2.1. Activity types and grouping in collaborative writing

In L2 classrooms, collaborative writing is typically implemented in two forms: task-based and project-based (Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Yu and Tong2025). Task-based collaborative writing, as advocated by researchers such as Storch (Reference Storch2011, Reference Storch2013, Reference Storch2019), typically consists of short-term, in-class activities that focus on meaning, language, or both. These activities are usually organized around small-scale tasks, such as jigsaw writing, data commentary, dictogloss, or editing, and aim to produce relatively short academic texts, including argumentative and compare-and-contrast essays (Zhang & Plonsky, Reference Zhang and Plonsky2020). In contrast, project-based collaborative writing, sometimes referred to as a “collaborative writing project” (Li, Reference Li2021; Zhai, Reference Zhai2021), is a longer-term endeavor spanning several weeks, integrating in-class and out-of-class work, and requiring students to complete a series of interconnected tasks that culminate in a comprehensive written product. Task-based and project-based collaborative writing differ primarily in scale and duration: the former is easier to integrate into classroom routines as short, self-contained activities, while the latter, though more demanding to design and manage, better reflects the complexity and authenticity of real-world writing. Despite these differences, both approaches share a focus on co-construction of text, peer interaction, and negotiation of meaning, thereby reinforcing collaboration as a key driver of both writing development and L2 learning.

In classroom practice, both task-based and project-based collaborative writing are employed (Zheng & Yu, Reference Zheng and Yu2024; Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Yu and Lee2021) although L2 teachers may not always be explicitly aware of the distinctions between the two types of activities. Task-based collaborative writing activities, such as jigsaw writing, where each student writes a portion of a text before combining the pieces into a coherent whole, and dictogloss, where students reconstruct a text after listening to it, encourage learners to negotiate meaning, co-construct texts, and provide peer feedback, often resulting in both oral and written output (Storch, Reference Storch2011, Reference Storch2013). Their short-term nature allows teachers to incorporate multiple tasks within a course, creating frequent opportunities for manageable collaboration and focused language practice. For example, Fernández Dobao (Reference Fernández Dobao2012) used a jigsaw task in a 15-minute grammar review lesson for Spanish as a foreign language students in the U.S., making the writing task a part of students’ everyday class work. In contrast, project-based collaborative writing extends over several weeks and requires interconnected stages such as brainstorming, drafting, revising, and presenting. These projects often target academic genres such as research reports, argumentative essays, and other extended texts, thereby fostering deeper engagement with content and language while also developing higher-order skills like project management, role negotiation, and long-term collaboration (Zhai, Reference Zhai2021; Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Yu and Tong2025). However, they place greater demands on teachers in terms of planning, monitoring, and assessment. For example, Zheng and Yu (Reference Zheng and Yu2024) found that English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers in Chinese universities who guided their students with relatively higher English proficiency to work in groups to write a research report throughout a semester would utilize a variety of tools and measures to monitor students’ writing process.

The issue of student grouping in collaborative writing is central to both task-based and project-based contexts, and has been explored in the literature from multiple perspectives. One strand of work has looked at how language proficiency shapes collaboration, investigating the effects of different proficiency pairings (i.e., high–high, low-low, and high–low) and students’ perceptions of such arrangements (Niu et al., Reference Niu, Jiang and Deng2018; Chen & Lee, Reference Chen and Lee2022). Another line of research has focused on the role of teacher-assigned versus self-selected pairs (Mozaffari, Reference Mozaffari2017) and the influence of peer familiarity (Liu et al., Reference Liu, Ding and Niu2025). Studies have also compared pair work and group work to examine how these forms of collaboration may differently influence students’ interactional patterns, writing outcomes, and overall attitudes toward collaborative learning (Fernández Dobao, Reference Fernández Dobao2014; Fernández Dobao & Blum, Reference Fernández Dobao and Blum2013; Wigglesworth & Storch, Reference Wigglesworth and Storch2012). Other investigations have contrasted collaborative writing with individual writing to better understand its added value (Fernández Dobao, Reference Fernández Dobao2012; Wigglesworth & Storch, Reference Wigglesworth and Storch2009). While these studies collectively aim to identify effective grouping strategies, many are based on small-sample experiments or narrowly defined contexts, which calls for caution in generalizing their findings.

The practice of grouping students for collaborative writing echoes research, with teachers using either pair work or group work. In doing so, teachers may consider factors such as students’ language proficiency, willingness to be paired by teachers or to self-select peers, and familiarity with one another (Storch, Reference Storch2013), as informed by research findings. Our observations and the experiences as L2 teachers also show that, in many cases, teachers resort to random or convenient grouping (e.g., pairing students who sit close to each other), especially when they lack background knowledge of students, are implementing collaborative writing for the first time, or have limited class time. Zheng and Yu (Reference Zheng and Yu2024) and Zheng et al. (Reference Zheng, Liu and Yu2026) reported that their teacher participants in Chinese universities generally had autonomy in determining grouping strategies for project-based collaborative writing, as universities or faculties rarely imposed specific requirements. Beyond research-based knowledge, teachers’ grouping choices are also influenced by their prior experiences, intuition, and contextual constraints. For instance, Chinese EFL teachers in Zheng et al. (Reference Zheng, Yu and Lee2021) who had prior experience with other forms of collaborative learning, such as group discussions or oral presentations, tended to transfer those practices to the organization of collaborative writing. Task-based collaborative writing, particularly when completed within a single class, may prompt teachers to rely on quick, convenient grouping. For example, Fernández Dobao (Reference Fernández Dobao2012), in integrating a jigsaw task into a short grammar review as part of Spanish learners’ regular classroom activities in the U.S., employed random group and pair formations. In contrast, project-based collaborative writing, which requires sustained interaction over weeks, often leads teachers to consider proficiency levels and peer familiarity to support smoother communication. For example, Chen and Lee (Reference Chen and Lee2022) adopted proficiency-based pairing when guiding EFL students in collaborative argumentative writing over a semester. In either case, classroom practices broadly align with insights from research on grouping in collaborative writing.

