Collaborative Research on Collaborative Writing

Cohen points out that the strongest, most counterproductive force in groups is initially perceived academic ability (1986, Designing Groupwork, New York: Teachers College P, 31). For that reason, we wanted to do what we could to avoid academic judgments. Although we did not know much about the students, we did what we could to balance the groups. In each group we placed one boy and two girls or vice-versa. We took into account their level of class