Virtual Research Teams to Develop EFL Students' Research and Academic Writing Skills

     The present study explored the effect of virtual research teams on EFL students' research and academic writing skills. As research and academic writing are related and overlapping, one test was devised to measure them both. Two groups of EFL students: a control group (n=31) and an experimental group (n=33) were pretested in research and academic writing skills to insure that the two groups are equivalent. For a whole semester, participants of the control group were creating their research papers individually while participants in the experimental group used virtual research teams to create theirs. After the intervention was completed, both groups were posttested in research and academic writing skills. An independent samples t-test revealed a statistically significant difference between the means of scores of the two groups in the research and academic writing skills posttest in favor of the experimental group. Therefore, it was concluded that virtual research teams can be used to improve EFL students' research and academic writing skills.