2.2. Computer-mediated collaborative writing

Computer-mediated collaborative writing (also known as computer-supported or computer-based collaborative writing) in L2 contexts refers to activities in which two or more learners use digital technologies to co-construct a text. A range of tools have been employed to facilitate such collaboration: (1) wiki platforms, which enable learners to co-author, edit, and revise a shared document, such as Google Docs (Z. Abrams, Reference Abrams2016; Z. I. Abrams, Reference Abrams2019) and Tencent Docs (Y. Li, Reference Li2023); (2) social networking platforms, which support interaction through commenting and chatting features, such as Facebook (Peeters, Reference Peeters2018); (3) digital communication tools, which provide real-time conferencing and interaction, such as WeChat (Z. Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Gao, Liu and Lee2022), Zoom (Namkung & Kim, Reference Namkung and Kim2024), and Skype (M. Zhang & Liu, Reference Zhang and Liu2023); and (4) language editing tools, which assist learners in revising and refining their texts (Wiboolyasarin et al., Reference Wiboolyasarin, Wiboolyasarin, Kamonsawad and Jinowat2025). Those digital tools share several common features, including a shared digital space for text co-construction, support for synchronous and/or asynchronous communication, and opportunities for iterative feedback and revision. Together, they enhance collaboration by enabling joint authorship, facilitating negotiation of meaning, and offering scaffolding for both language form and content development.

Computer-mediated collaborative writing can take various forms, including synchronous collaboration, where learners work together in real time using tools such as Google Docs or Zoom chat (M. Zhang & Chen, Reference Zhang and Chen2022); asynchronous collaboration, where learners contribute at different times through platforms like wikis or discussion boards (Abe, Reference Abe2019); and mixed-form collaboration (M. Li, Reference Li2018), which combines face-to-face interaction with online co-authoring. Previous research has examined learners’ experiences across different collaborative modalities, such as offline versus online writing and synchronous versus asynchronous collaboration (H. C. Hsu, Reference Hsu2022; M. Zhang & Liu, Reference Zhang and Liu2023), with the aim of identifying which modality more effectively supports learning and interaction. However, findings have been mixed, suggesting that no single modality is universally optimal and that more targeted empirical studies are needed to understand the affordances and constraints of each approach in specific contexts.

More recently, the rise of digital multimodal composing has expanded the scope of computer-mediated collaborative writing (M. Li & Zhang, Reference Li and Zhang2023), as students are increasingly asked to integrate multiple modalities of communication, including written text, images, audio, and video, into cohesive digital projects such as video scripts, multimedia essays, or interactive presentations. Meanwhile, the emergence of AI tools for educational purposes introduces new opportunities and challenges for computer-mediated collaborative writing. These developments make the field a promising area of inquiry not only for L2 researchers but also for scholars in educational technology, multimodal communication, and related disciplines.

In practice, there has been a growing trend of integrating computer-mediated collaborative writing into L2 classrooms, driven by advances in digital technologies and the expanding body of research in this area (M. Li & Zhang, Reference Li and Zhang2023). A range of tools are now commonly used, including wiki platforms, social networking sites, digital communication tools, and language editing applications, which allows teachers to guide students in synchronous, asynchronous, or mixed forms of collaboration. However, existing research on computer-mediated collaborative writing has been disproportionately concentrated in higher education, particularly within English learning contexts. Examples of this line of research include Abe’s (Reference Abe2019, Reference Abe2020) studies of Japanese university students using Quip, Chen and Lee’s (Reference Chen and Lee2022) investigation of Chinese university students using Zoom, Cho’s (Reference Cho2017) research on Facebook-mediated collaborative writing in Canada, Li and Zhu’s (Reference Li and Zhu2017) study of wiki-based collaboration in the United States, and Peeters (Reference Peeters2018) examination of Belgian students using Facebook for collaborative writing. In contrast, comparatively few studies have been conducted in primary or secondary school contexts. A similar pattern is visible in practice, as digital collaborative writing appears more prevalent in universities than in earlier stages of schooling, likely because university students generally have greater access to computers, mobile devices, and independent learning opportunities. While this resonance between research and practice highlights the promise of computer-mediated collaborative writing in higher education, it also exposes a critical gap: the relative neglect of younger learners may limit our understanding of how collaborative writing skills and digital literacies can be developed from an earlier stage.

