the effects of a wiki-based collaborative process...

Cited as: Li, X., Chu, S.K.W. & Ki, W.W. (2014). The effects of a wiki-based collaborative process writing pedagogy on writing ability and writing attitudes among upper primary school students in Mainland China. Computers and Education, 77, 151-169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.04.019

The effects of a wiki-based collaborative process writing pedagogy on writing ability and attitudes among upper primary school students in Mainland China

Xuanxi Li, Samuel K. W. Chu, Wing Wah Ki

Abstract

This study mainly explored the effects of a Wiki-based Collaborative Process Writing Pedagogy (WCPWP) on writing ability and writing attitudes among Primary Four students in Shenzhen, China. Besides, this study also investigated students’ collaborative writing process with the WCPWP. Students wrote their compositions in a MediaWiki platform (www.joyouswriting.com) named Joyous Writing Club (JWC) developed by the first author. By using a quasi-experimental design, two groups (classes) of Primary Four students participated in this study. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected including writing ability composition tests (pre-test and post-test), writing attitude tests (pre-test and post-test), online wiki documents, and observations. The results provided a general picture of the students’ collaborative writing process and showed that the WCPWP had a positive but not significant effect on students’ writing ability. Importantly, the results indicated that the WCPWP had a significant positive effect on the writing attitudes of students. The study further discussed the reasons related to the positive effects of the WCPWP on writing ability (not significant) and writing interests (significant). Implications and recommendations for primary school educators and Chinese language teachers are discussed.

Keywords: WCPWP, JWC, Writing ability, Writing attitude

1. Introduction

Previous research on Chinese writing (Chinese written composition) at the primary school level has indicated that a significant number of students have low writing abilities (B. Dong, 2005; J. Dong, 2008; Huang, 2008; Ren, 2003) and negative attitudes towards writing (Wang, 2007; Yi, 2009; Zhang, 2009). Traditional Teacher-centered Individual Writing Pedagogy (TTIWP) has been criticized for being one of the reasons for this phenomenon (Liu, 2009; Xiong, 1995).

In most primary schools in Mainland China, the approach to the teaching of Chinese writing is TTIWP, which is product-oriented (Gu, 2004) and teacher-centred (Cui, 2007; Sun, 2008). In this approach, students usually write their compositions using pen and paper (Cui, 2007; Sun, 2008). Teachers do not usually emphasize students' writing processes, but are simply concerned with students producing acceptable compositions (Gu, 2004). Typically, at the beginning of the lesson, the teacher gives a

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.04.019

writing topic to the class. The teacher spends some time discussing the key points and provides some useful expressions and model essays. After that, the teacher may ask some students to talk about their writing ideas. Finally, students are given the rest of the lesson time to write and are then required to hand in their compositions for marking and grading (Cui, 2007; Sun, 2008). Since teachers usually guide students in writing compositions following the same model essay, some students’ compositions tend to be mechanical and stereotyped, and lack original thinking and unique individual character (Cui, 2007; Xia, 2009). Moreover, students seldom have opportunities to share their writing ideas with their peers, which is very important for writing (Xia, 2009) because, while interacting and sharing points of view, students can develop critical thinking and thus gain a better understanding (Pozzi, 2008).

In recent decades, studies on innovative approaches to teaching Chinese written composition have flourished (Huang, 2008; Wang, 2004; Wu, 2009; Xiong, 1995), and researchers and educators have begun to focus on the benefits of collaborative learning in Chinese writing (Wu, 2009; Xia, 2009). Since 2003, the New Standard of Chinese Curriculum has emphasized group interactions in Chinese language learning ("New Standard", 2003).

However, some scholars have pointed out that unless collaborative activities are carefully orchestrated by the teacher, students may not take group work seriously, socializing instead of working, assigning most of the work to one member, completing the activity superficially, and generally not engaging fully in the collaborative process (Clark, 2003). For instance, Spigelman (1998) adopted the collaborative writing approach in face-to-face English language writing classes. His study indicated that students did not develop ideas collaboratively as they were not able to claim individualized ownership of ideas in their writing. The problem was that students appropriated other group members’ ideas, which was often interpreted as a form of cheating or plagiarism. With the rapid development of information technology, a technology tool named wiki has been used to help resolve this problem. The history function of wikis can help students and teachers trace and reflect on the progress of a project and the contribution of each participant (Lamb & Johnson, 2007), thereby enabling students to maintain individual ownership of their texts (Hewett, 2009).

With the use of a wiki to facilitate collaborative writing, it is necessary to develop wiki-enabled pedagogies that can help teachers to equip themselves with the knowledge necessary to make successful connections among wiki, pedagogy, and Chinese writing. Li, Chu, Ki and Woo (2012) designed and orchestrated a Wiki-based Collaborative Process Writing Pedagogy (WCPWP), to investigate students’ Chinese writing process on a MediaWiki, and explore students and teacher’s perceptions of and attitudes towards the WCPWP. However, the effects of the WCPWP on students’ writing ability and writing attitudes need further investigation. This study mainly aims to address this research problem.

2. Literature Review

With the rapid development of wiki technologies, wikis have been widely applied to encourage learners to participate in collaborative learning (Cheng, 2009; Choy & Ng, 2007; Chu, 2008, 2009; Mak & Coniam, 2008; Wheeler, Yeomans, & Wheeler, 2008; Zorko, 2009). For example, Woo, Chu, Ho, and Li (2009) investigated the effect of collaborative English writing with a PBworks wiki among Chinese


Primary Five students in Hong Kong. Their study found that the students enjoyed writing with the wiki, and their overall perceptions were that it helped foster teamwork and improved writing. There have been various wiki projects, such as the National Writing Project (NWP), which includes 200 university-affiliated sites across the United States, that were initiated to improve the teaching and learning of English writing. The Writing for Integrated Teacher Education (WrITE) Project was established in 2002 as the NWP’s first site for English language learning in Asia. It is managed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and its mission is to enhance the learning and teaching of English in Hong Kong. The WrITE project has been successful in boosting Year 7 secondary school students’ confidence in writing, as well as tapping into their creative skills (Mak & Coniam, 2008).

Wikis have been associated with affordances that can provide a collaborative workspace for students, and allow them to be actively involved in their learning process (Neumann & Hood, 2009; Rick & Guzdial, 2006). According to Kirschner Strijbos, Kreijns and Beers (2004), education is a unique combination of technological, social, and educational contexts and affordances. While technology mediates social and educational contexts such that their properties induce and invite specific learning behaviors, we speak of technology affording learning and education. With the adoption of the wiki as a technological tool, the matching affordances of the wiki with social and educational affordances have been classified as media, spatial, temporal, navigation, emphasis, synthesis and access-control affordances (Bower, 2008; Woo et al., 2009; Woo, Chu, Ho & Li, 2011). Among these affordances, temporal affordances involve the ability to access anytime anywhere (accessibility), ability to record the editing history (“record-ability”) and to play back (“playback-ability”). Such affordances can help students and teachers to trace and reflect on the progress of a project and the contribution of each participant. Spatial affordances include the ability to resize elements within an interface (“resize-ability”) and move and place elements within an interface (“move-ability”). Such affordances can help students to revise and edit their writing contents within an interface.

