Blended Learning for the Teaching of Story Writing: An Experimental Study

Abstract

The study investigates the effectiveness of blended learning and online collaborative learning tools for teaching story writing. Theoretical framework is based on Constructivism (Jonassen, 2000; Seimen, 2004), and Cognitivism (Mayer, 2002) for this experimental study. The experimental research has a quantitative paradigm and conducted on purposively selected 50 undergraduate learners distributed into control and experimental groups, with 25 participants in each group. The experimental group was taught through blended learning, and the control group was taught face-to-face. The treatment for the experimental group was given in the form of both face-to-face classroom sessions and online sessions including Wattpad, Wikispacesclassroom, Storybird, and Penzu. The study's findings revealed that interactivity, variety in the ways of teaching, collaboration among students for writing stories, exposure and interaction with the communities of practice, and feedback from instructors and peers were the factors responsible for the high scores and performance of learners in the experimental group. The study recommends using a blended learning approach to teach story-writing skills. Furthermore, modern trends in AI and innovations should be incorporated in blended learning, as technology has a major role in every field of life.