From Engagement to Incorporation: What Goes Beyond Online Peer Interaction in L2 Writing

ABSTRACT This study, guided by Activity Theory, examines the dynamics of learners’ multidimensional engagement in online peer interaction tasks, their subsequent idea incorporation in L2 writing, and the sociocultural factors mediating the process from engagement to incorporation. Six learners, enrolling in an online English writing course, participated in three online triadic peer interaction tasks and subsequent individual L2 writing over 16 weeks. Six recordings of 203 min, 18 individual L2 writing drafts, 36 reflective journals, and six stimulated‐recall interviews were collected and analyzed across tasks. Results show that learners demonstrated diverse and dynamic trajectories of engagement across peer interaction tasks, where behavioral, cognitive, affective, and social dimensions interplay with each other to shape the dynamics. Despite the diverse forms of multidimensional engagement in peer interaction, learners showed similar idea incorporation rates in subsequent individual writing, with both self‐referenced and other‐referenced sources. The misalignment between learners’ engagement and incorporation rates was detected. A range of sociocultural factors, such as learners’ past experience, the convergence of learners’ objects, members in the community, the division of labor, instruments and task rules, mediated the process from peer interaction to individual idea incorporation and explained the seeming misalignment. Pedagogical implications were drawn accordingly.