In recent several years, wiki, which is an easily accessible and editable website, is becoming more common, its use in education is patchy and pedagogical reasoning and evaluation of such use is under explored (Davidson, 2012). Wong, Chen, Chai, Chin, and Gao (2011) suggested an adaptable collaborative writing approach employing a wiki for teachers in order to address the typical weaknesses of Singaporean Chinese students in learning Chinese as a second language (L2) with respect to Chinese writing. The collaborative writing approach (V.S.P.O.W.) is characterized as a recursive, bottom-up writing process that requires students collaboratively to carry out wiki-based “word/phrase pooling” (V), “sentence making” (S), “paragraph writing” (P), and “outlining” (O); and eventually individual essay writing (W). The V.S.P.O.W. is highly adaptable in helping younger L2 (Chinese language as the second language) students to write compositions, which requires the most complex and cognitively demanding linguistic skills, always a great challenge for language researchers and teachers. However, the V.S.P.O.W. was not appropriate in the case of the students in the present study. Since students of this study were all native speakers of Chinese, and at least three sessions of class-wide discussion to select V.S.P. (vocabulary, sentences and paragraphs) respectively would have been unnecessary and time wasting. Similar to Wong et al.’s (2011) study, there is a need to suggest effective pedagogy for primary teachers in Mainland China in order to prepare them for the effective teaching of Chinese writing.


According to Wu and Li (2013), in Mainland China, currently, people’s understanding of wiki technology is only in its infancy, and the application of wiki technology in the field of teaching of writing is still at the trial stage. However, it’s unique advantages and potential power in teaching of writing have been widely claimed, which makes the in-depth exploration by educators and researchers become imperative (Wu & Li, 2013; Yi, 2013). It is also necessary to help teachers to enrich pedagogical knowledge of capitalizing on wiki to support Chinese writing (Yi, 2013).

Li et al. (2012) designed and orchestrated a WCPWP to help teachers with their teaching of Chinese writing in Mainland China. The design of the WCPWP is mainly based on social constructivist theory and the social view of writing process theory. The collaborative writing task for each group was divided into nonlinear and recurrent cyclic series of four stages: group prewriting, group drafting, revising and editing. The progressing of the four stages was monitored by the group members (see the bottom part of Figure 1). Students can be better prepared to write independently once they have learned how to go through these writing stages and have developed their own writing strategies (Tompkins, 2008).


Figure 1: Conceptual model of wiki-based collaborative process writing pedagogy (Li et al. 2012, p. 162)

Li et al.’s (2012) study further investigated students’ writing process on a wiki, and explored students and teacher’s perceptions and attitudes towards the WCPWP. The results showed that the students perceived the WCPWP as beneficial in boosting writing motivation, increasing group interactions, and extending the audience for students’ writing. The results also indicated some features of the WCPWP that could be improved in future studies. Based on the study of Li et al. (2012), Li, Chu, Ki and Woo (2011) further improved the instructional design of the WCPWP, and investigated students’ and teacher’s perceptions and attitudes towards the WCPWP again. The results showed that the students perceived the WCPWP as effective in facilitating their motivation to write, heightening group interactions, and expanding their reading audience. The results also indicated that the wiki-based learning environment, “Joyous Writing Club” was easy to use, and had more technological advantages than disadvantages. Compared with the design of the WCPWP in the study of Li et al. (2012), although the design of the WCPWP was an improvement in the study of Li et al. (2011), the results showed that


there was still room for improvement in the design of the WCPWP in future studies. Importantly , the effects of the WCPWP on writing ability and writing attitudes have not been evaluated yet. This study mainly aimed to fill in this research gap.

3. Research Questions

Based on the literature review and research gap, the study aimed to address the following research questions:

Q1. How do students learn with the WCPWP? What are the difficulties they encounter?Q2. What is the students’ writing performance on the wiki? Q3. What is the effect of the WCPWP on students’ writing ability? Q4. What is the effect of the WCPWP on students’ attitudes towards writing?

4. Method

4.1. Participants

The participants were two groups of Primary Four Chinese students with an average age of 10, and their Chinese language teachers in a primary school in the city of Shenzhen, China. One group comprised 54 students from Class One, and their Chinese language teacher—Ms. L1; the other group comprised 55 students from Class Two and their Chinese language teacher—Ms. Z. Ms. L had around four years of teaching experience and had graduated from Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University with a Bachelor’s degree. She had basic computer skills but was not familiar with wikis. The school was rated medium to high in terms of the quality of campus facilities. Teaching and learning activities were conducted in the students’ classrooms and in one of their computer labs. The computer lab has 56 Shenzhou-brand computers and is equipped with asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) Internet access. The 56 computers share the ADSL data rates, which can be as high as 4 Mb/s downstream and up to 512kb/s upstream. Every classroom is equipped with a multimedia presentation facility operated from the teacher’s computer. All students in the two classes returned signed informed consent forms from themselves and their parents. The teacher and school principal also returned signed informed consent forms. The study was reviewed and approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Hong Kong.

4.2. Research Design

In order to investigate the effects of the WCPWP on students’ writing ability and writing attitudes, this study adopted a quasi-experimental design (Gay & Airasian, 2003). Since it was not possible to randomly assign individual participants to groups, the first author had to keep students in their existing classes. Students from Class One (54) were assigned to the treatment group using both the WCPWP and TTIWP, while students from Class Two (55) were assigned to the control group using TTIWP.

The duration of the study was from 01 March to 30 June 2011. Before the study commenced, project

1 Code to maintain the anonymity of the Chinese language teacher /tt/file_convert/5e5be99f5f7357430f64fd90/document.doc 5/17/2023 7:51 AM 6

meetings with the Chinese language teacher were held to discuss the instructional design of the WCPWP. In the preparation stage, the first author, Ms. L and the computer teacher familiarized students in the treatment group with the WCPWP. At the beginning of the implementation stage, students in both the treatment and the control group were given a writing attitude pre-test and a writing ability pre-test. During the intervention, students in the treatment group finished half the number of compositions in the syllabus (four compositions) using the WCPWP, and finished the remaining compositions in the syllabus (four compositions) using Traditional Teacher-centered Individual Writing Pedagogy (TTIWP). At the end of the learning process, students in both the treatment group and the control group were given the writing attitude and writing ability post-tests.

4.3. Learning Design

The first author met with Ms. L on several occasions to discuss the instructional design. She informed her students early in the year that they would participate in a research project concerning collaborative Chinese writing, which involved them working on projects on a website, and that a researcher would visit the class. At the same time, 55 students in Class Two and their Chinese language teacher Ms. Z participated in this research as a control group.

All 54 students in the experimental group created accounts and registered with the JWC at the beginning of this study. The 54 students were divided into 13 groups: two groups (group 3 and group 11) comprised five students each, and the other 11 groups consisted of four students each. The Chinese language teacher and the first author introduced the WCPWP to the students using one lesson in the computer lab. In this lesson, students were given around 15 minutes to familiarize themselves with JWC and to discuss the WCPWP in groups.

Ms. L selected group leaders to facilitate face-to-face group discussion and the collaborative writing process. Group leaders were chosen because of their better writing ability, management skills and a stronger sense of responsibility based on their past academic records. Ms. L emphasized that each group leader should be responsible, should have a spirit of dedication, and should not be dominating. She explained good and bad examples to group leaders.

Students wrote their compositions in the third writing community of JWC (Figure 2). The JWC (www.joyouswriting.com) is powered by MediaWiki 1.15.1 which was released in 2009. The third writing community page of JWC was divided into two main parts: Teacher's Bulletin Corner and Students' Activity Corner. The wiki pages of Writing Guidance and Rating Criteria were linked to the Teacher’s Bulletin Corner. The Writing Guidance page introduced the four collaborative writing stages to students. The suggested activities in the four writing stages (Table 1) had been improved based on the results of the studies of Li et al. (2011) and Li et al. (2012). The rating criteria included rating criteria for both group writing (Appendix A) and individual writing (Appendix B).


Table 1 Collaborative Process Writing Stages

Writing Stages

Details

Group Prewriting

1. The key stage: more attention, thought and preparation at this stage can save time

and effort later.

2. During the prewriting stage, students in each group need to consider and discuss

the writing topic, theme, context, and genre of their writing.

3. They also need to negotiate the division of labor, group members’ tasks, and the main

idea of each paragraph.

