Understanding students’ motivation in L2 collaborative writing

Abstract

Although research about the potential learning outcome of collaborative writing in L2 or foreign language education has proliferated in the last few decades, little is known about students’ motivation in collaborative writing. This case study seeks to explore higher-proficiency (HP) students’ motivation in L2 collaborative writing, as well as factors influencing their motivation. The findings reveal that students with similar proficiency (HP) could have different levels of motivation, which may affect their participation. This study also found that knowledge of collaborative writing, previous beliefs and experiences of pair/group work, and perceived value of the role in the partnership were three major factors that influence students’ motivation in collaborative writing. This study makes several recommendations from a motivational perspective about how best to implement collaborative writing tasks in L2 classes.

Introduction

Collaborative writing as an instructional activity has gained much attention in L2 or foreign language contexts over recent decades (e.g. Storch 2005; Fernández Dobao 2012). Informed by sociocultural theory that learning occurs through scaffolded interactions with more capable peers or seniors (Vygotsky 1978), a surge of research has provided evidence that collaborative writing not only encourages learners to focus their attention on form in jointly composed texts, but also promotes social interaction among L2 learners (Storch 2005; Chen and Hapgood 2019). Despite the theoretical and pedagogic support for implementing collaborative writing tasks in L2 writing classrooms, collaborative writing activities may not always succeed (Storch 2013). One major concern among writing teachers centres on the patterns of interaction that students form in terms of their contributions and engagement with each other’s contributions. Storch (2002) has described four dyadic interaction patterns generated with two intersecting continua: ‘equality’ and ‘mutuality’. Studies have shown that pairs or groups displaying collaborative or expert/novice stances experienced more knowledge transfer and greater language learning than pairs or groups that displayed dominant/dominant and dominant/passive stances (Storch 2002).

Although prior studies have provided insights into the factors (e.g. pairing method, L2 proficiency, task type) that influence patterns of interaction (Fernández Dobao 2012; Basterrechea and Leeser 2019), very few studies (e.g. Chen and Yu 2019) have addressed learners’ affective factors (e.g. learner motivation, attitude, and personality). Of the limited collaborative writing research that has addressed affective factors, Chen and Yu (2019) compared patterns of interaction for students with contrasting attitudes towards collaborative writing, as well as their language learning opportunities (quantity of language-related dialogues and quality of engagement in solving the language-related problems) over multiple observations. Their study found students’ attitudes may change based on the levels of exposure to the activities and positive attitudes led to more learning opportunities. However, their study primarily drew attention to the role of attitude in affecting patterns of interaction and language learning opportunities. Thus, it remains unclear how learners’ positive attitudes may or may not tie into the motivation that is necessary to help them accomplish their goals during the collaborative writing process.

Motivation focuses on the direction and magnitude of human behaviour, explaining the choice of actions, their persistence, and the effort expanded (Dörnyei 2005). Due to its role in effective learning, motivation is a central concern in L2 writing classrooms. Research into motivation has adopted a dynamic systems perspective that integrates factors related to the learner, the learning task, and the learning environment into one complex system (Dörnyei 2005; Dörnyei and Ushioda 2011). However, existing research on L2 writing motivation mainly addresses how best to promote it through methods such as adopting journal writing as a self-assessment technique or assigning interesting writing topics (e.g. Lo and Hyland 2007). Very limited research has addressed students’ motivation in collaborative writing. One such study, conducted by Storch (2004), found that learners’ motives and goals are related to their patterns of interaction and the relationships that they form as they collaborate on writing tasks. The author investigated the interactions of adult ESL learners in pairs and suggested that patterns of interaction can be traced to the nature of their goals and to whether members of the dyad share the same goals. Although this study emphasized the role of motives and goals in affecting interaction patterns across tasks, it focused on undergraduates whose L2 proficiency was considered as intermediate to high. However, higher-proficiency (HP) students have been shown to feel less inclined toward pair or group work because they are less likely to believe that they will receive helpful feedback from their partners (Hu and Lam 2010). Thus, why HP students are motivated or unmotivated to engage in collaborative writing activities needs further exploration. To fill this research gap, the current study seeks to explore HP students’ motivation in L2 collaborative writing, as well as factors influencing their motivation. In addition, HP students are well suited for this study because proficiency pairing may affect relationships formed by the pairs or groups, which may ultimately impact L2 language learning opportunities (e.g. Storch and Aldosari 2013). Thus, by exploring motivation of HP students in collaborative writing, the present study can illuminate the nature of L2 collaborative writing motivation and provide valuable implications to enhance the effective implementation of collaborative writing in L2 contexts.

