesis.
This suggests that using this collaborative writing method in a foreign language
classroom increases overall performance in EFL.

16. 16
Results
Analysis of the Data
Class Tstat Tcrit Confidence Level Hypothesis
Class A -4.75 -2.045 95% Alternative
Class B -2.595 -2.045 95% Alternative
Overall Results
Using a t-test (𝛼 = 0.05) for both clases the Tstat is greater than the Tcrit and therefore
we reject the null hypothesis in favour of the alternative hypothesis.
This suggests that using this collaborative writing method in a foreign language
classroom increases overall performance in EFL.

17. 17
Results Analysis of the Data
Section Tstat Tcrit Confidence Level Hypothesis Cohen’s D
Total Test -4.75 -2.045 95% Alternative Medium
(0.364)
Modal
Verbs
-0.163 -2.045 95% Null Low
Long
Answer
-5.375 -2.045 95% Alternative High
(0.7924)
Fill In the
Blank
-0.188 -2.045 95% Null Low
Multiple
Choice
-2.23 -2.045 95% Alternative Medium
(0.2683)
Class A – Results by Section
Using a t-test (𝛼 = 0.05) and a Cohen’s D for each of the sections, we can see that
the majority of the improvement from the Pre-Test to the Post-Test is in the Long
Answer Section. There was significant improvement in the Multiple Choice Section.
However, there was no improvement in the Grammar (Modal Verbs) or the Fill in the
Blank (Vocabulary) sections.

18. 18
Results Analysis of the Data
Section Tstat Tcrit Confidence Level Hypothesis Cohen’s D
Total Test -2.595 -2.045 95% Alternative Medium
(0.3033)
Modal
Verbs
-0.8063 -2.045 95% Null Low
Long
Answer
-4.821 -2.045 95% Alternative High
(0.5791)
Fill In the
Blank
-0.66 -2.045 95% Null Low
Multiple
Choice
-1.688 -2.045 95% Null Medium
(0.3382)
Class B – Results by Section
Using a t-test (𝛼 = 0.05) and a Cohen’s D for each of the sections, we can see that
the majority of the improvement from the Pre-Test to the Post-Test is in the Long
Answer Section, similar to that of class A. There was no significant improvement in
the Multiple Choice Section, however, it did have a médium effect with Cohen’s D.
Like Class A, there was no improvement in the Grammar (Modal Verbs) or the Fill in
the Blank (Vocabulary) sections.

19. 19
Results
Analysis of the Data
MSS(W) MSS(B) df(W) df(B) Fstat Fcrit
413.47 381.02 58 1 0.9215 40.012
ANOVA Comparing Class A and Class B
Finally, an ANOVA was conducted to determine whether the class the students were
assigned to influenced their post-test results. The results of the one way ANOVA (𝛼 =
0.05) show the Fstat (0.9215) < Fcrit (4.00), therefore we have to reject the alternative
hypothesis in favour of the null hypothesis.
This means that the performance of both classes on the post-test is considered to be
similar. There is no significant difference based on which class the students had been
assigned to.

20. Conclusion

21. 21
Conclusion
From this study, we have determined the following:
• Using collaborative writing tasks in foreign langauge classrooms helps to develop
writing skills and comprehension in the foreign langauge.
• Collaborative writing tasks, from this study, do not appear to improve vocabulary
acquisition or knowledge of specific grammar skills (i.e. modal verb usage) as it is
difficult to determine which words the students will choose to use along with their
sentence structures, as they participate in the fórum.
• Even though the students appeared to show different levels of engagement based
on the classes they were assigned to, there is not interaction between class
assignment and post-test performance.

22. Questions