2.3. Student writing performance in collaborative writing

Research on student writing performance in collaborative writing settings has examined both the process of collaboration and the final written products (M. Li, Reference Li2018; M. Li & Zhang, Reference Li and Zhang2023; Storch, Reference Storch2011, Reference Storch2019). With respect to the collaborative process, a substantial body of work has investigated students’ behavioral engagement and interaction, often analyzed through language-related episodes (LREs; Storch, Reference Storch2013) and, more recently, content- or organization-related episodes (H. C. Hsu, Reference Hsu2024). Additionally, engagement as an indicator of student writing performance has been operationalized more broadly to encompass affective, cognitive, and social dimensions of the writing process (Aubrey, Reference Aubrey2022; Phan & Dao, Reference Phan and Dao2023; Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Yu and Tong2025). Regarding students’ final products, researchers have explored whether collaborative writing enhances learners’ writing skills (e.g., argumentation and communicative effectiveness; Lin, Reference Lin2023) and language quality (e.g., accuracy, complexity, fluency; McDonough et al., Reference McDonough, De Vleeschauwer and Crawford2019). Studies have also examined whether collaboratively composed texts outperform individually written ones (Ebadijalal & Moradkhani, Reference Ebadijalal and Moradkhani2023; Li, Reference Li2021; Sarkhosh & Najafi, Reference Sarkhosh and Najafi2020) and whether engagement in collaborative writing contributes to subsequent improvement in students’ individual writing (H. C. Hsu & Lo, Reference Hsu and Lo2018).

The research on student writing performance in collaborative writing has not only advanced theoretical understanding but also shaped classroom practices, as many teachers now draw on this evidence to design collaborative writing activities. Informed by research demonstrating that collaborative writing can enhance both the writing process and the quality of written products, L2 teachers are increasingly recognizing its potential to support and improve students’ overall writing performance (M. Li, Reference Li2018; M. Li & Zhang, Reference Li and Zhang2023; Storch, Reference Storch2019). In practice, some teachers integrate collaborative writing as a complement or alternative to individual writing tasks to make classroom activities more interactive and enhance student motivation, which in turn can lead to improved writing outcomes. For example, Villarreal and Lázaro-Ibarrola (Reference Villarreal and Lázaro-Ibarrola2022) implemented model texts in collaborative writing among Spanish primary school EFL learners and found not only increased task motivation but also accuracy gains in text quality. Moreover, teachers have observed that collaboration supports weaker students through peer scaffolding while simultaneously challenging stronger students to articulate ideas more clearly and negotiate meaning, thereby fostering a reciprocal learning environment. Similarly, primary school teachers in Ruth’s (Reference Ruth2024) study reported that their EFL students benefited from collaborative writing through vocabulary expansion, improved writing skills, greater motivation, and reduced foreign language anxiety. This alignment between research and practice highlights how empirical evidence can empower teachers to implement collaborative writing more purposefully, with the dual goals of improving writing quality and cultivating students’ collaboration and communication skills.

3.1. Student interactions in collaborative writing

A large body of research has demonstrated that student interactions during collaborative writing shape both learning and textual outcomes (e.g., H. C. Hsu, Reference Hsu2022; Cao et al., Reference Cao, Ruegg and Skalicky2025; Li & Kim, Reference Li and Kim2016; Li & Zhu, Reference Li and Zhu2013, Reference Li and Zhu2017). Across contexts and modalities, these studies agree on a core finding: it is not the mere occurrence of collaboration but the quality of interaction that determines whether collaborative writing promotes joint learning or collapses into simple division of labor.

Empirical work highlights three major insights. First, students’ interaction often gravitates toward content and task management rather than language or discourse. For instance, in a study involving 13 L2 undergraduates enrolled in an academic writing course at a university in New Zealand, Cao et al. (Reference Cao, Ruegg and Skalicky2025) reported that while most discussions centered on content, elaborate engagement among peers was an important factor of alignment between interaction and revisions. Second, modality influences interactional depth. Research with 22 Taiwanese EFL undergraduates (B2 CEFR level) co-writing on Google Docs by H. C. Hsu (Reference Hsu2022) found that synchronous collaboration fostered reciprocal exchanges and collective decision-making, whereas asynchronous collaboration, despite generating more LREs, often fragmented into individual rather than joint work, with LREs remaining shallow. Third, group dynamics critically shape outcomes. Research on wiki-mediated collaborative writing, from studies with Chinese EFL students (Li & Zhu, Reference Li and Zhu2013) to ESL learners in U.S. university English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses (Li & Kim, Reference Li and Kim2016; Li & Zhu, Reference Li and Zhu2017), consistently reveals patterned interaction, ranging from balanced, collective engagement to dominant – withdrawn or authoritative – responsive modes, with only the collective pattern leading to rhetorically coherent texts and sustained mutual scaffolding. These studies provide robust evidence that elaboration and reciprocity, rather than frequency of interaction alone, underpin productive collaboration.

Despite these insights, classroom pedagogy, based on our observations, often privileges the final product over the collaborative process. From this vantage point, we have noted that many teachers rarely monitor or scaffold how students engage with one another, leaving the quality of interaction to chance (Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Liu and Yu2026). This misalignment is notable given repeated calls from researchers to treat interaction itself as a developmental target. Cao et al. (Reference Cao, Ruegg and Skalicky2025), working with L2 undergraduates in a New Zealand university academic writing course, highlighted how academic genre goals shape content-focused negotiation and emphasized the importance of scaffolding elaborative engagement and documenting joint decisions, whereas H. C. Hsu (Reference Hsu2022) stressed the need for structured responsiveness in asynchronous contexts. Similarly, Li and Zhu (Reference Li and Zhu2017), who studied ESL students in a U.S. university using wikis to write research proposals, advocate holistic evaluation of collaboration (e.g., through edit histories), yet assessment in practice continues to center narrowly on the written text. Without attention to process, collaborative writing risks degenerating into divided labor, forfeiting its potential to cultivate collaborative competence.