The study

This study used a case study approach (Yin 2009) and aimed to answer the following two research questions (RQs):

RQ1: What are HP students’ motivation in L2 collaborative writing?

RQ2: What factors may shape HP students’ motivation in L2 collaborative writing?

Research context and participants

As part of a larger project examining collaborative writing in L2 settings (Chen and Hapgood 2019), this study was conducted in a reading and writing course (with twenty students) in an intensive English-language programme at a large research university in the United States. Participants were intermediate-level learners. Although participants shared fairly homogeneous L2 proficiency, relative differences in language proficiency were still expected. This is because some participants met intermediate-level literacy requirements by completing basic-level courses, whereas others were placed at this level due to the proficiency test scores (ranging from 55 to 65 out of 100) that they received upon first arriving at the language institute. Also, since students were from various countries (e.g. China, Japan, Saudi Arabia), individual differences were expected, such as previous learning experiences and language learning beliefs. Outcomes for students at this course level targeted the development of academic reading and writing skills, with the writing component emphasizing essay production. The author was the course instructor. As part of the course requirements, students were asked to complete a collaborative writing task in teacher-selected pairs based on mixing students with relatively similar language proficiency, cultural backgrounds, and personalities. Students got credits for the full completion of the task. Given the position of the author as both researcher and instructor, a professor from the Department of Education acted as an intermediary to explain the study and solicit consent forms from students while the researcher was out of the room. The professor then kept the consent forms in a sealed envelope until after the term had ended. Thus, the instructor did not know which students had agreed to participate and which had not until well after students had received their grades.

Two HP students (Yuan and Alex) from different pairs were selected for analysis in this study as a result of purposive sampling (Yin 2009). They were identified as HP students due to their much higher writing performance than their partners based on in-class writing quizzes and placement tests that included writing components emphasizing grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, structure, and content. In addition, these two students were selected because the patterns of interaction they formed with their partners were completely different. A collaborative pattern of interaction was observed in Yuan’s group, whereas a dominant/passive pattern was observed in Alex’s group (Storch 2002). Yuan (age 17) was a male student from China who had eight years of English learning experiences, whereas Alex (age 18) was a male student from Saudi Arabia who had six years of English learning experiences. Neither participant had previous collaborative writing experience. All data were labelled with students’ pseudonyms and were collected with Institutional Review Board approval in relation to ethical concerns.

Research procedure, data collection, and analysis

The larger study was conducted over a span of seven weeks. Multiple sources of data were collected, including audio recordings of pair talk, interviews, and reflective journals. Specifically, in Week 1, students were paired up and informed of the collaborative writing task. Each student participated in a 15-minute pre-task interview concerning their previous English learning experiences. In Week 4, students received metacognitive instruction and training (Chen and Hapgood 2019), which included three types of information about collaborative writing: (1) The definition, pros and cons, and application of collaborative writing (declarative-related knowledge); (2) procedure and techniques for classroom implementation of collaborative writing (procedural-related knowledge); and (3) examples of successful implementation of collaborative writing in different contexts (conditional-related knowledge). To minimize the researcher-related bias, the training was video recorded and rated by two English instructors to ensure that the instructor’s manner and energy level were appropriate. In Week 5, students were given two hours to complete an in-class argumentative essay in pairs, during which audio-recordings of pair talk were collected. Argumentative essay writing was selected as one main genre students needed to acquire in this course because it is a key skill for success in academic writing. After class students were also required to write a reflective journal. The instructor provided guidelines in terms of pair dynamics, individual contributions, and reflections about the activity (e.g. Do you write with others? How have you contributed to the pair work? What was the most interesting part of the activity, why?). In Week 7, in-depth interviews (30–40 minutes each) were conducted with Yuan and Alex, focusing on their motivation to achieve goals, their attitudes towards the activity, their behaviours when dealing with difficulties, and conflicts during the collaborative writing process. To avoid having students simply repeat what they learned about collaborative writing in the pre-task training, the researcher asked follow-up questions that prompted students to explain how they had used this training on the actual writing task. For example, when Yuan said ‘collaborative writing offered an opportunity to learn from providing assistance’ (interview), the researcher asked him: ‘Can you give an example how this affected your behaviour in the writing process?’ Interviews were also conducted with Amar (Yuan’s partner) and Mo (Alex’s partner) to obtain their evaluations of Yuan and Alex’s behaviours and practices during the writing process.

