| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 應用英語所 === 98 === Research in the area of CSCW (Computer-supported collaborative writing) is rare, and studies analysing CSCW in relation to L2/FL writing theories and their specific approaches are almost non-existent. This thesis sets out to bridge the gap for needed studies. After clarifying different concepts of collaborative and cooperative writing, workable definitions are suggested, and the application of Google Document as a collaborative writing tool for FL teaching, at the moment also still a novelty, is investigated. The study goes beyond a mere inquiry of technological aspects of Google Document and investigates aspects of the teacher’s task design, teacher’s feedback and students’ experiences and perceptions.
The study adopts a classroom-based qualitative inquiry to gain an understanding about the implementation of Google Document as a collaborative writing tool into a FL writing class. The research participants were one writing teacher and 20 students of German at a low intermediate level at a tertiary institution in Taiwan.
Multiple sources were triangulated to ensure the validity of the research findings. The sources used to explore the teacher’s beliefs and practices included classroom observations, an interview and an analysis of the writing tasks developed by the teacher and delivered to students via Google Document. The data obtained to look into the students’ experiences and perceptions were a questionnaire, an interview with a focus group of 5 students, and one focus group’s writing sample. The data were first coded and categorised into themes. Descriptive statistics were obtained from the analysis of the survey and frequency counts of error corrections in student writing.
The findings revealed that Google Document was indeed used by students in a collaborative manner to carry out their writing tasks. During the process, the teacher gave continuous feedback throughout the students’ writing process via the tool. Moreover, students generally viewed the process as a positive writing experience due to the support through the ongoing collaboration, and students’ self-correcting of writing errors was enhanced by the teacher’s continuous feedback.
Nonetheless, critical issues emerged during the CSCW process related to the practicality of using the software tool and the level of difficulty of the writing tasks. Another issue was the helpfulness of teacher’s feedback in revision. Despite the fact that continuous feedback was provided during the writing process motivating students’ self-editing, the teacher’s recursive corrections on the students’ writing errors in the same area resulted in student frustration in some cases. Hence, the explicitness rather than the frequency of teacher feedback seems to be more critical in assisting student writers to effectively self-correct writing errors.
The study first suggests that it is essential to distinguish between ‘collaborative writing’ and ‘cooperative writing’ in order to define a transparent research context since various obscure usages of both terms were found in the literature. In addition, this thesis underlines the importance of writing pedagogy when applying CSCW and additional research respectively is required. Finally, an effective use of Google Document as a collaborative tool in teaching and learning of FL writing skills, a profound knowledge of writing theories and their approaches is needed; thus supporting and enabling teachers to design sufficient instructional materials for effective learning outcomes.
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