4. Group leaders should be responsible for the organization and management of

group members, and most groups can deliver different paragraphs to different

group members.

5. Students can gather ideas and information by reading books, searching the

Internet and through discussions with group members.

Group Drafting

1. In this stage, students of a same group need to write the first draft together on their

wiki page. Since the wiki is an asynchronous tool (discussion boards, wikis, blogs

and journals) which allows students to communicate on the same page at different

times and students must adopt serial collaboration, students need

to work on compositions in the same interface one after another.

2. Each student needs to work separately on a piece of the writing based on their

division of labor, and perform a distinct function in creating the finished work.

3. Students should organize the structure of the composition and express their ideas

and feelings quickly, and with little concern for character writing, correctness

and punctuation.

4. At this stage, their drafts should emphasize the ideas and content of writing.

5. Students need to save their work on wiki in time.

Group Revising

1. Group revision is a complex process comprising two activities: rereading the

rough draft and revising based on one’s own ideas, and others’ comments

and feedback.

2. Students can revise their draft either in class or at home based on the speed

of their writing. They can make some surface changes (including spelling and

punctuation errors) or text-based changes (including micro or macro

structure changes).

3. Some students may need their peers to show respect before revising their writing,

and therefore need their peers to discuss the modifications with them.

Group Editing

1. This stage involves the writing in its final form. When editing, students may view

the piece in terms of word choice and correctness of content, sentence structure,

spelling errors and punctuation problems.

2. Students will be encouraged to edit their group work again on the wiki a few

days after they have finished their first draft. This period might provide students with

a fresh perspective and the enthusiasm necessary to finish the writing process.

3. At the end, the leader needs to confirm the completion of their writing.


Regarding the Students' Activity Corner, there was a list of composition tasks (stages of work) in the form of different forums. For instance, for composition , Writing Topics and Requirements, GroupⅢ wikipage (such as Group 10) and Teachers' Comprehensive Review and Comments were linked in aⅢ forum. The content of the Teachers’ Comprehensive Review and Comments (Appendix C) included both group and individual writing ratings, the number of each member’s comments, and the teacher’s detailed comments on each group writing.

Figure 2. Layout of Third Writing Community in Joyous Writing Club

The Chinese teacher and the first author selected composition topics (Table 2) that were appropriate for collaborative writing. The Primary four students were required to write eight compositions based on the Primary Four Chinese language syllabuses. Students could click and read the Writing Topic and Requirements. Each composition was to be finished within two consecutive lessons and a following week. Both lessons were conducted in a computer lab.


Table 2.Topics of Composition Assignments in the third research phase

Number Introduction of Compositions

Ⅰ

In your learning, you should have noticed the inspiration that nature brings to you. In this writing,

each group can introduce the materials you collected, or talk about your own understanding of the

inventions and innovations that people made, or talk about the inspiration that you get from plants and

animals, based on which you want to make inventions and innovations.

Each group should write the composition on its group wikipage. After finishing the first draft, please

remember to modify your own writing continually and comment on other groups’ writing. Writing

shall not be less than 400 words and the deadline is April 25th, 2011.

Ⅱ

After learning Unit 5 Text, as well as collecting relevant materials on life, you should know more

about life. Please exchange what you have learned during this period of time in this writing in groups.

Each group can discuss what is known about life, or discuss the phenomenon and story around you of

those who love life, or talk about your own feeling and inspiration you get from life.

This writing should focus on the theme of "love life" and each group should determine its own topic.

Each group should write the composition on the group wikipage. After finishing the first draft, please

remember to modify the writing continually and comment on other groups’ writing. Writing shall not

be less than 400 words and the deadline is May 9th, 2011.

Ⅲ

Please write down your feelings and experience of an idyllic landscape. You can write down what you

want to write, which can be your own experience, what you have heard of, what you have seen, or it

may be your imagination, or a feeling. Each group should determine its own topic. You should write

clearly and pay attention to the accumulation of appropriate words and sentences.

Your article should not be less than 400 words. After finishing the first draft, please remember to

modify the writing continually and comment on other groups’ writing. The deadline is May 16th,

2011.

Ⅳ

In this writing, each group will express a story freely. You can use your imagination to make up a

myth or fairy tale; you can write down your dreams or hopes; you can talk about the people and things

that you noticed. You can write down what you want to write about freely.

Each group should write the composition on the group wikipage. After finishing the first draft, please

remember to modify the writing continually and comment on other groups’ writing. Writing shall not

be less than 400 words and the deadline is June 5th, 2011.

4.4. Measures

This study used a methodological triangulation, both quantitative and qualitative data was collected (Bogdan & Biklen, 2006). Qualitative data included online wiki documents (group writing), observations, while quantitative data included writing ability (composition) pre- and posttest results; and writing attitude pre- and posttest results.


4.4.1. Online Wiki Documents

Online wiki documents consisted of the group writing assignments in Joyous Writing Club (www.joyouswriting.com), and were used to measure students’ collaborative writing performance using the WCPWP. In the first phase, students wrote their assignments in the first writing community of JWC; in the second phase, students wrote their compositions in the second writing community of JWC; and in the third phase, students wrote their compositions in the third writing community. The group writing was rated by both the first author and the Chinese language teacher independently based on elementary school high-grade composition scoring criteria (Appendix A). The group writing was marked by both the first author and the Chinese language teacher independently, based on elementary school high-grade composition scoring criteria (Mo, 2010). An inter-rater reliability analysis using correlation coefficients statistics was performed to determine consistency between the first author and Chinese language teacher. A Pearson’s r = 0.90 ensured the inter-rater reliability of composition scores. Finally, the first author took the average of the ratings given by the first author and the Chinese language teacher. The individual writing was also rated by both the first author and the Chinese language teacher based on rating rules for individual writing (Appendix B). The marks for the individual writing were cross-checked by both the first author and the Chinese language teacher. Furthermore, the first author gave comments on every group writing, which were cross-checked by the Chinese language teacher.

4.4.2. Observation

This study adopted participant observation in the writing course to examine how the primary students wrote compositions collaboratively using the JWC system in the computer lab, and group interactions during the collaborative writing process in class were also observed. In class, the first author focused on observing the writing process of around five groups. The first author conducted observations without a schedule, but made descriptive field notes on the collaborative writing process and the problems which students might encounter during the writing process. The first author also helped students with their technological problems during their writing process and took notes when students asked her questions. The descriptive and narrative records were organized into categories to facilitate interpretations of the observed writing processes. Field notes from lesson observations were coded into categories or themes based on the results in the study of Li et al. (2012).

4.4.3. Writing Ability Test

Writing ability pre and post-tests were used to compare the levels of writing ability between students in Class One and students in Class Two. The writing ability pre and post-tests are the same composition test with a topic chosen by the Chinese language teacher and the first author. The topic of the composition was: “An unforgettable (which can be a person, thing, activity, place and so on)”. Students were required first to enter appropriate words in the brackets and complete the title. The composition should have a central idea, be well organized, have specific content and express true feelings. Third, the length of the composition should be no less than 400 words. Students had to finish the composition within 45 minutes. The writing ability composition tests (pre-test and post-test) were marked by both the first author and the Chinese language teacher independently, based on elementary school high-grade


http://www.joyouswriting.com/

composition scoring criteria (Mo, 2010). An inter-rater reliability analysis using correlation coefficients statistics was performed to determine consistency between the first author and Chinese language teacher. A Pearson’s r = 0.88 ensured the inter-rater reliability of composition scores. Finally, the first author took the average of the ratings given by the first author and the Chinese language teacher.