The recordings of pair talk and interviews were transcribed and analysed by the researcher and verified by the two participants for accuracy. All transcripts were analysed according to Yin’s (2009) real-life case study methodology and conventions of qualitative data analysis. To answer RQ1 and RQ2, data from the interviews and pair-talk recordings were analysed and triangulated with the reflective journals to examine the motivation the two HP students felt toward collaborative writing and factors that shaped their motivation. Informed by the framework of Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011), the researcher read the data iteratively to identify stances about the two HP students’ motivation related to themselves (e.g. satisfy curiosity), the writing task (e.g. attitudes towards the writing task), the environment (e.g. get a good grade), and reasons for their particular motivation. Then the researcher revisited the data to recheck and triangulate the codes before organizing them into themes. The researcher then grouped similar categories into themes. For example, regarding factors that have shaped students’ motivation, the theme of ‘knowledge about collaborative writing’ was identified by combining the categories of ‘benefits of doing collaborative writing’, ‘how to do collaborative writing’, and ‘why and when to use collaborative writing’. After that, the researcher used Yin’s (2009) cross-case synthesis to look at similarities and differences among the themes. Cross-case conclusions were finally reached by further analysing relevant subcategories. To ensure reliability, a second coder (the professor who distributed the consent forms) looked through all the data and rechecked all the coding. The interrater agreement was 88.2% for interview scripts and 92.3% for reflective journals; discrepancies were resolved through discussion.

Results

Yuan: I enjoy being a teacher!

Motivation in collaborative writing

As shown in the pair-talk recording data, Yuan was highly motivated to produce the essay with Amar and tended to actively participate in pair interaction. His motivation was to ‘learn from others’ and to ‘learn from providing assistance’ (interview). He explained:

I learned new things from Amar. We discussed together to fix mistakes … I think teaching my partner is more fun than reviewing the knowledge myself. It’s more useful for me to remember things well. (reflective journal)

Yuan clearly articulated his motivation for helping others when he explained that he enjoyed being helpful and teaching his partner. This was echoed by his partner Amar. Amar was encouraged to participate actively in pair work. He considered Yuan as ‘a perfect buddy who enjoys sharing knowledge’ (interview). Excerpt 1 shows how Yuan and Amar exhibited the expert/novice pattern of interaction due to Amar’s motivation to provide assistance and participate actively:

Excerpt 1:

Yuan: Can you double check this sentence? I see a grammatical mistake.

Amar: Wait. Please don’t tell me. Ah, ‘it has began’, right?

Yuan: No, should be ‘it has begun’. G-U-N. You may want to repeat begin, began, begun.

Amar: Thanks dude.

As we can see, Yuan was motivated to take a leading role and encouraged Amar to correct language errors. In addition, he attempted to help Amar review language points.

Factors that shaped his motivation

Several factors were found to have shaped Yuan’s motivation toward collaborative writing. First, the data revealed that knowledge about collaborative writing was the main factor. Yuan repeatedly emphasized the benefits of collaborative writing (declarative-related knowledge) both in interviews and in his reflective journal. He explained that collaborative writing ‘offered him an opportunity to hear others’ thoughts’, ‘reduced pressure’, and ‘practiced oral skills’ (interview). His deeper understanding of collaborative writing also motivated him to regulate his behaviours (e.g. encouraging the partner and inviting the partner’s opinions) in order to maximize the learning opportunity. As he stated, ‘when my partner was not interested in revising our essay, I tried my best effort to encourage him, because both of us have to be responsible’ (reflective journal).