To bridge this research–practice gap, two pedagogical implications could emerge. First, teachers may need to integrate process monitoring into instruction. Digital platforms already record detailed histories of contributions and revisions; these affordances can be harnessed for assessment, a strategy explicitly recommended by Li and Kim (Reference Li and Kim2016) for transparent grading of peer engagement in wiki-based tasks. Requiring students to annotate links between discussion and revisions, or to submit reflection logs, can make interaction visible. Teachers can then monitor equality and mutuality of peer interaction through document histories and incorporate these dimensions into assessment criteria. In this way, process monitoring can be embedded within existing tools without imposing an unmanageable workload. Second, interactional competence should be explicitly scaffolded. Research consistently shows that productive collaboration does not arise automatically: students need guidance in building on peers’ ideas, sustaining elaboration, and negotiating disagreement constructively (Cao et al., Reference Cao, Ruegg and Skalicky2025; Li & Kim, Reference Li and Kim2016). Pre-task workshops can therefore introduce strategies such as consensus-building and elaborative feedback; teachers can model effective collaboration by sharing exemplars of successful interactional patterns (Li & Zhu, Reference Li and Zhu2017). Reflection activities, both individual and group-based, further help students internalize these practices. Importantly, scaffolding should be modality-sensitive, which means that synchronous collaborative writing benefits from training in rapid deliberation, while asynchronous collaborative writing requires explicit norms for responsiveness and follow-up.

Taken together, the research highlights that collaborative writing is as much about cultivating collaborative processes as it is about improving L2 writing outcomes. By embedding process monitoring and scaffolding interactional competence, teachers can ensure that collaboration functions as a source of learning.

3.2. Student emotional experience in collaborative writing

The role of emotions in collaborative writing has received empirical validation in recent L2 research. Findings consistently demonstrate that the affective dimension is central, not peripheral, to successful collaboration, shaping learners’ engagement and outcomes through a complex interplay of positive and negative emotions. Students report feelings of enjoyment, pride, and satisfaction, but also experience significant anxiety, frustration, and discomfort during collaborative writing tasks (Alqasham, Reference Alqasham2022; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Liu and Lee2021). Crucially, these emotions are not solely individual experiences but are socially constructed and negotiated in interaction, regulated through mechanisms of self-regulation, co-regulation, and socially shared regulation (Tao et al., Reference Tao, Zhang, Su and Li2022; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Liu and Lee2021). Evidence suggests that groups who effectively employ such strategies cultivate positive emotional climates that enhance both participation and writing performance.

Despite these robust research insights, their pedagogical application remains limited. This implementation gap is partly due to the inherent invisibility of students’ internalized emotions and the insufficient monitoring of collaborative processes in classroom settings. As Zhang et al. (Reference Zhang, Yu and Zheng2025) found in their 17-week project-based study on Chinese EFL students, learners often suppress negative feelings such as anxiety or frustration to preserve group harmony, rendering these emotions undetectable to teachers. Compounding this, instructional attention frequently centers on evaluating final written products rather than observing the collaborative process, leaving socio-emotional dynamics largely overlooked (Alqasham, Reference Alqasham2022). The result is that negative emotional spirals, triggered by technical difficulties, perceived unequal participation, or unconstructive peer feedback, may go unnoticed and unaddressed, eroding group cohesion and diminishing learning outcomes (Tao et al., Reference Tao, Zhang, Su and Li2022).

Comparative studies highlight the emotional climate as a key factor distinguishing high- from low-performing groups. Successful groups actively foster supportive environments through encouragement, humor, and empathy, thereby creating psychological safety that facilitates critical engagement and collaborative knowledge construction (Chiang, 2023; Tao et al., Reference Tao, Zhang, Su and Li2022). By contrast, struggling groups often fall into negative cycles of superficial agreement, disengagement, and exclusionary practices that undermine meaningful collaboration (Tao et al., Reference Tao, Zhang, Su and Li2022). Importantly, research also cautions against equating positive affect with improved outcomes. For example, Alqasham’s (Reference Alqasham2022) study of 58 Saudi undergraduates using Blackboard chat box shows that enjoyment and satisfaction do not automatically yield better performance, underscoring the need for pedagogical mediation that explicitly links emotional engagement with writing development.

To address this gap, two pedagogical strategies are proposed. First, instruction could incorporate explicit training in emotional regulation and collaborative literacy. Rather than assuming students will pick up these skills during group work, teachers can provide pre-task workshops or structured roles that distribute both cognitive and emotional responsibilities (Robinson, Reference Robinson2013; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Yu and Zheng2025). Such scaffolding equips learners with strategies for constructive feedback, conflict management, and effective online presence. Second, task design could intentionally integrate the emotional dimension of collaboration by leveraging digital tools while minimizing risks. For instance, affective supports, such as using emojis to provide positive, low-stakes feedback between peers (see Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Liu and Lee2021), can normalize emotional expression, while clear feedback protocols can prevent harmful interactions like public shaming. Similarly, structured reflective activities such as guided debriefings or emotional journals can help externalize otherwise hidden feelings, enabling both peers and teachers to recognize and respond to emotional challenges in a timely manner.

The above insights suggest that emotions should be treated as a deliberate pedagogical focus rather than an incidental by-product of collaborative writing. By foregrounding the affective dimension, instructors can cultivate supportive collaborative environments that not only sustain learner engagement but also strengthen the developmental impact of L2 writing.