4.4.4. Writing Attitude Test

Writing attitude pre- and post-tests were adopted from the study of Li, Chu, Ki and Wo (2010) and consisted of 15 questions that examined primary students' attitudes towards writing compositions. For instance, the first question in the writing attitude pre-test is: "I think that writing is a very happy thing". The test uses a five-point Likert-type scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, 3 = neutral). A pre-test on writing attitudes was implemented one week prior to the start of the implementation of the WCPWP (Appendix D), and a similar post-test was used upon completion of the course. The items in the post-test were the same as those of the pre-test except that the sequence of questions and answers were altered so as to reduce ‘item memory practice’. A Cronbach alpha of 0.87 indicated that the items are repetitious and reliable (Li et al., 2010).

5. Results5.1. How did students learn with the WCPWP? What were the difficulties they encountered?

Students wrote one composition every two weeks. Each composition involved two consecutive lessons every other Friday afternoon and a following one week. Both lessons were conducted in the computer lab. Firstly, the teacher gave simple guidance for writing and then the students wrote their compositions in the remainder of the class time. Students in each group discussed their writing content (group prewriting) and the division of labor for at least five minutes (face to face), with the proposed method of dealing with different opinions in the revised instruction, students in one group were able to reach a consensus on the writing topic, content and structure. Students in each group then started group drafting in sequence on their wiki page (Figure 3). Students in each group collaborated in trying their best to finish their drafting in class. The revisions took place during the process of composition as well as at the end. Students revised both in and after class. They made both surface changes and text-based changes. In class, students usually discussed with each other before revising; however, most students revised and edited the content at will without discussion after class. After class, group leaders were responsible for managing the whole process and communicating with group members using QQ or by telephone when necessary. Some groups even got together in a group member’s home to discuss, revise, edit, and finalize their compositions. At the same time, they commented on other groups’ compositions in the discussion forum (Figure 4).


Figure 3. Wikipage of Group 12 for CompositionⅠ

Figure 4. Discussion Forum of Group 1 for Composition Ⅳ

Guiding by the suggested activities of the four writing stages (Table 1), most new participants collaborated smoothly and learned to write in JWC, quickly becoming familiar with it. However, in the writing process, students still encountered technological issues, which were identified (from an analysis of observational data) in three categories. The first category involved network problems. For example, when students wrote Composition Ⅳ, the school network was very slow, preventing students from opening the wikipage. The second issue concerned knowledge of the MediaWiki formatting rules and the difficulties primary students had in mastering HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Furthermore, some students said that the system’s built-in edit buttons (Figure 5) were very difficult to use when formatting articles. The third issue involved computer problems related to keyboards, computer crashes and other such matters. The first author reported the problems to the school principal and suggested that the problem of broken computer facilities should be dealt with; however this problem was not resolved during the period of the research because of the school’s financial problems.

Figure 5. Wiki system built-in edit buttons (editing wikipage of Group 12 for composition )Ⅳ


5.2. The students’ writing performance on the wiki In Class One, after three months of implementation of the WCPWP, students collaboratively wrote four compositions in groups on the wiki and individually wrote another four compositions on paper. In Class Two, students individually wrote all eight compositions on paper. Since group writing and individual writing cannot be compared, after the implementation of the WCPWP in Class One, only students’ group writing performance on the wiki was analyzed.

In the study, students’ writing using the wiki varied widely from group to group. Table 3 summarizes students’ editing activities in the JWC: participants, words, revisions, comments according to the historical record, and composition scores. The quantitative data in Table 3 were collected from the JWC wiki documents. Groups three and eleven consisted of five students each, while the other groups contained four students each. There were 13 groups altogether (Group A to M).

According to Table 3, for Composition , a total of 48 students participated in the written composition.Ⅰ The total number of revisions was 149. Every group had student comments. There were 95 comments in total. Six groups achieved composition scores higher than 80 (good); based on the Chinese language teacher’s suggestion, 90-100 indicated excellent, 80-89 was good, 70-79 was medium, 60-69 indicated a pass, and less than 60 was a fail grade. The total score of the 13 groups was 1013. For Composition

, every group completed compositions. A total of 48 students participated in the written composition.Ⅱ The total number of revisions was 86. Two groups (H and G) did not have any comments, and there were 29 comments in total. Eleven groups achieved a “good” rating, with composition scores higher than 80, and the total score was 1116. For Composition , every group completed compositions. InⅢ total, 42 students participated in the written composition. The total number of revisions was 42. However, in this composition, only four groups (A, B, J and L) had student comments, and there were five comments in total. Only five groups achieved scores higher than 80, and the total score was 941. For Composition , 50 students participated in the written composition. The total number of revisionsⅣ was 82. Every group had student comments. There were 141 comments all together. Twelve groups had composition scores higher than 80, and the total score of the 13 groups was 1173.


Table 3.Summary of Students’ Editing Activities on JWC

GroupStatistic A B C D E F G H I J K L M Total

Composition ⅠParticipation (N) 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 4 3 4 4 4 48

Words (N) 223 451 477 812 249 227 732 291 610 364 324 510 305 5575

Revisions (N) 13 16 1 9 24 9 19 6 12 13 10 16 1 149

Comment (N) 7 7 9 8 9 3 8 5 16 2 10 6 5 95

Group Score 66 86* 64 92* 68 62 87* 74 95* 76 89* 94* 60 1013

Composition ⅡParticipation (N) 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 4 4 3 4 3 48

Words (N) 286 607 438 999 423 586 678 416 901 621 672 603 341 7571

Revisions (N) 5 18 3 20 1 7 4 1 6 14 4 2 1 86

Comment (N) 3 4 3 2 3 7 1 0 3 0 1 1 1 29

Group Score 75 92* 80* 85* 85* 85* 93* 78 86* 83* 92* 96* 86* 1116

Composition ⅢParticipation (N) 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 1 3 4 4 3 2 42

Words (N) 302 468 1022 921 351 508 584 539 840 277 1164 591 213 7780

Revisions (N) 10 7 3 2 2 1 0 0 4 7 6 0 0 42

Comment (N) 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 5

Group Score 74 89* 64 60 60 86* 93* 60 60 68 80* 82* 65 941

Composition Ⅳ Participation (N) 4 3 5 4 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 50

Words (N) 358 494 422 864 320 364 558 422 1112 976 719 569 482 7660

Revisions (N) 7 0 2 21 23 3 4 5 9 2 1 3 2 82

Comment (N) 15 10 16 24 12 8 9 8 9 8 9 5 8 141

Group Score 72 88* 88* 96* 89* 88* 90* 88* 93* 96* 96* 93* 96* 1173

Notes. Full score of the composition is 100 points. *The composition score is higher than 80 (Good).

In order to further evaluate the improvement of students’ writing performance on the wiki, the results of Composition and Composition were analyzed using a paired-sample Ⅰ Ⅳ t-Test. The mean score of Composition Ⅳ was 90.23, which was 12.31 marks higher than the mean score of Composition (77.92). Furthermore, the pair-sampled Ⅰ t-Test indicated that the difference was significant at a p = 0.003 level (Table 4). The improvement of students’ writing performance on the wiki suggested that the WCPWP had positive effects on students’ writing ability.


Table 4. Paired Samples t-Test of Students’ Compositions Scores on JWC

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Pair1S1 77.92 13 13.06 3.62

S4 90.23 13 6.47 1.79

Paired differences

t dfSig.

(2-tailed)MeanStd.

Deviation

Std. Error

Mean

95% Confidence Interval of

the Difference

Lower Upper

Pair1 S1-S4 -12.31 12.02 3.34 -19.57 -5.04 -3.69 12 0.003

Notes: S1= Score of Composition ; S4 = Score of Composition Ⅰ Ⅳ

5.3. The effect of the WCPWP on students’ personal writing ability compared with that of TTIWP

A Mixed Between-Within-Subjects ANOVA (two-way RANOVA) was used to examine the changing writing abilities of students in the experimental and control groups. Table 5A illustrates the mean, standard deviations of the writing ability test (pre-test and post-test) scores of the samples in Class One (experimental group) and Class Two (control group). In Class One, 52 students completed both pre-test and post-test. The mean post-test score was 82.65, and the mean pre-test score was 75.81, an increase of 6.84. In Class Two, 54 students completed both the pre-test and the post-test. The mean post-test score was 79.46, and the mean pre-test score was 73.72, an increase of 5.74. The standard deviations of student pre-test and post-test scores in Class Two were higher than the standard deviations of pre-test and post-test scores of students in Class One.