In addition, previous beliefs about and experiences with pair/group work were another factor that influenced Yuan’s motivation. He mentioned that ‘although I never tried to write collaboratively, I benefited from group discussions and group presentations in previous classes’ (interview). His previous pleasant experiences working with others, coupled with his beliefs in collaborative writing, motivated him to perform well. For example, when confronting difficulties in the writing process, Yuan still took the initiative to help his partner solve problems. He said, ‘I think you can always learn something from another person, even if it is sometimes small things. You fight and you learn’ (reflective journal).

The third factor related to how Yuan perceived the value of his role in the partnership. Yuan viewed himself as a leader or teacher while working with Amar. He explained, ‘He [Amar] listens to me and believes what I told him … I feel very happy to teach him’ (interview). Yuan’s assistance was confirmed and valued by Amar, who reported that ‘My partner is a very nice guy and he explains things very clear. I learned a lot’ (interview). As these exchanges demonstrate, Yuan’s motivation might have been related to how he perceived his value in the role of a teacher or leader.

Alex: should I get more credits for doing more work?

Motivation in collaborative writing

Alex’s motivation was driven primarily by the grade he would receive for completing the collaborative writing assignment. Although he agreed that collaborative writing can be beneficial, he did not appear to believe that he would learn anything from writing collaboratively. He explained:

For some students, maybe. Yes, they may learn something. But, I don’t not like the idea. I can write better myself. No one disturbs me. Together, you need to explain to your partner … I do it because you [the researcher] asked us to do. I need to get good grade. (interview)

Alex viewed collaborative writing as a task assigned by the teacher. Because he viewed his English as better than that of his partner, Mo, he was unmotivated and asked, ‘I helped Mo more than he helped me. Should I get more credits?’ (reflective journal). Alex’s unwillingness did not go unnoticed by Mo during their work. Mo described Alex as ‘a bossy and angry partner’ (interview). In Excerpt 2, we can see how Alex’s lack of motivation resulted in a dominant/passive interaction pattern between him and his partner:

Excerpt 2:

Mo: Can we say ‘stay good health?’

Alex: No, keep good health.

Mo: ‘Stay’ is right too. I think.

Alex: Just use ‘keep’. It is better. You write it down.

Factors that shaped his motivation

Similar to the case of Yuan, several factors were found to account for Alex’s lack of motivation in collaborative writing. First, knowledge of collaborative writing was an influential factor. Alex did not value collaborative writing highly, perhaps because he never realized he could have benefited from both giving and receiving feedback. In other words, he could have learned from teaching his partner. Instead, Alex repeatedly said, ‘I helped him [Mo]’, ‘I did more’, and ‘it’s not fair’ (interview). Because Alex perceived the goal of collaborative writing as solely for the purpose of getting a good grade and meeting the teacher’s requirements, he missed out on possible opportunities to improve himself by providing feedback to others.

Second, Alex’s previous beliefs about and experiences with pair/group work were pivotal factors that affected his motivation. Although metacognitive instruction (knowledge about collaborative writing) was provided prior to the activity, Alex still showed little understanding of collaborative writing. He explained, ‘I don’t have faith in collaborative writing, because I never benefited from group work. Working together is just time consuming’ (reflective journal). As we can see, Alex’s previous learning experiences and his learning beliefs were deeply entrenched and resistant to change.

Alex’s perceived value of his role in the partnership affected his motivation as well. In contrast to Yuan, who perceived himself as a teacher, Alex perceived himself as the main contributor. He mentioned, ‘My partner did not do much. I almost wrote the whole essay. He [Mo] was sometimes on his cellphone’ (interview). Mo’s irresponsible behaviour could have been another possible reason for Alex’s lack of motivation. He also explained how he spent a great deal of time helping Mo understand various elements of the assignment. He said, ‘My partner needs to do more preparation, I think. I had to explain what is right. Spending too much time’ (interview). These data illustrate the unfairness Alex perceived and how that played a role in discouraging his collaboration in pair work.

