Effects of human-AI collaborative writing strategy on EFL students’ argumentative writing skills
Raga Driyan Pratama, Utami Widiati, Lystiana Nurhayat Hakim
Abstract
Human-AI collaborative writing has emerged as a new strategy that emphasizes the combined use of AI-assisted tools and human intelligence, integrating technological capabilities with critical thinking in the writing process. However, this strategy has not been empirically proven to be effective in enhancing students’ argumentative writing skills, especially in the Indonesian EFL context. Thus, this study examined the effects of the human-AI collaborative writing strategy on Indonesian EFL students’ argumentative writing skills and explored their perceptions about the strategy. This study used a pre-experimental one-group pretest-posttest. Thirty university freshmen were involved as participants. Data on students’ writing skills were collected through an essay test, administered as both a pretest and posttest, while data on perceptions and experiences were gathered via a questionnaire. The written essays were assessed using rubrics adapted from Hamp-Lyons’ Multiple-Trait (MT) and Facione’s Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric (HCTSR), with the results subjected to statistical analysis via a paired sample t-test. The questionnaire responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics, with some quartile categorizations ranging from very negative to very positive. As a result, the effectiveness of the study could be seen from the improvement of the students’ abilities to construct well-structured argument traits (t = 54.87, df = 29, p = 0.000, η2 = 0.99) and to use critical thinking skills (t = 29.65, df = 29, p = 0.000, η2 = 0.96) from the pre- and post-test scores. The implementation of the strategy fostered positive student perceptions and experiences, particularly regarding the ease of the writing process, writing enjoyment, and writing satisfaction, with mean approval ratings exceeding 85%. Hence, this study implies that the human-AI collaborative writing strategy can be used to train students on how to construct well-structured argument traits and convey critical thinking skills through written discourse using an intelligent technology-enhanced writing instruction.