Impact of collaborative and reflective writing activities on students’ autonomy in writing

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of collaboration and reflection dimensions of the ‘Collaborative and Reflective Writing Program’ (Co-Re WriP) on the development of students’ autonomy in writing and to find out how students’ autonomy changed as a result of Co-Re WriP. The present research was carried out with 22 freshman law students at the Modern Languages Division at a university in the spring semester of the academic year 2013–2014. In this study, a mixed research design, adopting both quantitative and qualitative research procedures, was employed. The overall study was constructed on the basis of Cresswell’s embedded design (Research design: qualitative quantitative and mixed methods approaches, Sage, New Delhi, 2011) since qualitative data were embedded within a quantitative design. The quantitative data were collected through Learner Autonomy Questionnaire and students’ essays. The qualitative data, on the other hand, were gathered through focus group interviews. While the quantitative data were analysed through employing Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, the qualitative data were analysed inductively using thematic approach. In relation to the research questions, the quantitative data triangulated revealed that students’ autonomy in writing was promoted in response to the collaborative and reflective activities of the writing program. The qualitative data also exhibited the means facilitating students’ autonomy in writing through the program.