Discussion and conclusions

This study provided evidence about factors impacting the motivation of two HP students to participate in collaborative writing and indicated that students with similar proficiency (HP) could have different levels of motivation, which may affect students’ participation and patterns of interaction. In one case, Yuan adopted a feedback-giving oriented motivation, resulting in the expert/novice pattern of interaction in pair work. Conversely, Alex viewed collaborative writing as a grade-oriented activity and formed a dominant/passive pattern of interaction in pair work. On one hand, this study is in line with the conclusion reached by Storch (2004) that learners’ motives and goals may help explain the ways they interacted in pairs. On the other hand, this study has furthered previous research by offering insight from a motivational standpoint as to why learners may participate differently in collaborative writing, given that previous research has not sufficiently explored learner motivation to this degree in this context.

This study indicates that knowledge of collaborative writing may be another possible factor affecting HP students’ motivation in this process. Previous research (Chen and Hapgood 2019) has discussed how providing L2 writers with more knowledge about the collaborative process would positively impact their participation and learning. The findings from Yuan’s case confirmed previous research. However, despite being exposed equally to collaborative writing instruction, Alex showed a lack of collaborative writing knowledge, which resulted in low motivation in the writing process. This finding suggests that providing learners with knowledge of collaborative writing (knowledge taught) may not necessarily translate into knowledge they can use (actual knowledge) to motivate learning and their previous experiences and beliefs may have affected their views as well. This adds a layer of complexity to the prior results on this strategy.

Previous beliefs and experiences of pair/group work appeared to influence the motivation of HP students to participate in collaborative writing. While previous research has found learners’ beliefs in an activity affected their behaviour (e.g. Storch 2005), this study deepens our understanding about why students with different prior learning beliefs and experiences may behave differently in collaborative writing from a motivational perspective. Such a finding is expected, because how learners view certain language learning approaches can encourage them to set and accomplish motivational goals for the activity (Dörnyei 2005). Meanwhile, such a finding indicates learners’ beliefs and goals are fairly entrenched, so it is vital to consider these collaborative writing beliefs and goals when implementing instructional activities. Additionally, while confirming the findings from prior research that learners may form different relationships during the collaborative writing process (e.g. Storch 2002, 2004), this study extends previous research by uncovering how learners’ perceived value of their roles in the partnership possibly influenced their motivation.

The findings also shed new light on the burgeoning area of L2 collaborative writing research and offer clear practical implications. First, given students’ lack of familiarity with the collaborative writing approach, it is imperative that L2 writing teachers make concerted efforts to enhance students’ motivation in collaborative writing. For example, these findings demonstrate the value of dedicating class time to educating students about collaborative writing (metacognitive instruction). However, educators must pay specific attention to how much collaborative writing knowledge students can digest since knowledge taught does not always translate into knowledge gained. Second, because students’ long-established beliefs in language learning may be resistant to change, writing teachers may conduct a pre-task survey about students’ attitudes towards collaborative learning. For those who hold negative attitudes towards collaborative learning, instructors could offer personalized assistance through student–teacher conferences to help reduce students’ stress and boost interest in collaborative writing tasks. Third, given that students’ perceived value of their role in the partnership may influence their motivation, L2 writing teachers should monitor groups for possible negative feedback during the collaborative writing process and hold conferences to resolve conflicts between partners if necessary.

The conclusions reached in this study were based on one collaborative writing activity with only two HP participants, which is a limitation. Moreover, the duration of the study (seven weeks) is short, which might make the generation of clear outcomes from the student data difficult. Future research can draw upon multiple sessions of collaborative writing activities with a larger sample size. Although pre-task training was intended to promote students’ collaborative writing knowledge, a limiting factor could be that a standardized training protocol does not fully account for affective factors and individual differences. While this study focused on HP students’ collaborative writing motivation and its qualitative impact on interaction, future investigations could adopt a mixed-methods approach to examine the impact on collaborative writing performance. Another factor that emerged in this study was the ways in which learners’ long-established beliefs and attitudes impacted their interactions. It is also recommended that future research take into consideration learners’ individual differences while designing collaborative writing tasks for either instructional or assessment purposes.

Wenting Chen is Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at College English Department, Capital Normal University, China. Her research interests include L2 writing, multicultural education, and L2 teacher education. Her publications have appeared in international journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Language Teaching Research, System, ELT Journal, Language Awareness, and Asia-Pacific-Education Researcher.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund (20210020041).