Collaborative digital writing and metacognitive knowledge in writing among TEFL students: the mediating role of online knowledge sharing

Abstract

Previous studies indicate that metacognitive knowledge has a key role in learning and that collaborative learning and knowledge sharing may affect learners’ metacognition. As such, the present study set out to test a structural model of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) students’ collaborative digital writing, online knowledge sharing, and metacognitive knowledge in writing, and specifically to examine the hypothesis that online knowledge sharing mediates the effect of collaborative digital writing and metacognitive knowledge in writing. With the participants of 102 Iranian TEFL undergraduate students, a structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to establish the structural model. The findings revealed the fitness of the structural model of relationships among the study variables. The results also confirmed the mediator role of knowledge sharing. The implications of the findings about knowledge sharing, attitude to collaborative digital writing, and metacognitive knowledge in writing are discussed.