Google Docs: Students’ Perceptions as Online Collaborative Tool in Learning Writing Skills

Abstract

The recent Covid-19 outbreak has led educators to explore different online pedagogical tools during English lessons. It has gradually impacted the way writing skill is taught. With the integration of various digital tools like Google Docs, educators and learners are learning to adapt to the new learning mode. Although the lesson is not conducted face-to-face (F2F), collaborative learning can still be continued and carried out online. As the online learning method is adopted in a writing class, it is important to highlight students’ perceptions regarding their learning motivation and how working collaboratively affects their learning. Therefore, this study aims 1) to explore students’ perceptions of Google Docs as a tool in learning writing and 2) to discover students’ perceptions of Google Docs as an online collaborative tool in learning writing. A quantitative study was carried out on 98 ESL tertiary students and the result was tabulated and analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS). The results revealed that Google Docs positively affected students’ learning experience and assisted the learning process through the teacher’s written corrective feedback. The majority of the students reacted positively to the usage of Google Docs in learning writing and the written corrective feedback helped the students to comprehend the writing task. Most importantly, Google Docs was considered an effective collaborative learning tool in English writing skills class. For future studies, to obtain more accurate data, a larger scale of respondents of low and high proficiency can be used and hybrid research (quantitative and qualitative measures) can be adopted to address the research questions more effectively.