Effects of group composition in collaborative learning of EFL writing

This study was conducted to compare two types of group composition and their effects on collaborative learning of EFL writing in PBL lessons. Participants in the experiments were 60 students taking the researcher's basic writing classes in the fall semester, from September 2003 to January 2004. Outcomes of bimonthly automatic online writing assessments using My Access showed that group composition did affect writing learning outcomes. Small groups of learners with even distribution of levels of writing proficiency did outperform the groups with randomly mixed learners of varied levels of English writing proficiency. This finding indicated that when less capable learners collaborated with more capable learners in small group learning activities, the learning outcomes could be greatly enhanced. This implies that when taking the PBL approach in learning to write, groups composed of learners with evenly distributed levels of writing proficiency may achieve much better learning outcomes than randomly formed groups.