Three heads are better than one? Digital multimodal composition completed collaboratively versus individually

Abstract

Digital multimodal composing (DMC) has attracted language instructors’ and researchers’ increasing attention during recent years. Previous studies mainly investigated the students’ DMC processes and perceptions, but DMC products are underexamined, and in particular, scarce is research comparing collaborative DMC products and individual DMC products. This article reports an empirical study conducted with 185 EFL college students in an English for specific purposes (ESP) course in Vietnam, in which they completed two infographic tasks using Visme, one collaboratively and the other individually. The DMC products were graded according to a rubric assessing the aspects of content/organization, multimedia/visual effects, and language use; the accuracy of the students’ infographics was also evaluated. The results of variance (MANOVA) test showed no statistically significant difference in the overall qualities of infographics between the two work conditions (i.e. collaborative composing and individual composing) as to both tasks, but the between-participant effects showed that collaborative DMC products were advantageous in visual effects for Task 1 and in content/organization for Task 2. The findings of the Welch’s t-test revealed no statistically significant difference in the accuracy of students’ DMC products between collaborative work and individual work. This study fills the research gap by comparing the qualities of collaborative DMC products and individual DMC products, and meanwhile highlights the role of infographics in writing pedagogy. Implications of the study for research and pedagogy are also discussed.