الفهرس 
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Abstract
This study mainly aimed at investigating the effect of cloud-based collaborative writing on enhancing writing performance and motivation of English major students at the Faculty of Education. The need to conduct this study was confirmed by conducting a pilot study on 40 third year EFL students which revealed a number of essay writing-related problems. For this purpose, a sample (N= 27) of third year English major students at Tanta Faculty of Education has been selected and exposed to the proposed cloudbased collaborative writing intervention. Prior to this, they were pretested on their writing performance and motivation. After the intervention, a parallel writing test and the motivation questionnaire were administered. Quantitative data analysis (using the paired-samples t-test) yielded the following results: 1. There was a statistically significant difference between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on the overall writing performance on the expository essay in favor of the posttest. 2. There was a statistically significant difference between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on writing the introduction, body, and conclusion of the expository essay in favor of the posttest. 3. There was a statistically significant difference between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on the organization, conventions, diction, and style of the expository essay in favor of the posttest. 4. There was a statistically significant difference between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on the overall writing performance on the argumentative essay in favor of the posttest. 5. There was a statistically significant difference between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on writing the introduction, body, and conclusion of the argumentative essay in favor of the posttest. 6. There was a statistically significant difference between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on the organization, conventions, diction, and style of the argumentative essay in favor of the posttest. 7. There was a statistically significant difference between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on the overall writing motivation in favor of the posttest. 8. There was a statistically significant difference between students’ pretest and posttest mean scores on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and effort in favor of the posttest. The above results were at the 0.01 significance level. Correspondingly, qualitative data revealed that students’ writing performance has developed at the overall writing performance level as well as at the level of the writing sub-components (i.e., writing the introduction, body, and conclusion in addition to organization, conventions, diction, and style). More specifically, their writing complexity and fluency have improved not only at the quantitative level (number of words and t-units per text and words per t-unit) but also at the qualitative level. That is, fluency was also evident in the ideas expressed (their number, relevance, and sufficiency). Additionally, in terms of complexity, much progress has been detected at the sentence and T-unit level in students’ posttest essays. That is, the extensive use of simple and compound sentences in pretest essays was supplemented by an extensive use of complex ones. Furthermore, students’ use of subordinate conjunctions in the posttest much developed and that was not at the quantitative level only (the number of subordinate conjunctions) but also at the qualitative one (the type of subordination used). Additionally, thematic analysis of students’ responses in the cloud-based reflection sheets and evaluation forms revealed that students appreciated and were interested in the collaborative activities they were involved in. Further, they mentioned that the cloud with its resources and communication tools greatly helped them overcome the writing difficulties they faced. More importantly, they reported that collaboration positively affected their writing process (and its phases) and performance aspects (content, organization, and language).