Table 5A.Results of Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA – Descriptive Statistics

Class One Class Two Total

Writing Ability n Mean SE n Mean SE N Mean SE

Pretest Scores 52 75.81 6.51 54 73.72 9.34 106 74.75 8.11

Posttest Scores 52 82.65 6.60 54 79.46 7.08 106 81.03 7.00

According to Table 5B, the results of the two-way RANOVA tests of within-subjects effects indicated a significant overall difference in writing ability between pre-test and post-test (F(1, 104) = 63.34; p < 0.001; η2 = 0.38) for both Class One and Class Two. The results of the two-way RANOVA tests of between-subjects effects also showed significant differences in writing ability (pre-test and post-test) between Class One and Class Two (F(1,104) = 4.67; p = 0.03 < 0.05). However, the results of the two-way RANOVA tests of within-subjects effects showed no significant interaction between class (writing methods) and writing ability (F(1, 104) = 0.49; p = 0.49 > 0.05). The results of the multivariate Wilks’ lambda test also showed no significant effect by writing methods interaction on writing ability (Wikis’ lambda = 0.995; F(1,104) = 0.49; p = 0.49 > 0.05; η2 = 0.005).


Table 5B.Results of Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA – Summary Table

Source Type Sum ofⅢ

Squares

df Mean Square F p

Writing Abilitya 2098.45 1 2098.45 63.34 0.00

Class 368.75 1 368.75 4.67 0.03

Interactionb 16.19 1 16.19 0.49 0.49

Subjects 8212.54 104 78.97

Residuals 3445.57 104 33.13

Total 14141.5 211

Notes. aWikis’ lambda = 0.62; F(1, 104) = 63.34; p < 0.001;η2 = 0.38bWikis’ lambda = 0.995; F(1,104) = 0.49; p = 0.49 > 0.05;η2 = 0.005

Figure 6 shows the change in students’ mean score (writing ability test) in Class One and Class Two. In Class One, the mean post-test score was 82.65, and the mean pre-test score was 75.81, an increase of 6.84. In Class Two, the mean posttest score was 79.46, and the mean pre-test score was 73.72, an increase of 5.74. The gradient of the two lines were similar, indicating there was no significant writing methods interaction on writing ability.

Notes: Mean = Mean Score of Writing Ability Test;

1 = Writing Ability Pretest; 2 = Writing Ability Posttest; Class 1 is Class One; Class 2 is Class Two.

Figure 6. Changes to Students’ Writing Ability in Class One and Two

5.4. The effect of WCPWP on students’ writing attitudes compared with that of TTIWP


11

Writing Ability

Mean

21

The full score of the writing attitude five-point Likert-type scale (15 items) was 75. The neutral score was 45; the higher the attitude score, the stronger the students’ positive attitudes. Table 6A illustrates the mean and standard deviations of the writing attitude (pre-test and post-test) scores. In Class One, 53 students finished both the pre-test and the post-test. The students’ mean post-test score was 65.09, and the mean pre-test score was 61.30, an increase of 3.79. In Class Two, 54 students finished both the pre-test and post-test. The mean post-test score was 54.50, and the mean pre-test score was 54.46, almost no increase. The standard deviations of both pre-test and post-test scores in Class Two were higher than the standard deviations of pre-test and post-test scores in Class One.

Table 6A.Results of Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA – Descriptive Statistics

Class One Class Two Total

Writing Attitude n Mean SE n Mean SE N Mean SE

Pretest Scores 53 61.30 8.05 54 54.46 12.57 107 57.85 11.07

Posttest Scores 53 65.09 8.32 54 54.50 12.09 107 59.75 11.64

As indicated in Table 6B, the results of the two-way RANOVA tests of within-subjects effects showed a significant overall difference between pre-test and post-test writing attitudes (F(1, 105) =4.38; p < 0.5; η2 = 0.40) in both Class One and Class Two. The results of the two-way RANOVA tests of between-subjects effects also showed significant differences (in both pre-test and post-test writing attitudes) between Class One and Class Two (F(1,104) = 23.20; p = 0.00 < 0.05). The results of the two-way RANOVA tests of within-subjects effects also suggest significant interaction between class (writing methods) and writing attitudes (F(1, 105) = 4.21; p = 0.04 < 0.05). The results of the multivariate Wilks’ lambda test indicated a significant effect of writing methods interaction on writing attitude (Wikis’ lambda = 0.96; F(1,105) = 4.21; p = 0.04 < 0.05; η2 = 0.04).

Table 5B. Results of Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA – Summary Table

Source Type Sum ofⅢ

Squares

df Mean Square F p

Writing Attitudea 196.13 1 196.13 4.38 0.04

Class 4064.56 1 4064.56 23.20 0.00

Interactionb 188.61 1 188.61 4.21 0.04

Subjects 4700.32 105 44.77

Residuals 18396.30 105 175.20

Total 27545.92 213

Notes. aWikis’ lambda = 0.96; F(1, 105) =4.38; p < 0.5;η2 = 0.40bWikis’ lambda = 0.96; F(1,105) = 4.21; p = 0.04 < 0.05;η2 = 0.04

Figure 7 shows the change in students’ writing attitude mean scores in Class One and Class Two respectively. The green line illustrates the change in the writing attitudes of students in Class One. The


mean post-test score was 65.09, and the mean pre-test score was 61.30, an increase of 3.79. The almost flat blue line indicates the change of students’ writing attitudes in Class Two: the mean post-test score was 59.75, and the mean pre-test score was 57.85, with only a small increase of 1.9. It can be seen that writing methods interaction significantly affected writing attitudes.


Notes: Mean = Mean Score of Writing Attitude Test;

1 = Writing Attitude Pretest; 2 = Writing Attitude Posttest; Class 1 is Class One; Class 2 is Class Two.

Figure 7. Changing Students’ Writing Attitudes in Class One and Two

6. Discussion

The findings of the present study were encouraging and provided a general picture of students’ collaborative writing process using the WCPWP. The first author observed that students wrote collaboratively following the given linear or nonlinear writing process (group prewriting, drafting, revising and editing), in line with the social view of writing process theory. During the writing process, students in each group communicated and interacted with each other, which was in line with the theoretical propositions of social constructivism (Cheng, 2009) that emphasize the collaborative nature of knowledge construction in group learning in a socio-cultural context (Vygotsky, 1978). Although the WCPWP had been improved, some students still encountered various issues in this study. For instance, the first author mainly observed three types of technological problems: network problems, students lacking knowledge of MediaWiki formatting rules, problems with keyboards, system crashes and other such matters. However, teacher and most students overcame most of the difficulties successfully.

With the improved WCPWP in this study, the first author observed that participants performed better (more participants, longer compositions, higher scores, more comments) than the participants in the study of Li et al. (2012). In particular, it can be seen that the student groups made more modifications in general. Furthermore, in this study, the performance of groups in the last assignment was significantly better (higher mean score) than that in the first assignment at the beginning of this phase. In the last composition, 12 of 13 groups had composition scores higher than 80 (good).


Mean

Writing Attitude

21

The improvement of students’ performance on wiki suggested that the WCPWP had positive effects on students’ writing ability. However, the results also indicated that the students in Class One, who used both the WCPWP and TTIWP, achieved higher, but not significantly higher, writing ability scores than students in Class Two, who only used TTIWP. The result showed that WCPWP did not lead significant positive effects on students’ personal writing ability compared with TTIWP. The possible reasons related to the effects of the WCPWP on students’ personal writing ability are discussed in section 6.1.

