A Study on the Effectiveness of A Blog-integrated EFL College Writing Course
| Autor: | Ping-Ju Chen, 陳品如 |
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| Rok vydání: | 2010 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 98 The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a blog-integrated EFL college writing course in Taiwan by comparing a control and an experimental class. Research questions were designed to examine five areas of study: students’ linguistic performance, metalinguistic performance (further divided into metalingusitc awareness and metalinguistic stragegies), affective performance (by way of writing motivation, anxiety, and self-efficacy), the two classes’ perceptions on the writing class, and the blog-integrated class’ perceptions on blogging to write. The participants were 44 non-English majors of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Randomly selected, twenty-six students participated in a non-blog English writing class and eighteen students in a blog-integrated English writing class. In terms of linguistic performance, Wolfe-Quintero et al’s (1998) proposed fluency, accuracy, and complexity measures for writing performance were adopted to analyze students’ pre-and post-writing tests. A series of ANCOVA and t-tests were then conducted to see whether there were any significant differences between and within the two classes in writing gains. In terms of metalinguistic performance, the study used Gombert’s (1992) classification and the adapted version of Oxford’s (1990) coding system to sort out students’ learning journals. A series of chi-square tests then were conducted to see whether the two classes differed significantly from each other in terms of metalinguistic awareness and metalinguistic strategies. In terms of affective performance, three kinds of affective questionnaires were distributed to students in both classes in the beginning and the end of the course—Second Language Writing Motivation & Efforts Questionnaire, Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory, and Writing Self-efficacy Scale. A series of ANCOVA tests were conducted to unveil the differences between the two classes. To explore students’ perceptions on the writing class, the study compared the two classes with 21 closed course evaluation questions and two open-ended questions. Independent-samples t tests were conducted to analyze the differences between the two classes. Additionally, students in the blog-integrated class were inquired about their opinions on and attitudes toward blogging to write with another 15 closed course evaluation questions. The results showed that there was no significant difference between the two classes in fluency, grammatical complexity, lexical complexity, and accuracy of writing at the end of the course. However, paired-samples t tests demonstrated that both classes in fact made significant progress in fluency and accuracy of writing. This result showed that the use of blogs in a college writing course at least did not hamper students’ linguistic performance. In terms of metalinguistic performance, a series of chi-square tests showed that the two classes did not differ significantly from each other in metalinguistic strategies but in metalinguistic awareness. The control class displayed a declining performance; whereas, the experimental class made a significant progress in metalinguistic awareness. In terms of affective performance, there were no significant differences between the two classes in writing motivation and writing anxiety. With regard to writing self-efficacy, there was a significant difference between the two classes. However, it was the control class that surpassed the experimental class in writing self-efficacy. In terms of students’ perceptions on the writing class, independent t test showed no significant difference between the two classes. However, both classes showed positive attitudes toward their respective writing class. With regard to the experimental class’ perceptions on blogging to write, it was found that the feature of comment was mostly preferred by the students, with archiving being the second, self-publishing the third, and hyperlink the fourth. Through the questionnaire, students also expressed their preferences for a blog-integrated writing course over a conventional one and overall regarded the course as a positive experience. The present study provides empirical evidences to literature on the integration of blogs to foreign language education. The major implications and suggestions for pedagogy and research include: (1) Blogs can be used to raise students’ metalinguistic awareness, to organize their writing and learning materials, to archive peer-responses, and to bring about a positive attitude toward an English writing course. (2) The use of blogs can help diversify a conventional English writing course, provide online accesses to course learning materials for shier or less confident students, and save valuable time for teacher in sorting out students’ works by its archiving feature. (3) The control class’ performance in the study highlights the importance of making use of or cultivating a positive learning environment. (4) Future studies are suggested to investigate or control the effect of different learner contributions for the use of blogs to samples of different learner attributes. (5) To provide a comprehensive analysis of the use of blogs, future studies are suggested to test various ways of integrating blogs. (6) Future studies can incorporate a larger share of qualitative data to delve into learners’ preferences, their reasons for class participation, and choice of time and energy investment. (7) Because the findings showed that change in the writing media can influence learners in more than cognitive processes, to gain a broader perspective on writing, research is called for exploring the effects of writing media other than pen and paper as this study did. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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