How do learners experience joint writing: University students' conceptions of online collaborative writing tasks and environments

Emotions Among Students Engaging in Connectivist Learning Experiences

“…We attribute this variation to the context of the experiment (problem-solving in connectivist environments vs. taking an examination on campus) and invite researchers to take the context into account before applying their measures. Our results, in contrast, support the connectivist hypothesis that engaging in connectivist environments greatly arouses learners' negative emotions (Aldahdouh, 2019;Downes, 2019;Kop et al, 2011;Mackness & Bell, 2015).…”

“…Siemens (2006) emphasized the importance of emotions in connectivism and contended that "cognition, emotion, perception, and beliefs are knowledge creation and knowledge navigation enablers" (p. 16). As well, connectivists recognized that online learning without explicit guidance from an instructor could be as frustrating as exploring unknown territories without a map (Siemens & Tittenberger, 2009), a conclusion which found supporting evidence in several empirical studies (Capdeferro & Romero, 2012;Kop, Fournier, & Mak, 2011;Mackness & Bell, 2015;Tschofen & Mackness, 2012). A common assumption among connectivists, however, is that these negative emotions will force learners "to search for answers, to ask help, to seek for patterns and, in other words, to form connections" (Aldahdouh et al, 2015, p. 16).…”

Collaboration Two-Way

“…The fact that an uneven workload was characteristic of many groups underscores the importance of student accountability. This can be achieved by using a jigsaw format or collaborative tasks (Aydin & Yildiz;Lee, 2010;Lund, 2008), assigning roles (Yeh, 2014;Zheng, Niiya, & Warschauer, 2015), increasing task visibility (i.e., knowing that the instructor is aware of each student's efforts; Piezon & Donaldson, 2005), creating weekly milestones and pre-, during-, and post-writing activities to structure progress and reflection throughout the process (Alyousef & Picard, 2011;Limbu & Markauskaite, 2015), and using rubrics for peer evaluation (Alyousef & Picard, 2011;Zheng, Niiya, & Warschauer, 2015). Furthermore, this finding reminds us of the central role of task motivation, which can be fostered with relevant enjoyable tasks that allow learners to experience success and exercise agency and autonomy (e.g., by selecting the topic) (Guilloteaux & Dörnyei, 2008).…”

“…Although instructors sometimes have clear ideas about how they want their students to approach collaborative and cooperative writing tasks, learners do not necessarily view it the same way. Limbu and Markauskaite (2015) found that students perceived what they termed collaborative writing in four different ways. Some students viewed it as a division of work for the sake of efficiency and others saw it as a way to produce a better final product by combining different levels of expertise.…”

“…Peer editing and collaborative writing also allow writers to pool ideas and resources and encourages them to work together towards a better product (Aydin & Yildiz, 2014). This collaboration can also promote critical thinking as students feel encouraged to organize their thoughts and ideas to provide useful feedback for the success of the group's final product (Aydin & Yildiz, 2014;Oskoz & Elola, 2012;Limbu & Markauskaite, 2015). Furthermore, students have reported that collaboration helped them to enjoy the assignment more and assisted in their development of a sense of community (Elola & Oskoz, 2010;Lin & Maarof, 2013;Lund, 2008;Storch, 2005;Xuanxi, Chu, & Ki, 2014).…”