3.3. Long-term effects of collaborative writing

A body of research has empirically established that collaborative writing, when implemented effectively, can yield long-term improvements in L2 writers’ individual performance. Across diverse contexts including face-to-face university writing classrooms (Chen, Reference Chen2019; Chen & Yu, Reference Chen and Yu2019; Davison, Reference Davison2024), computer-mediated environments (Jiang & Eslami, Reference Jiang and Eslami2022), project-based collaborations (R. Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Zou, Cheng and Xie2022), and task-based interventions (Gallego, Reference Gallego2022), studies converge on one key insight: collaborative writing is not merely a temporary aid to co-constructing texts but has the potential to foster durable improvements in individual L2 writing accuracy, fluency, grammatical development, and even syntactic complexity. While collaborative writing is becoming more prevalent in L2 instruction (e.g., Li & Zhang, Reference Li and Zhang2023), a persistent challenge noted in the literature is that its implementation is not always sustained. In practice, it is sometimes treated as a contained pedagogical activity rather than a core, recurring component of the curriculum. This can prematurely cut short the process before its potential for fostering long-term individual development is fully realized (Chen & Yu, Reference Chen and Yu2019; R. Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Zou, Cheng and Xie2022).

A first area of consensus in the literature is that collaborative writing contributes to sustained linguistic accuracy. Previous studies report that students who engaged in collaborative writing later produced more accurate texts in their individual writing, with reduced grammatical and lexical errors (Chen, Reference Chen2019; Davison, Reference Davison2024; Jiang & Eslami, Reference Jiang and Eslami2022). Importantly, these gains are not fleeting. Chen’s (Reference Chen2019) study of Chinese EFL undergraduates showed that accuracy improvements persisted even eight weeks after intervention, while Davison’s (Reference Davison2024) research with 128 students in a United Arab Emirates (UAE) EAP program demonstrated similar long-term effects. The mechanism appears to lie in peer deliberation and LREs, which enable learners to internalize correct forms. However, not all areas of writing develop equally. For example, Chen (Reference Chen2019) observed that organizational gains from collaborative writing faded quickly without reinforcement, suggesting that different writing dimensions require sustained and differentiated scaffolding.

A second theme is that collaborative writing supports higher-order language development and syntactic sophistication when embedded in tasks that stimulate hypothesis-testing and negotiation. Gallego’s (Reference Gallego2022) study of 104 L2 Spanish learners showed that collaborative dictogloss tasks significantly enhanced learners’ use of the subjunctive and promoted greater syntactic complexity, with gains enduring at delayed post-tests. Similarly, Jiang and Eslami’s (Reference Jiang and Eslami2022) research with Chinese EFL students collaborating with native speakers via Microsoft Word and Tencent QQ found that native speaker–non-native speaker (NS–NNS) dyads in computer-mediated collaborative writing fostered global writing improvements, while NNS–NNS dyads promoted accuracy. These findings illustrate how task type, dyad composition, and duration all mediate the extent to which long-term effects emerge, reinforcing the need for careful pedagogical design.

Third, research highlights that the social and attitudinal dynamics of collaboration critically shape long-term outcomes. Chen and Yu’s (Reference Chen and Yu2019) longitudinal case study of two Chinese university students demonstrated that learners’ attitudes toward collaborative writing are not fixed but evolve over time, influencing interactional patterns and learning opportunities. Positive shifts in attitude fostered collaborative dialogue and an increasing number of successfully resolved LREs, while negative shifts undermined long-term benefits. Similarly, R. Zhang et al.’s (Reference Zhang, Zou, Cheng and Xie2022) study of five Chinese EFL undergraduates in a 13-week project-based collaboration documented fluctuating patterns of engagement in extended project-based collaborative writing, with some learners disengaging midway due to misaligned goals or unresolved conflicts. These studies indicate that the durability of collaborative writing benefits is contingent not only on linguistic scaffolding but also on sustained affective and social engagement.

While empirical research demonstrates that collaborative writing can yield durable gains, classroom practice in these contexts may not always capitalize on this potential. As noted in the literature, some teachers adopt collaborative writing only sporadically, often limiting it to a single formative assignment or a short-term trial (Chen & Yu, Reference Chen and Yu2019; R. Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Zou, Cheng and Xie2022). For example, Chen’s (Reference Chen2019) 16-week intervention demonstrated that as few as three collaborative tasks were sufficient to produce lasting gains in accuracy, yet many classrooms implement even fewer such tasks. In such cases, collaborative writing is treated as a novelty or supplementary activity rather than a systematically integrated pedagogical approach. As a result, benefits are either short-lived or fail to materialize at all, since the very conditions identified as crucial for long-term effects, such as repeated exposure, attitudinal cultivation, strategic grouping, and sustained scaffolding, are absent. For instance, Chen and Yu (Reference Chen and Yu2019) showed that negative attitudes developed over multiple tasks can derail collaboration, while R. Zhang et al. (Reference Zhang, Gao, Liu and Lee2022) found that without ongoing monitoring, engagement patterns can fluctuate dramatically in longer projects.

To address this gap, two suggestions can be advanced. First, teachers could adopt a programmatic approach to collaborative writing, embedding it across multiple tasks and semesters rather than treating it as an isolated intervention. This would allow attitudes, engagement, and collaboration skills to evolve over time, enabling students to internalize linguistic gains and sustain them in individual writing. Second, pedagogical support could be multi-dimensional, targeting not only text quality but also social dynamics and reflective practice. Teachers could, for instance, provide structured opportunities for learners to articulate the value of peer support, monitor group dynamics, and intervene when negative attitudes threaten to derail collaboration. Such measures may help to activate the long-term mechanisms of collaborative writing documented in research, ensuring that classroom practices better align with empirical evidence.

In sum, while a substantial body of research now attests to the long-term value of collaborative writing, practical application remains limited and inconsistent. Without sustained and strategically scaffolded implementation, collaborative writing risks being reduced to a short-lived experiment, undermining its transformative potential. The challenge ahead lies in bridging the gap between research findings and classroom practice so that collaborative writing can function as a durable engine of L2 development.

