Collaborative Writing in Omani ESL Classrooms: A Quasi-Experimental Study from a Sociocultural Perspective
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study investigates the impact of collaborative writing (CW) on the academic writing development of English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in a higher education institution in Oman. Drawing on Sociocultural Theory (SCT) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), the study examines how dialogic interaction in CW tasks promotes scaffolding, cognitive engagement, and linguistic development. A quasi-experimental design was employed with two groups of Level 2 undergraduates: a control group engaged in individual writing tasks and an experimental group that completed structured CW activities. Quantitative data from pre- and post-tests were triangulated with qualitative insights from student reflections and classroom observations. Findings demonstrate that students in the CW group achieved greater improvement in idea organization, grammatical accuracy, and lexical range compared to their peers in the control group. Moreover, participants reported enhanced motivation, learner autonomy, and a stronger perception of writing as a socially mediated activity. These results carry important pedagogical and policy implications. In Oman, they align with national priorities articulated in Vision 2040, which emphasizes collaboration, innovation, and collective research through initiatives such as BLOCK Funding. The study provides evidence to support the integration of CW into writing pedagogy, showing that it not only strengthens linguistic competence but also cultivates collaborative skills essential for academic and professional contexts. At a broader regional level, where Arab learners share collective cultural orientations and writing remains a persistent challenge, the findings highlight the need for further evidence-based research to inform culturally responsive curriculum design and instructional practice.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".