CHAN, Vanice Siu Yin (Student in MSc(LIM), Faculty of Education, HKU) CHU, Samuel Kai Wah (Faculty of Education, HKU) http://citers2013.cite.hku.hk/en/paper_612.htm --------------------------- Author(s) bear(s) the responsibility in case of any infringement of the Intellectual Property Rights of third parties. --------------------------- CITE was notified by the author(s) that if the presentation slides contain any personal particulars, records and personal data (as defined in the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance) such as names, email addresses, photos of students, etc, the author(s) have/has obtained the corresponding person's consent.

1. Wiki-based collaborative writing: a
comparative study on first and second
language writings among Chinese
Secondary Students
Presented by:
Chan, Vanice S. Y.
Dr. Chu, Samuel K. W.

2. Background

3. Collaborative writing
• Common practice in the academic
environments
• Benefits of collaborative writing
• Shorten task completion time (Weiss, Urso, &
Molli, 2009)
• Reduce errors (Arnold, Ducate, & Kost, 2009;
Weiss, Urso, & Molli, 2009)
• Allow students to generate and share
ideas together (Shehadeh, 2011;
Weiss, Urso, & Molli, 2009)
• Enhance communication skills
(Shehadeh, 2011)

4. Wiki as a collaborative writing tool
• Definition: a web based tool that allows users to
create, edit and read the webpage (Geraci, 2007;
Wichadee, 2010)
• Application of wiki on collaborative writing has a lots
of advantages
• Wiki is the most popular collaborative editing systems
(Fong, 2012)

5. Research Significance
• Insufficient researches on investigating the similarities and
differences between the L1 and L2 collaborative writing on
wiki
• Aims to identify and compare the writing
patterns, participation level, collaboration level and
interaction patterns between L1 and L2 wiki collaborative
writing among Chinese secondary students.

6. • What are the similarities and differences on the wiki
collaborative writing activities between the L1 and L2 groups?
• What are the similarities and differences on the wiki writing
participation level between L1 and L2 groups?
• What are similarities and differences on the wiki writing
collaboration level between L1 and L2 groups?
• What are the similarities and differences on the wiki interaction
patterns between L1 and L2 groups?
Research Questions

7. RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY

8. Research Methodology
• Participants:
• Group of form one students from a local secondary school
Procedure:
• Complete their group liberal study projects on Google Site
in Chinese (L1) or English (L2)

9. Research Methodology
Figure 1: Refined Meishar-Tal and Gorsky (2010) wiki actions taxonomy
• Data collection of writing activity

10. Research Methodology
Category Examples
Adding Sentence
Word Edit
Table 1: Examples of writing activity

11. Research Methodology
Interaction categories Description Examples
Planning • Organizing work
• Initiating activities
“We should interview [Name]
before 15th March.”
Contributing • Help giving
• Feedback giving
• Exchanging resources and
information
• Sharing knowledge
• Challenging others
• Explaining or elaborating
“I agree with you, I think the
parents should let them try
to face everything around
those children.”
Seeking Input • Help seeking
• Feedback seeking
• Advocating effort
“Is these the main five topic
that we are going to study?”
Monitoring • Monitoring group effort “i think we should make the
word more active in order to
make attractions to the
teacher”
Data collection of comments
Table 2: Refined Curtis and Lawson (2001) wiki interaction classification

12. Research Findings

13. Figure 2: Total percentage of type of wiki writing activities by L1 and L2
groups
• Similar writing activity
patterns were identified
• Tend to adding content
instead of deleting content
and moving content
• Few grammar edits and
website appearance edits
Possible reasons:
• Nature of the project
• Performance evaluation
based on the content
rather than the website
appearance
Research Findings
Wiki writing activity patterns

14. • Both L1 and L2 groups
showed low participation
• Mean of number of days
spent on wiki writing
activities by L1 and L2
groups are 24.5 days and
28 days
• Noticeable increase on wiki
writing activities from
February to March
Research Findings
Wiki writing activity participation level
Figure 3: Total percentage of monthly wiki writing activities by L1 and L2
groups