4.1. Feedback and evaluation of collaborative writing

Feedback and evaluation are indispensable to the success of collaborative writing in L2 classrooms, yet they remain relatively under-represented in the research literature compared to other areas of collaborative writing. While calls for more work on assessment and feedback practices are recurrent (Chen & Chen, Reference Chen and Chen2025; Chen & Zhang, Reference Chen and Zhang2024; Cheung, Reference Cheung2023), empirical investigations remain sparse and disproportionately focused on computer-mediated contexts. This gap could be problematic because in offline classrooms, feedback is a primary pedagogical tool and an essential mechanism to ensure the quality of collaborative writing. Without clear guidance from research, teachers often lack strategies to evaluate group work or to provide feedback that supports both the collaborative process and the quality of the final product.

One important thread in existing research concerns the role of assessment design. A few studies (Chen & Chen, Reference Chen and Chen2025; Chen & Zhang, Reference Chen and Zhang2024; Cheung, Reference Cheung2023) show that assessment schemes shape learner motivation, interaction patterns, and the opportunities for language learning within collaborative writing tasks. When collaborative writing is graded solely on the final product, learners tend to prioritize efficiency and correctness, often resulting in unequal participation and reduced collaboration (Cheung, Reference Cheung2023). In contrast, when process-oriented criteria such as mutuality and equality are explicitly incorporated into evaluation, students display greater accountability, more sustained collaborative engagement, and higher rates of correctly resolved LREs (Chen & Chen, Reference Chen and Chen2025; Chen & Zhang, Reference Chen and Zhang2024). For example, Chen’s and Chen’s (Reference Chen and Chen2025) research with Chinese university students using the Shimo platform demonstrated that adding process criteria to a rubric significantly increased intrinsic motivation and doubled the number of correctly resolved LREs. These findings suggest that evaluation itself can act as a form of feedback, which signals to learners what aspects of collaboration and writing are valued. However, most of this work has been conducted in controlled, computer-supported settings, leaving open questions about how to implement process-oriented rubrics in offline, naturalistic classrooms.

Another line of work focuses on peer feedback and corrective feedback during collaborative writing. Research on peer feedback (e.g., Bueno-Alastuey et al., Reference Bueno-Alastuey, Vasseur and Elola2022; Díez-Bedmar & Pérez-Paredes, Reference Díez-Bedmar and Pérez-Paredes2012) demonstrates that students can provide both socio-affective support and form-focused corrections in collaborative settings, but the medium shapes the type and uptake of feedback. For example, Díez-Bedmar and Pérez-Paredes (Reference Díez-Bedmar and Pérez-Paredes2012), in their study of 20 Spanish and British tertiary students co-creating tourist brochures on Moodle, found that forums primarily elicited affective support and task management moves, whereas wikis facilitated more direct linguistic corrections. Similarly, Bueno-Alastuey et al.’s (Reference Bueno-Alastuey, Vasseur and Elola2022) research with second-year Spanish FL learners showed that peer feedback and collaborative writing can have complementary effects on subsequent individual writing: peer feedback was particularly beneficial for accuracy, while collaborative writing enhanced fluency and lexical variety. Yet, despite these promising findings, research remains highly tool-specific, and relatively little is known about how peer feedback is enacted in face-to-face collaborative writing or how teachers can scaffold peer response to maximize its effectiveness.

Teachers’ written corrective feedback (WCF) has also been explored in limited ways in collaborative writing. Studies provide evidence that both direct and indirect feedback can facilitate linguistic and pragmatic development in collaborative writing contexts (Cho & Kim, Reference Cho and Kim2022; González-Cruz et al., Reference González-Cruz, Cerezo and Nicolás-Conesa2022; Kim et al., Reference Kim, Kim and Kang2025). For instance, González-Cruz et al. (Reference González-Cruz, Cerezo and Nicolás-Conesa2022) showed that direct WCF combined with metalinguistic training using error logs significantly improved accuracy in revisions among 32 low-proficiency Spanish EFL adolescents. Cho and Kim (Reference Cho and Kim2022), working with beginner learners of Korean in a U.S. university, found that indirect WCF was equally effective for individuals and pairs in acquiring honorific forms, suggesting that collaboration did not necessarily amplify the effects of feedback. By contrast, Kim et al. (Reference Kim, Kim and Kang2025) demonstrated that synchronous teacher feedback during 44 Japanese EFL students’ collaborative drama script writing on Google Docs improved learners’ pragmatic appropriateness in complex contexts such as power-asymmetric complaints. These findings highlight that the effectiveness of feedback is contingent on factors such as the linguistic target and task type. However, systematic exploration of how feedback can be integrated into collaborative writing pedagogy beyond controlled experimental conditions remains lacking, especially in the offline classrooms where most teachers operate.

Taken together, the literature reveals a paradox. On the one hand, research consistently affirms that assessment and feedback critically shape collaborative writing processes and outcomes. On the other hand, studies remain confined to narrow contexts, leaving teachers with little guidance for applying feedback strategies in diverse, everyday classroom conditions. As a result, although feedback is central to writing pedagogy, its role in collaborative writing remains under-theorized and under-implemented.

