Design students’ perceptions of a wiki enhanced English learning at university

Abstract

This small-scale research is aimed at exploring design students’ perceptions of collaborative English learning via a wiki site when doing a course of English for specific purposes (ESP) at the university. The learning community based on a wiki platform was launched to improve English skills in collaborative activities with the teacher and the peers. Semi structured interviews were conducted with the design students on a voluntary basis after the course completion. The data was analyzed using a qualitative analysis, which is resulted in five main categories describing design students’ perceptions of their experiences. The results enabled to present a model of wiki enhanced learning which is grounded in theory of teaching-learning cycle. It is expected to provide an insight into the strengths and limitations of collaborative learning via wiki technology and address the challenges and outcomes of deploying wiki sites into the educational context at university.