| This study examined, among 24 Thai undergraduate students of English, the effects of collaborative writing on their verbal interactions, the effects of collaborative writing and independent writing on their compositions, and the students' attitudes toward collaborative writing and independent writing. Data were collected in a counterbalanced design incorporating two writing topics and two writing conditions. Under the collaborative writing group condition (CG) participants wrote in pairs to produce one essay. Under the independent writing condition the same participants wrote their essays alone. For analyses, the independently written essays were separated into an independent higher group (IHG), representing the better writer from each dyad when they wrote alone, and an independent lower group (ILG), the weaker writer from each dyad when they wrote alone.; Regarding verbal interactions, the collaborative condition: (1) promoted the participants' discussion of ideas for their essays; (2) engaged learners in language episodes (focused on lexis, grammar, and mechanics) with potential for collaborative scaffolding; and (3) led the learners to debate the organization of their essay. Concerning text quality, (1) there were no statistically significant differences between the global score and the writing aspect scores of the English texts produced under the CG and the average scores of the IHG and the ILG texts together, but (2) the IHG texts were significantly better than the ILG texts on the global score and on four of the five scores for aspects of writing (organization, argumentation, communication, and linguistic accuracy), and (3) the CG texts were significantly better than the ILG texts on the global score and on three of the five scores for aspects of writing (organization, communication, and linguistic appropriacy). In relation to learners' attitudes: (1) the majority of participants preferred the writing processes of planning, writing, and editing/revising under the collaborative condition and thought they wrote a better essay with their partners than alone; (2) students expressed some reservations about criticizing their partners during collaboration; and (3) some suggested that the time allotments were insufficient under the collaborative writing condition. |