To address the above gap, future research can expand in at least two directions. First, more work is needed in offline, naturalistic classroom settings where teachers commonly conduct collaborative writing but lack digital traces such as chat logs or revision histories to aid evaluation. Developing practical, classroom-friendly tools such as simplified rubrics, observation protocols, or reflective prompts would facilitate the dialogue between research and practice. Critically, researchers would need to partner with teachers to create feasible assessment strategies for large-class contexts, where managing large student groups present a major and underserved challenge. Second, studies can move beyond the current focus on computer-mediated corrective feedback to explore holistic feedback practices, including formative teacher feedback, structured peer review, and self-assessment. These approaches may provide a more sustainable model of collaborative writing feedback that balances attention to process, product, and learner development.

In sum, although research on feedback and evaluation in collaborative writing has begun to show the powerful impact of assessment design and feedback type, it remains under-represented compared to its central role in pedagogy. Investigating feedback in offline settings and broadening the focus to include formative, multimodal, and holistic strategies, future research can better support teachers in leveraging feedback to enhance the quality of collaborative writing in L2 classrooms.

4.2. Individual development in collaborative writing

Although collaborative writing has been widely investigated for its group-level outcomes, such as the co-construction of texts and the quality of final products, its implications for individual learners’ development remain under-represented. Much of the existing literature treats pairs or groups as the unit of analysis, overlooking learners’ unique characteristics, needs, and growth trajectories. Even when studies attend to individual development (Davison, Reference Davison2024; Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Yu and Tong2025), they often limit their scope to short-term writing performance (e.g., accuracy gains measured in follow-up tests), while neglecting broader aspects of personal growth such as communicative skills, self-regulation, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence. This tendency has both research and pedagogical consequences. In practice, teachers may prioritize collective outcomes, leaving issues such as free-riding, uneven participation, or unacknowledged individual progress insufficiently addressed.

Emerging evidence suggests that collaborative writing fosters multifaceted forms of individual development, extending well beyond writing accuracy or textual quality. For instance, Abe (Reference Abe2020), in a study of upper-intermediate to advanced Japanese university students co-authoring essays asynchronously on the Quip platform over a 15-week semester, showed how L2 learners gradually developed interactional competence in asynchronous collaborative writing, learning to design their contributions so they were recognizable and accountable to peers. Over time, learners shifted from isolated contributions to more responsive, socially attuned participation, emulating peers’ methods and refining pragmatic strategies such as making polite requests or signaling cohesion. This demonstrates that collaborative writing can nurture pragmatic awareness and interactional flexibility, skills critical for both academic and professional communication but rarely measured in writing assessments.

Similarly, research on transfer from collaborative writing to individual writing highlights several benefits. The seminal work by Bikowski and Vithanage (Reference Bikowski and Vithanage2016) provided early empirical support for this, demonstrating that L2 writers who engaged in repeated, in-class web-based collaborative writing tasks showed statistically greater gains in their individual writing scores over a semester than those who worked individually, despite starting at a lower proficiency level. This aligns with more recent findings. Davison (Reference Davison2024), working with 128 Arabic L1 undergraduates in a UAE university EAP program, and D. Li and Tang (Reference Li and Tang2024), in their study of 56 intermediate Chinese EFL majors collaborating via Microsoft Word and WeChat, both found that learners in collaborative writing conditions improved their individual writing accuracy more significantly than peers working independently, likely due to the deliberation and feedback that occur in collaborative exchanges. However, these studies also revealed limitations: improvement in syntactic complexity was minimal, and gains in fluency were either equivalent across groups or context-dependent. D. Li and Tang’s (Reference Li and Tang2024) research specifically highlighted that while groups of four led to greater individual gains in accuracy and overall performance than pairs, neither group size fostered significant development in syntactic complexity over the 8-week intervention. These findings suggest that accuracy benefits most directly from peer collaboration, while complexity may require longer or differently structured interventions.

Other studies point to developmental domains often ignored in traditional collaborative writing research. Selcuk et al. (Reference Selcuk, Jones and Vonkova2019), in their research with Turkish high school EFL learners using Facebook groups to co-write short stories over 7 weeks, highlighted how emergent group leaders in web-based collaborative writing provided not only linguistic scaffolding but also affective and motivational support, enabling quieter learners to gain confidence and autonomy. Similarly, Zheng et al. (Reference Zheng, Yu and Tong2025), in a 13-week longitudinal case study of five Chinese engineering undergraduates collaborating on writing a research report, revealed that participation in collaborative writing can foster emotional regulation skills, empathy, and accountability. Learners developed strategies to manage frustration, anxiety, and conflict while engaging in high-stakes collaborative writing tasks. These affective and interpersonal benefits echo the observations of Bikowski and Vithanage (Reference Bikowski and Vithanage2016), whose survey and interview data indicated that collaborative writing helped students form stronger bonds with classmates and develop greater comfort with giving and receiving peer feedback. In short, these findings underscore that collaborative writing, when carefully facilitated, cultivates interpersonal and intrapersonal growth, which are essential but often invisible dimensions of L2 development.

To sum up, this body of work underscores a key problem: while scholarship frequently calls for attention to the learner as an individual within collaboration, empirical research usually focuses on measurable writing performance, resulting in a partial understanding of collaborative writing’s potential. In practice, teachers may replicate this bias by evaluating group products while neglecting individual experiences, contributions, and needs. These risk perpetuating issues such as unequal participation or overlooking growth in transferable skills like leadership, empathy, and problem-solving.

