Students’ perceptions about the effects of collaborative digital storytelling on writing skills

This study aims to identify the students’ perceptions about how collaborative digital storytelling use in writing class affects their writing skills. Having a qualitative research design, the research has utilized an action research model. The research was conducted in two different classes with first-year university students studying at the Department of Turkish Education (N = 61). Students have produced two different digital stories (DSTs) throughout the course. The first DST was created individually, and the second collaboratively. Students actively participated in producing and criticizing the phases of digital stories. The researcher and students’ diaries and focus group interviews were used as data collection tools. Data were analyzed through the Nvivo 12 qualitative data analysis program. During the analysis process, data were first converted into codes, and the obtained codes were divided into themes and sub-themes. Findings indicated that students have a perception that collaborative DST improves their writing skills. It is reflected in the student views that collaborative DST positively affects the internal and external structure of the text. The multimedia feature and the script have positive effect on writing and help to harmonize technology and writing.