Collaborative Writing in L1 School Contexts: A Scoping Review

Figures & data

Figure 1. The iterative process of collaborative writing according to Lowry et al. (2004, p. 83). Source: Obtained from Copyright Clearance Center with authors’ permission.

Figure 2. Collaborative writing strategies according to Sharples (1999, p. 171). Source: Obtained from Copyright Clearance Center with authors’ permission.

Table 1. Scoping review framework stages.

Stage	Purpose of a scoping review	Reference in this article
1. Identifying the research question	To guide search activities, narrow the scope and provide direction to the scoping review.	1.1
2. Identifying relevant studies	To provide research evidence for the scoping review through searching for relevant studies in databases, reference lists, etc.	2.2
3. Study selection	To eliminate studies outside of the central research questions and include studies for review by use of inclusion and exclusion criteria.	2.3
4. Charting the data	To register and map data by sifting, charting, and sorting the materials in accordance with key concepts and evidence needed to address the research questions.	2.4–2.5
5. Collating, summarizing, and reporting the results	To present a prioritized and selected overview of the reviewed material, to shed light on the scoping review topic and research questions.	3.1–3.7 4.1–4.3 Timeline in Appendix (see supplementary material)

Table 2. Activities for identifying relevant studies.

Identifying activity		Found records
Database search	ERIC	1.268
	JSTOR	1.514
	EBSCO HOST	647
	Oria	768
	Finna	482
	Scopus	144
Target search in specific journals	Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy	44
	Journal of Early Childhood Literacy	25
	Learning, Culture and Social Interaction	24
	L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature	8
	Journal of Writing Research	23
	Computers and Composition	167
	Computer Supported Cooperative Work	59
	International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning	51
	Journal of Computer Assisted Learning	44
	Other sources	15
		N = 5283

Table 3. Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Criteria	Included	Excluded
1. Presence of CW	CW activity is in the forefront and a central aspect of the article	CW is merely a peripheral activity in the article
2. Definition of CW	CW activity must fit within Lowry et al.’s (2004) definition of CW. However, this definition must not be used explicitly in the article	CW activity does not fit within Lowry et al.'s (2004) definition
3. Educational level	Preschool (if linked to primary school), primary school, secondary and upper secondary school	Kindergarten, preschool (not linked to primary school), vocational school, higher education
4. Subject	All school subjects within an L1 context. School projects not directly linked to a school subject but within a school context	L2 and/or foreign language-learning subjects
5. Peer-reviewed and published journal article	Published peer-reviewed journal articles	Conference papers, reports, book chapters, dissertations, unpublished and non-peer-reviewed articles
6. Empirical and methodologically transparent articles	Articles including empirical evidence and methodological clarity	Anecdotal or theoretical articles, articles where the methodology is not clearly stated
8. Language	Articles in English	Articles in other languages

Table 4. Charting data in the review.

Field	Contains	Data
General information	Authors, year, title of article, journal, issue, year, pages and DOI reference	Extracted from search database
Location	Country	Extracted from article or interpreted based on authors’ country of residence or university affiliation
Educational stage(s)	Primary school (ages 5–11), secondary school (ages 11–16), upper secondary school (ages 16–19) or multiple levels	Extracted from article and adjusted to the levels used in this review
Grade(s)	1–13 or multiple	Extracted from journal article
Subject	L1, literature class, mathematics, media, music, philosophy, science, social studies, multiple or unknown	Extracted from journal article
Research design	Qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods	Extracted from journal article
Data sources	Audio-records, chats, document revisions, field notes, interviews, classroom observations, other documents, screen recordings, student texts, surveys, tests and video observations	Extracted from journal article
Student text assignment	Argumentative text, essay, factional text, fictional text, multimodal creation, test, multiple assignments, wiki-pages, and other	Extracted from journal article
Theoretical underpinning	Cognitive theory, cooperative/collaborative learning theories, cultural-historical activity theory, dialogism, gender theory, intersubjectivity theory, mediated discourse theory, new literacy studies, positional theory, posthumanism, rhythm theory, self-determination theory, self-efficacy theory, social constructivism, social interaction theory, social semiotics, social-contextual gender theory, sociocognitive theory, sociocultural theory, systemic functional linguistics or unknown	For most records, theoretical underpinnings have been extracted from journal articles. For some records, we combined sub-theories with mother theories to simplify and synthetize the results
Themes	CW effectiveness, gender, learning study, LGBTQ, metatalk, student interactions, student conversations, platforms, proposals, teaching methods, technology study and text revision	Interpreted based on focal points of interest within journal article
Influence rate	Low (less than 50 citations), medium (50–100 citations), high (101–199 citations), very high (above 200 citations)	Calculated based on Google Scholar citation data 29 January 2021
CW strategies observed	Parallel writing, sequential writing, or reciprocal writing (Sharples, 1999)	Interpreted based on collaboration as described in journal article
CW activities observed	Brainstorming, outlining, drafting, reviewing, editing, and revision (Lowry et al., 2004)	Interpreted based on activities as described in journal article
Study contribution	Free-text field up to 250 characters	Interpreted based on holistic view of content in journal article

Figure 3. Data visualization of geographical clusters.

Table 5. Timeline for studies in the review.

Year	Study locations	Sum
–1989	United States (3)	3
1990–1994	England (2), United States (5)	7
1995–1999	England (1), Italy (1), Scotland (1), United States (9)	12
2000–2004	Canada (1), England (1), Scotland (3), United States (8)	13
2005–2009	Australia (1), England (2), Mexico (1), Netherlands (2), Taiwan (1), United States (1)	8
2010–2014	Canada (1), China (2), England (3), Finland (3), Hong Kong (1), Spain (3), Sweden (1), United States (4)	18
2015–2019	Belgium (2), Brazil (1), Canada (2), China (3), England (1), Finland (2), Greece (1), Hong Kong (2), Italy (1), Netherlands (3), Norway (3), Portugal (1), Spain (2), Sweden (2), Switzerland (3), United States (12)	40
2020–	Belgium (1), Brazil (1), Greece (1), Mexico (1), Netherlands (2)	6
		N = 107

Table 6. Most-cited articles.

Author	Title	Year	Citations*
Yarrow, F. & Topping, K. J.	‘Collaborative Writing: The Effects of Metacognitive Prompting and Structured Peer Interaction’	2001	338
Daiute, C. & Dalton, B.	‘Collaboration between Children Learning to Write: Can Novices Be Masters?’	1993	272
Erkens, G., Jasper, J., Prangsma, M., Kanselaar, G., &	‘Coordination Processes in Computer Supported Collaborative Writing’	2005	232
Floriana, A.	‘Negotiating what counts: Roles and Relationships, Texts and Contexts, Content and Meaning’	1994	208
Hidi, S., Berndorff, D., & Ainley, M.	‘Children’s Argument Writing, Interest and Self-Efficacy: An Intervention Study’	2002	202

*According to data on 29 January 2021.

Figure 4. School level.

Figure 5. Student text assignment.

Figure 6. Theoretical underpinnings.

Figure 7. Themes and topics.

Figure 8. Data sources.

Figure 9. Collaborative strategies observed.

Figure 10. Collaborative activities observed.

Lowry, P. B., Curtis, A., & Lowry, M. R. (2004). Building a taxonomy and nomenclature of collaborative writing to improve interdisciplinary research and practice. Journal of Business Communication, 41(1), 66–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021943603259363

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Sharples, M. (1999). How we write: Writing as creative design. Psychology Press.

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