Two directions seem crucial for advancing both research and pedagogy. First, studies can adopt more holistic and longitudinal perspectives on individual development in collaborative writing. This means not only measuring short-term improvements in complexity, accuracy, and fluency, but also tracing how learners’ pragmatic, emotional, and collaborative competencies evolve across tasks and contexts. Methodologically, approaches such as conversation analysis (Abe, Reference Abe2020) or mixed-method designs integrating logs, interviews, and process data (Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Yu and Tong2025) provide models for capturing such nuanced trajectories. Second, pedagogy may need to move toward balancing group outcomes with individual accountability. Teachers could provide individual reflection tasks alongside group writing, and give feedback that recognizes personal contributions and growth. Such strategies may not only mitigate free-riding or domination but also align collaborative writing practices with broader educational goals of fostering well-rounded communicators and collaborative citizens.

In short, while collaborative writing research has traditionally privileged collective products, a growing body of work reveals that individuals also undergo diverse forms of development. Recognizing and systematically investigating these dimensions is essential for bridging the gap between research and practice, and for ensuring that collaborative writing is not only a means of producing better texts but also of cultivating more capable, reflective, and resilient learners.

4.3. Pre-writing training

The third underrepresented research area pertains to learners’ preparedness for collaborative writing tasks. A recurrent concern in the literature is that students often enter collaborative writing tasks without the necessary awareness of collaborative processes, strategies, or goals, which can lead to unequal participation, superficial cooperation, or resistance to collaboration (Li & Zhang, Reference Li and Zhang2023; Zhang & Plonsky, Reference Zhang and Plonsky2020). Scholars have repeatedly called for explicit pre-writing training to scaffold learners before they engage in collaborative writing tasks, yet empirical studies remain limited in scope.

A central problem is the mismatch between what collaborative writing requires and what students typically know how to do. Unlike individual writing, collaborative writing entails joint responsibility, co-regulation, and negotiation of meaning, which many learners have not previously experienced (Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Gao, Liu and Lee2022). Without targeted preparation, learners often default to dividing tasks, avoiding negotiation, or privileging efficiency over mutual engagement (H. C. Hsu, Reference Hsu2024). The absence of training not only reduces opportunities for language learning, such as LREs, but also compromises the ecological validity of research, as most real classrooms provide some form of orientation before implementing collaborative writing (Zhang & Plonsky, Reference Zhang and Plonsky2020).

The few available empirical studies suggest that pre-writing training can substantially improve both collaborative processes and writing outcomes, though effects are uneven across dimensions. Chen and Ren (Reference Chen and Ren2022), in their quasi-experimental study of 40 intermediate-level adult ESL learners in a U.S. university’s Intensive English Program, showed that explicit metacognitive training, which covers declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge about collaborative writing, led to more accurate, fluent, and higher-quality essays, as well as more systematic planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Similarly, H. C. Hsu (Reference Hsu2024) demonstrated that a web-based training intervention for Taiwanese EFL students transformed low-engagement, cooperative patterns into genuinely collaborative ones, with trained pairs generating more and better-resolved LREs and achieving greater gains in content quality and language accuracy. Other studies highlight broader benefits, such as increased learner accountability, reduced social loafing, and more positive attitudes toward collaborative writing (Li & Zhang, Reference Li and Zhang2023). Zhang’s (Reference Zhang2021) research of Chinese EFL undergraduates in a hybrid writing course, which included five collaborative writing practices, underscored how pre-training familiarizes students with process and partner dynamics. Together, these findings suggest that pre-task training is not peripheral but central to unlocking the pedagogical potential of collaborative writing.

Despite these promising results, research remains limited in several ways. First, pre-writing training is chronically under-reported. In a large-scale review, Zhang and Plonsky (Reference Zhang and Plonsky2020) found that only 18.1% of collaborative writing studies incorporated or even mentioned pre-task training. Second, most training interventions are short-term and narrow in focus, often targeting either general collaborative writing strategies (e.g., role assignment) or specific textual concerns (e.g., genre instruction), but rarely integrating both (R. Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Zou, Cheng and Xie2022). Third, while gains are consistently observed in accuracy and content, improvements in organization and linguistic complexity are less robust (Chen & Ren, Reference Chen and Ren2022; H. C. Hsu, Reference Hsu2024). Finally, research tends to be restricted to university-level learners, with little attention to K-12 or diverse learner populations, limiting generalizability (Li & Zhang, Reference Li and Zhang2023).

To address these gaps, two directions could be particularly urgent. First, research needs to move beyond proof-of-concept studies toward systematic investigations of training design. Comparative studies could test which elements (e.g., metacognitive instruction, modeling, coherence training, genre-based scaffolding) are most effective for different learner profiles and modalities. Longitudinal studies are also necessary to examine whether training effects persist over time and transfer to individual writing. Moreover, methodological transparency in reporting training protocols should become a norm, as the absence of such detail undermines replication and the accumulation of evidence. Second, pedagogy must integrate pre-writing training as a routine component of collaborative writing instruction rather than a one-off intervention. Practical steps include modeling effective collaboration through video demonstrations, providing revision and collaboration checklists. Teachers could also extend training beyond procedural knowledge to include affective and social dimensions, such as fostering trust, managing conflicts, and encouraging collective ownership of texts. Given the persistent challenge of limited improvements in organization and complexity, training could incorporate explicit instruction on rhetorical structuring and advanced language resources. Finally, teacher professional development is crucial as teachers themselves need support to design and facilitate training that balances writing goals, collaborative dynamics, and technological affordances.

In sum, pre-writing training is consistently shown to enhance collaboration quality, learning opportunities, and writing outcomes, yet it remains underutilized in both research and pedagogy. By investigating its design and embedding it into classroom practice, the field may better realize the potential of collaborative writing to promote not only higher-quality co-authored texts but also the sustainable development of learners’ individual writing competencies.