ESL Students’ Perceptions on The Use of Facebook as A Collaborative Writing Tool in Improving Writing Performance

Abstract

The authors previously measured student achievement in writing test after the intervention of Facebook as a tool in improving writing skill. In this paper, the authors identified undergraduate students perceptions on the effectiveness of Facebook as a collaborative writing tool, which was extended from their previous research. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design with a total number of 33 participants taking part in the study. Out of 33 participants, 16 of them were assigned to an experimental group, while another 17 participants were assigned to a comparison group using a matchingonly design. Facebook, as the treatment in the study, was compared to a conventional method; face-to-face in the collaborative writing activities. The comparison between the use of Facebook and face-to-face methods was made in order to measure student perceptions of the intervention authentically. After using this approach, a set of questionnaire was given to the Facebook collaborative writing group. It was found that majority of the students indicated positive perceptions towards the Facebook collaborative writing group.