It is encouraging that the results found a significant difference between the effects of WCPWP and the effects of TTIWP on students’ writing attitudes. Students in Class One, who used both WCPWP and TTIWP, increased their interest in writing significantly compared with students in Class Two. The possible reasons are discussed in section 6.2.

6.1. Effects of the WCPWP on Students’ Personal Writing Ability

The improvement of students’ writing performance on wiki suggested that the WCPWP had positive effects on students’ writing ability. There are several possible reasons:

First, the result might due to the student-centred writing activities. The WCPWP is a student-centred writing pedagogy which focuses on students’ needs, abilities and interests, with the teacher helping students to become familiar with the learning environment (JWC) and giving full play to their potential. In this study, process writing activities were administered to promote successful learning. The first author observed that students actively participated in the writing process from an autonomous viewpoint. They spent the entire class time constructing understanding and learning in a proactive way. This is consistent with cognitive constructivist theory, which suggests that individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences (Piaget, 1967).

Second, collaborative activities, as proposed by social constructivist learning theory, may have played a part (Vygotsky, 1978). In the collaborative writing process, students discover ideas, develop and enrich their thinking though discussion, negotiation, interaction and dialogue with group members (and, by extension, with writers and readers). Based on data from observations, it appears that group members tended to collaborate with each other face-to-face in or after class, since face-to-face communication is easier and more convenient. They seldom discussed their group work on the wiki but commented on other group essays on the wiki discussion forums. A few groups also communicated with each other using QQ or by telephone to discuss their group work after class. Students valued the moments of discussion with their group members as they brainstormed for ideas in the writing process. They discussed the writing topic, theme, and content, and assigned different segments and paragraphs to different members. Students said that they were usually deeply impressed by the collaborative process of discussion and negotiation, which aided memory and organization of the writing structure and content. With the help of group members, they learned and wrote more appropriate words and sentences, and developed better compositions. Gould argues that children learn a great deal from group members in collaborative writing, for together they can plan, organize and help each other with the mechanics of writing, and they are able to help one another make sense of writing. This can be explained by social constructivist learning theory, which posits that knowledge does not exist


independently of the knower but is constructed among social groups. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) particularly involves students mastering concepts and ideas (that they cannot understand alone) with the help of more skilled adults or fellows (Vygotsky, 1978). Hewett (2009) also notes the importance of social constructivism in developing compositions, associated with collaborative learning in writing classes.

Third, the affordances of the Joyous Writing Club (JWC) were important factors in the students’ improved writing ability. The matching educational and social affordances of the Joyous Writing Club played an important role in improving students’ writing ability. For instance, with the discussion forum (Media, Navigation, Access control affordance) in a group wikipage, students from other groups could comment on this group writing. Students indicated that students’ comments helped them greatly to refine their compositions. They also commented on other group writing based on the rating criteria of writing, which helped them distinguish good and bad composition, and learn from others’ writing styles, choice of vocabulary and correct sentences. Moreover, every wikipage includes a history feature (Media, Temporal, Navigation, Emphasis, Access control affordance), whereby every change made to every wiki page is recorded and stored. Students compared various versions of the pages, and differences were highlighted. Changes could be undone and previous page versions easily restored. The history feature acts as a safety feature aiding a deep and free level of revision and collaboration in the writing communities of JWC. Woo et al. also demonstrate that the wiki’s key affordances can support primary school students’ collaborative English writing. Their findings are similar to those of this study.

Fourth, another possible reason might lie in the integration of the process writing approach into collaborative learning. In particular, the group prewriting stage and revising stage played important roles during the writing process. According to observations, the prewriting stage helped students to retrieve content from memory, provided input by the sharing of new experience and knowledge about the writing topic, gave specific instructions on how to write an outline to arrange ideas into paragraphs, and to assign different segments and paragraphs to different members (Table 1). Furthermore, revision is an important element in the composing process and has been found to improve the quality of writing . In this study, after finishing the first draft, students carefully read and made changes regarding the use of punctuation, vocabulary, title, the beginning and ending, structure and the meaning of the article. Students constantly modified and improved their writing in the process of reading. According to L. Wang , ancient and modern Chinese writers also attached great importance to modification. The results are similar to those of the study of Lam (2007), which integrated the process writing approach with collaborative English writing and demonstrated that the collaborative process writing approach was effective in motivating students to voice their thoughts and improve their writing skills.

Fifth, most students developed more positive attitudes towards writing by using the WCPWP. This study demonstrated that the students who used the WCPWP gained significantly more positive attitudes towards writing than the students using TTIWP. Based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), students are likely to be intrinsically motivated when they are interested in mastering a topic (Deci & Ryan, 1985). According to , interest plays an important role in students' learning activities. Educational practice has shown that when a student is interested in learning and the study of their subjects, this interest can stir enthusiasm for learning and good grades. Studies have indicated that interest in learning is connected to upper primary students’ academic performance and self-confidence in learning.


Many Chinese language teachers and researchers have emphasized the importance of interest in improving students’ writing ability . For instance, Zhao (2006) and Ye (2009) indicated that interest is the best teacher to help students improve their writing ability.

Sixth, the role of the Chinese language teacher is important. Firstly, the Chinese language teacher accepted the wiki and had positive attitudes towards the WCPWP. According to Yuen and Ma (2008), the success of the pedagogical use of technology depends on teachers' attitudes towards the technology. Secondly, the Chinese language teacher’s guidance, facilitation, management, and evaluation were very important. For instance, before the lesson, the teacher produced an instructional design. During the students’ writing process, the teacher facilitated, managed and helped students’ writing. After the students had finished their group writing, the teacher commented on each group composition. To protect students’ information, the Chinese teacher also posted the comprehensive evaluation (including comments on compositions, every student’s performance and comment scores) on the wall at the back of the classroom. Students could read different group essays and compare the teacher’s corresponding comments in order to understand the advantages and disadvantage of their writing. Zhang (2007) indicated that most primary school students like reading teacher comments, which form the important feedback on students’ writing. Importantly, good quality comments by teachers can spur students’ interest in writing and improve students’ writing. However, the effect of the WCPWP on improving students’ writing ability was not statistically significant compared with that of the TTIWP. Why was this the case?

First, one possible reason is that limited practice time was given to collaborative writing in this study. This study lasted for three months. Students in both the control group and the experimental group wrote eight compositions, which are the entire requirements for one semester in the Chinese language syllabus. Students in the control group wrote all eight compositions using TTIWP, while students in the experimental group wrote four compositions using the WCPWP and the other four compositions using TTIWP. Writing is fundamentally complex (Zhang, 2007; Zhou, 2012). Effective writing involves sophisticated high-order cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, synthesis of ideas and self-regulation , and there is no fixed mode of writing for students to apply (Zhou, 2012). Sufficient practice is very important in improving students’ writing (L. Wang, 2012), and the four practice sessions with the WCPWP may not have been sufficient to support a positive role for the WCPWP and further improve students’ writing ability significantly.

Second, the reason may be related to the problems raised concerning the learning design. For instance, teacher L stated that students’ motivation in modifying compositions was very low, since each student was in charge of parts of the composition. This problem might be resolved by adding a lesson on group revising in the instruction. It might be better if the Chinese language teacher could conduct a lesson particularly to introduce the strategy of revision before the experimentation. Through this lesson, students can learn the methods of revision, the principles of revision, and the main points of revision. Besides, students also need to do appropriate practice related to group revision on the wiki in this lesson. To sum up, the design of instruction still needs improvement in areas which might cause problems and affect the results negatively.


