Effectiveness of WhatsApp to Support Content and Vocabulary within Descriptive Essay Writing at Undergraduate Level: A Mixed Method Study

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the effectiveness of WhatsApp based text chatting to support descriptive essay writing in terms of content, vocabulary and online interaction. The study employed a mixed method to investigate the potential of WhatsApp as an additional tool to traditional pedagogy. The participants were 60 students selected through convenience sampling. Employing WhatsApp, the experimental group (N = 30) was exposed to online text based chatting for learning descriptive essay writing. However, the control group (N =30) did receive only traditional lectures on descriptive essays. The findings of this mixed method study highlighted: (a) the participants in the intervention group outperformed their counterparts with regard to descriptive essay writing in terms of content and vocabulary (b) the participants in the treatment group displayed a positive attitude towards the use of WhatsApp as learning tool, and (c) text chatting helped foster online interaction that supported the learning of descriptive essay writing. Pedagogical implications included shift from traditional pedagogy to use of technology and student-centeredness and suggestions for institutions and policymakers to integrate social media tools into learning process. Future research directions consisted of replication with larger sample, extensive training of educators on how to integrate social media into learning and use of social media blended teaching method to teach other genres of writing.