Effects of individual versus group work on learner autonomy and emotion in digital storytelling

Digital storytelling has been shown to be an effective tool in achieving learner autonomy during language learning. Studies have focused on providing students with multimedia authoring tools for unbinding their imagination when developing stories, but the complexity of digital story construction still presents a number of challenges to students. Anxiety about speaking a foreign language can have a debilitating effect on students’ autonomous behavior and learning performance. This study therefore introduced group work to relieve anxiety about exposing individual work to an entire class. An experiment was conducted with 55 sixth-grade students involved in a digital storytelling learning task, where 28 students worked individually and 27 cooperatively. The aim was to examine the effect of learner grouping pattern on learning outcomes, such as knowledge achievement, autonomy in language learning, and emotional experience. The students working cooperatively were discovered to outperform those working individually in all outcomes.