Third, another possible reason may derive from the wiki-based writing environment named Joyous Writing Club (www.joyouswriting.com), designed and developed by the first author using MediaWiki software. JWC is a basic MediaWiki website, and this study found that it was more difficult for primary students to master the built-in edit buttons and wiki Markup. For example, students could not easily change colors and fonts. It was also difficult for them to upload pictures. Better functionality may have increased writing interest, so, if more advanced and user-friendly wiki websites with a Chinese interface and with improved functionality can be used, students’ performance may improve to bolster their writing ability.

Fourth, problems may stem from the equipment the school used. The computer lab has 56 Shenzhou-brand computers and is equipped with an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL). A total of 56 computers shared the ADSL (as high as 4mbps downstream and up to 512kbps upstream). The network can be very slow, hindering students’ work. Moreover, sometimes network malfunctions were disruptive. As a result, the equipment can obstruct writing and learning.

6.2. Effects of the WCPWP on Students’ Attitudes towards Writing

According to , attitudes are components of motivation in language learning. This study found that the WCPWP had significant positive effects on students’ writing attitudes than TTIWP. There are several possible reasons for this:

First, peer influence may be a factor. Most students noted that collaboration offered more advantages than disadvantages. Students could obtain emotional as well as cognitive support by being a member of the group. For instance, when students were interviewed, one student expressed that she did not feel lonely during collaborative writing, and group writing reduced pressure on her. Another student said that he enjoyed writing in groups as it made writing more interesting and easier. Previous research confirms the importance of the peer group as an agent in the socialization of learning attitudes . For example, argued that the peer groups can help students enjoy school as well as develop respect for indicators of academic achievement, such as good grades.

Second, the design of the collaborative learning environment, the Joyous Writing Club (JWC), has an important role to play. Li et al. (2012) found that most students perceived that students increased their writing interest by writing with the JWC, and they participated in writing more because of the JWC. Other researches also document that collaborative learning with a wiki is associated with more positive learning attitudes .

Third, the design of the instruction is important. found that the wiki failed to bolster students’ learning attitudes because participating students chose not to post to the wiki. A significant level of curiosity expressed by students suggests that the fault lay not with the technology but with an unattractive course design. In this study, most students wrote on the wiki, since student performance was checked through the history function of the wikipage and rated by the first author and Chinese language teacher. Students accepted the wiki technology as a means of writing and gained positive outcomes from the integration of the wiki into a well-designed collaborative process writing pedagogy.


http://www.joyouswriting.com/

7. Conclusion

This study mainly evaluated the effect of a Wiki-based Collaborative Process Writing Pedagogy (WCPWP) on writing attitudes and writing ability among upper primary school students in Shenzhen, China. However, this study still has several limitations which are discussed as follows:

The first limitation is the small sample size used. The experimental group involved 54 students, while the control group had 55 students. The small sample used in this study might influence the effects of the WCPWP on writing ability. The second limitation concerned the equipment in the school. The school was rated medium to high in terms of the quality of campus facilities in the city of Shenzhen. The computer lab has 56 Shenzhou-brand computers and is equipped with an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL). Since the 56 computers shared the ADSL data rates (as high as 4mbps downstream and up to 512kbps upstream), the network was very slow sometimes, hindering writing. Moreover, network malfunctions could hamper work. The third limitation involves the technological limitations which resulted from the MediaWiki system. Many wikis (e.g. PBworks. com) could be freely and easily blocked by the Great Firewall of China (for political reasons). In order to carry out this study safely, the first author designed and developed the third writing community of JWC in 2011 using a MediaWiki (version 1.15.1) which is the first choice for developing a wiki website (MediaWiki, 2014). According to Wikipedia (2014), the latest version of MediaWiki is version 1.22 which was released in December, 2013. Most added functions in the latest version like RSS/Atom feeds have no practical significance for this study. The updated version retains similar limitation as the MediaWiki 1.15.1: in order to well use the built-in edit buttons and nicely format their text, students still need to have some knowledge of wiki Markup which are difficult for them (MediaWiki, 2014).

Based on the limitations of this study, there are several recommendations for future research: Firstly, it is preferable to use larger samples. Secondly, future work involving online technologies should be implemented with adequate technical support and computer facilities. This would ensure that technical limitations do not diminish the impact of collaborative writing. Thirdly, in future studies, more advanced and user-friendly wiki websites like PBworks.com and Wikispaces.com with a Chinese interface and more powerful functions can be designed and used in Mainland China. In particular, the first author found that it is not easy for teachers to make comments, emphasize correct sentences and make notes in response to group writing on the wiki. Hence, it is suggested that wiki technology should be improved to have functions such as inserting annotation, which is one function of Microsoft Word. Fourthly, the design, application and evaluation of the Wiki-based Collaborative Process Writing Pedagogy (WCPWP) should be further improved and investigated in future studies. For example, this study did not analyze revisions and comments (in the collaborative writing process) in depth. This area deserves investigation by future researchers. Moreover, in this study, most groups included both female and male students, and, according to , there are marked differences in the quality of technology-based collaboration depending on the gender of the children involved. Hence, further research also can investigate the effects of gender on collaboration.

To sum up, this study develops a framework of WCPWP including suggested writing activities in four collaborative process writing stages (Table 1), which can help educators with the design of IT-enabled pedagogic strategies in their teaching of writing. This study may further deepen primary educators’


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(standard)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS

understanding of the links among technology, pedagogy and education. Finally, this study provides an example of capitalizing on wiki and computer to support collaborative writing in Chinese context, which can provide children with vital opportunities to both consume and create content in preparation for their future in a connected society.

Reference:

Abnett, C., Stanton, D., Neale, H. & O’Malley, C. (2001). The effect of multiple input devices on collaboration and gender issues. In: European Perspectives on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (EuroCSCL) 2001, Maastricht.


Appendix A

Elementary School High-grade Composition Scoring Criteria (full score is 100 points)

Proportion of components: (full score is 100 points)

1. Topic - 5%, 15 points. 2. Ideas - 25%, 25 points. 3. Content - 30%, 30 points. 4. Organization - 10%, 10 points. 5. Sentence fluency - 20%, 20 points. 6. Punctuation and spelling - 10%, 10 points; one incorrect character/punctuation is 1 points.

First Level Standard: (90-100 points) 1. Topic: The topic of the composition is appropriate. 2. Ideas: The writing ideas are healthy, clear and focused with a central theme completely. 3. Content: Details support the theme. The description is vivid and the content can capture the readers’ interests. Besides, the content has intrinsic value. 4. Organization: Information is presented in clear sequence, making connections and transitions among sentences and paragraphs. 5. Sentence fluency: The writer develops smooth flow and rhythm in sentences. Text has a natural, fluent sound; with a combination of simple, compound, and complex sentences beginning in a variety of ways throughout the text; with good use of Chinese idioms, rhetoric, and proverbs.6. Punctuation and spelling: The writer uses correct punctuation, capitalization and grammar. The writer uses correct spelling. The composition has enough characters.

Second Level Standard: (80-89 points) 1. Topic: The topic of the composition is appropriate2. Ideas: Addresses the prompt with a single incident/experience. 3. Content: Most effective details can show the reader about the event. Includes a slowed down step-by-step elaboration.4. Organization: Have obvious beginning, middle, and end. Closing of at least two sentences that express an observation, reaction or feeling. 5. Sentence fluency: Extensive variation in sentence structure, length, and beginnings that flow easily. Have used some Chinese idioms, rhetoric, and proverbs. 6. Punctuation and spelling: Most punctuation, capitalization and grammar are correct. All high frequency characters spelled correctly, all incorrectly spelled characters are easily decipherable.

