A Comparative Study Of Engagement And Writing Quality Between Triads And Dyads Under The Online Collaborative Writing Task

Based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory,the present study aimed at comparing the differences in learner engagement and writing quality between the triads and the dyads under the online collaborative writing task.The study involved forty first-year college students majoring in English at a university in Northeast China.They were free to work in triadic groups(n=8)and dyadic groups(n=8),and each dyad and triad completed the same writing task in Tencent Meetings and Kingsoft Docs platform.The data collected included online collaborative interaction audio files,online collaborative writing texts and online interview audio files.This study explored two research questions:(1)What are the differences in learner engagement between triads and dyads in the online collaborative writing task?(2)What are the differences in the writing quality between triads and dyads in the online collaborative writing task? This study employed a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to examine learner engagement and text quality.Learner engagement in this study involves three dimensions: behavioral,cognitive and emotional.Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of the learner engagement,the findings indicated that insufficient evidence of a significant difference in behavioral and emotional engagement between the triads and the dyads.In the aspect of cognitive engagement,significant difference was found in the level of engagement,the triads produced more Language Related Episodes(LREs)involving elaborate engagement than the dyads;however,no significant difference in frequency and outcome of LREs.Text quality was assessed in terms of accuracy,fluency and complexity.The quantitative analysis revealed that the triads produced more fluent text than the dyads,and no significant differences were found in terms of accuracy and complexity.This study provided a reference for the practical application of online collaborative writing in English writing instruction,promoted our understanding of collaborative writing and offered a new perspective for future studies on learner engagement and text quality.