15. • Uneven work distribution
among group member in
L1 and L2 groups
• Over 50% of group wiki
activities were completed
by one student in two L1
groups and three L2
groups
Possible reason:
• Lack of time for planning
and writing
• Completed some of their
work outside the wiki
platform
• Share of wiki accounts
Research Findings
Wiki writing activity participation level
Figure 4: Total percentage of wiki writing activities by individual group member in
L1 and L2 groups

16. • Over 40% of L1 and L2
group’s comments were
“Contributing” comments
• Differences in the
percentage of “planning”
and “seeking input”
comments were identified
Possible reason:
• Uneven work distribution
• Differences on how the
students utilized the
comment session
Research Findings
Wiki interaction patterns
Figure 5: Total percentage of type of wiki writing comments by L1 and L2
groups

17. • Both L1 and L2 groups showed
low collaboration
• Only 23% and 22% of the total
revisions were reviewed by the
peers
• Possible reason:
• Students tended the avoid edit
group member’s wiki writing
(Mak and Coniam, 2008)
• Students prefer revise their
own writing instead of
reviewing other student’s
writing (Liou and Lee, 2011)
Research Findings
Wiki writing activity collaboration level
Figure 6: Total percentage of peer and author revision by
L1 and L2 groups

18. Conclusion and Recommendation

19. Conclusion and Recommendation
• Similarities in writing patterns, participation level and
collaboration level and differences in interaction patterns were
identified in the study – provide insights on the implementation
of wiki in collaborative writing
• Recommendation
• Encourage students to review other group member’s work
• Requiring the students to report their working progress
periodically and taking personal contributions in marking
• Set rules or guidelines for students to avoid sharing accounts
when writing collaboratively on wiki

20. References

21. References
• Arnold, N., Ducate, L., & Kost, C. (2009). Collaborative writing in wikis: Insights from culture projects in
German classes. In L. Lornicka & G. Lord (Eds.), The next generation: Social networking ancl online
collaboration in foreign language learning (pp. 115-144). San Marcos, TX: CALICO.
• Curtis, D. D., & Lawson, M.J. (2001). Exploring collaborative online learning. The Journal of
Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(1), 21-34.
• Fong, L. S. (2012). Benefits of Collaborative Writing for ESL Advanced Diploma Students in the
Production of Reports. Online Submission.
• Geraci, Michael. (2007). Implementing a Wiki as a collaboration tool for group projects. Paper
presented at the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications
2007, Vancouver, Canada. http://www.editlib.org/p/25852
• Liou, Hsien-Chin, & Lee, Shiu-Lin. (2011). How Wiki-Based Writing Influences College Students’
Collaborative and Individual Composing Products, Processes, and Learners’ Perceptions (pp. 45-61): IGI
Global.

22. References
• Mak, Barley, & Coniam, David. (2008). Using wikis to enhance and develop writing skills among
secondary school students in Hong Kong. System, 36(3), 437-455. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2008.02.004
• Meishar-Tal, Hagit, & Gorsky, Paul. (2010). Wikis: what students do and do not do when writing
collaboratively. Open Learning, 25(1), 25-35. doi: 10.1080/02680510903482074
• Shehadeh, Ali. (2011). Effects and student perceptions of collaborative writing in L2. Journal of Second
Language Writing, 20(4), 286-305. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2011.05.010
• Weiss, Stéphane, Urso, Pascal, & Molli, Pascal. (2009). An Undo Framework for P2P Collaborative
Editing. In E. Bertino & J. D. Joshi (Eds.), Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and
Worksharing (Vol. 10, pp. 529-544): Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
• Wichadee, S. (2010). Using wikis to develop summary writing abilities of students in an EFL class.
Journal of College Teaching and Learning, 7(12), 5-10.

23. Questions and Comments