Third Level Standard: (70-79 points) 1. Topic: The topic of the composition is appropriate. 2. Ideas: Focuses on a single incident or experience. 3. Content: Some sensory details and/or feelings tell the reader about the event. 4. Organization: Organization demonstrates sequencing of related ideas. 5. Sentence fluency: Good control over simple sentences and uses compound and complex sentences. 6. Punctuation and spelling: High frequency characters, punctuation, capitalization and grammar are correctly used, one or more of incorrectly spelled characters not easily decipherable.

Fourth Level Standard: (60-69 points) 1. Topic: The topic of the composition is appropriate2. Ideas: Attempts to group related ideas. 3. Content: Few sensory details and/or feelings tell the reader about the event. 4. Organization: Shows an attempt to sequence. Obvious transitions. Have one to two paragraphs. 5. Sentence fluency: Good control over simple sentences. Some variety in sentence structure, length, and beginning. 6. Punctuation and spelling: Certain number of characters, punctuation, capitalization and grammar are incorrectly used, one or more of incorrectly spelled characters not easily decipherable.

Fifth Level Standard: (less than 59 points) 1. Topic: The topic of the composition is inappropriate 2. Ideas: Lacks a central idea or purpose. 3. Content: Text is difficult to understand. 4. Organization: Random sentences. Writing unclear with redundant/obvious transitions 5. Sentence fluency: Writing is difficult to follow or read. 6. Punctuation and spelling: High frequency characters may be spelled incorrectly, one or more of incorrectly spelled characters not easily decipherable. Less than 300 characters. Adopted from Mo (2010).


Appendix B

Individual Writing Scoring Criteria (full score is 10 points)Proportion of components: (full score is 10 points) 1. Ideas – 15%, 1.5 points.2. Content - 30%, 3 points. 3. Organization - 10%, 1 points. 4. Sentence fluency - 20%, 2 points. 5. Punctuation and spelling - 10%, 1 point.6. Length -15%, 1.5 points.

First Level Standard: (9-10 points) 1. Ideas: The writing ideas are healthy, clear and focused with a central theme completely.2. Content: Details support the theme. The description is vivid and the content can capture the readers’ interests. Besides, the content has intrinsic value. 3. Organization: Information is presented in clear sequence, making connections and transitions among sentences and paragraphs. 4. Sentence fluency: The writer develops smooth flow and rhythm in sentences. Text has a natural, fluent sound; with a combination of simple, compound, and complex sentences beginning in a variety of ways throughout the text; with good use of Chinese idioms, rhetoric, and proverbs.5. Punctuation and spelling: The writer uses correct punctuation, capitalization and grammar. The writer uses correct spelling. 6. Length: Write more than 150 characters.

Second Level Standard: (7-8 points) 1. Ideas: Addresses the prompt with a single incident/experience.2. Content: Most effective details can show the reader about the event. Includes a slowed down step-by-step elaboration.3. Organization: Closing of at least two sentences that express an observation, reaction or feeling. 4. Sentence fluency: Extensive variation in sentence structure, length, and beginnings that flow easily. Have used some Chinese idioms, rhetoric, and proverbs. 5. Punctuation and spelling: Most punctuation and grammar are correct. All high frequency characters spelled correctly, all incorrectly spelled characters are easily decipherable.6. Length: No less than 100 characters.

Third Level Standard: (5-6 points) 1. Ideas: Focuses on a single incident or experience.2. Content: Some sensory details and/or feelings tell the reader about the event. 3. Organization: Organization demonstrates sequencing of related ideas. 4. Sentence fluency: Good control over simple sentences and uses compound and complex sentences. 5. Punctuation and spelling: High frequency characters, punctuation, capitalization and grammar are correctly used, one or more of incorrectly spelled characters not easily decipherable. 6. Length: Write more than 50 characters.

Fourth Level Standard: (3-4 points) 1. Ideas: Attempts to group related ideas. 2. Content: Few sensory details and/or feelings tell the reader about the event. 3. Organization: Shows an attempt to sequence. Obvious transitions. 4. Sentence fluency: Good control over simple sentences. Some variety in sentence structure, length, and beginning. 5. Punctuation and spelling: Certain number of characters, punctuation, and grammar are incorrectly used, one or more of incorrectly spelled characters not easily decipherable.6. Length: Write no less than 10 characters.

Fifth Level Standard: (0-2 points) 1. Ideas: Lacks a central idea or purpose.2. Content: Text is difficult to understand. 3. Organization: Random sentences. Writing unclear with redundant/obvious transitions 4. Sentence fluency: Writing is difficult to follow or read. 5. Punctuation and spelling: High frequency characters may be spelled incorrectly, one or more of incorrectly spelled

characters not easily decipherable. 6. Length: Less than 10 characters.


Appendix C

Comprehensive Review of Teacher (Sample)

Group GroupScore

GroupMember

MemberPerformance (Score)

Comments

Writing Comment

1

81 Zeng 5 0 The beginning two paragraphs of this article is

very good. The first paragraph adopted a

personification of rhetoric methods. With a

question, you introduced the origin of

refrigerator. However, you cannot directly

copy the origin of refrigerator from the

Internet, you need introduce it in your own

words. Besides, you did not write out the use

of the refrigerator in details. Furthermore, you

did not write a concluding paragraph.

Sheng 5 5Liao 3 0Cui 0 0

2

83 Li 0 0 The structure of this article is very good. It has

a good beginning. Regarding the middle part

of the composition, the introduction of radish

can not be directly copied from the Internet,

you need learn to organize them again in your

own words. You did a good job, may you

write better in your future endeavor.

Yu 0 0 Hu 5 5 Jia 0 0

3

79 Fang 0 4 Before writing, you must discuss, and decide

your writing subject and content together. And

then different members will not appear to

write different topics and content. In addition,

you can not directly copy an article from the

Internet, you need use your own experience

and true feelings to organize the article.

Besides, the structure of your composition is

not clear, you did not divide your article into

different paragraphs.

Du 5 0 Fang 5 0 Zhang 5 5

4

84 Lin 5 0 This article is from the author’s true feelings, which is very good. However, the organizational structure can be further improved, and the content can be more rich. May you write better in the future.

This sample is got from the following wiki page on the Joyous Writing Club:http://www.joyouswriting.com/index.php?title=**%E6%95%99%E5%B8%88%E7%BB%BC

%E5%90%88%E8%AF%84%E8%AE%BA


Appendix D

Writing Attitude Pretest

Hello all of you:

The questionnaire is used to study the situation to understand your writing attitudes. This is not a test, there is no standard answer. Please finish the questionnaire within 20 minutes. As is the case with all of the information we are collecting for our study, we will keep all the information you provide to us completely confidential. Your teacher will not be made aware of any of your responses. Thanks for your help.

Personal Data:Name: _________Student No. :________Class: _________Gender:______Introduction:There are 15 questions in this questionnaire. Each question has five possible answers. Please circle one of the best answers for you. You can only choose one answer for each question, please carefully answer a question. Thank you.

Please select the best answer according to your situation.Strongly

Agree

Agree neutral Disagree Strongly

Disagree

1. I think that writing is a very happy thing.

2. I am willing to spend more time to a write an essay.

3. Even if I face a very strange topic, I will also try to write

it out.

4. I think it is not difficult to finish an article.

5. I think that we can write very well as long as we put heart

in it.

6. I can complete a written paragraph very well.

7. I like to learn the writing-related knowledge and skills.

8. I like to read article, and I am also willing to write article.

9. I like do assignments related to writing (such as

social studies reports).

10. I can get praise from teachers and students when I

write well.

11. I would like to share my writing with my classmates

12. If give me a longer time, I will try to write more words.

13. I feel my writing is not bad.

14. I feel that learning to write a good article is necessary.

15. I think that learning to write well is also helpful for


learning other subjects.

The questionnaire is modified based on Liang, Shu-ting (1995). Effects of online peer assessment upon the sixth-

graders' learning of writing. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Central University, Taipei Master thesis,

National Central University, Taipei.
