Research Article A Sociocultural Perspective on Second Language Writing: The Effect of Symmetrical versus Asymmetrical Scaffolding on Intermediate EFL Learners’ Writing Accuracy, Fluency, and Complexity and Their Attitudes Aysheh Mohammadzadeh , Touran Ahour , and Mahnaz Saeidi Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz 009841, Iran CorrespondenceshouldbeaddressedtoTouranAhour;ahour@iaut.ac.ir Received 21 February 2020; Revised 26 June 2020; Accepted 31 October 2020; Published 12 November 2020 AcademicEditor:Mar´ ıaConsueloS´ aizManzanares Copyright © 2020 Aysheh Mohammadzadeh et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons AttributionLicense,whichpermitsunrestricteduse,distribution,andreproductioninanymedium,providedtheoriginalworkis properly cited. is study investigated the effect of different patterns of scaffolding (symmetrical and asymmetrical) on Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ writing accuracy, fluency, and complexity. For this purpose, 90 intermediate female EFL learnerstookaPreliminaryEnglishTest(PET),basedonwhichthosewhosescoresfellonestandarddeviationbelowthemean wereconsideredaslowintermediateandthosewhosescorewasonestandarddeviationabovethemeanwereconsideredashigh intermediate learners. So, the participants were grouped into three symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns in terms of their language proficiency level: one asymmetrical group with High Intermediate-Low Intermediate learners (H-L), two symmetrical groupswithHighIntermediatelearners(H-H),andanotherwithLowIntermediatelearners(L-L).erewere30studentsineach group who were, then, divided into smaller groups to interact with each other to develop their essays during a treatment. To evaluate participants’ writing skill, they were made to take a pretest and a post-test. e results of one-way ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis H tests showed that there were significant differences between the three scaffolding patterns in the writing accuracyandcomplexityoftheEFLstudents,butnottheirwritingfluency.efindingsofthecontentanalysisfortheinterview further showed that the students had positive attitudes towards the use of the collaborative writing method as they found it enjoyable and beneficial. e results have implications for teachers and learners. 1.Introduction e development of the writing skill has been subject to different changes according to varying instructional ap- proaches. One major shift was from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered one where the focus of the communicative approaches has been altered towards learning the second language (L2) in contextualized and meaningful ways. In the same way, Collaborative Writing (CW) activating the social resources of the learners focuses on their agency in learning and helps the development of learner autonomy [1]. Various meta-analyses of research studies on effective instructional practices confirm the assumption that col- laboration has a positive impact on writing quality [2]. Studies suggest that working collaboratively in smaller groups or pairs results in better writing than whole-class teaching[3–5].islineofinquiryespeciallybecomesmore significant when all the written dimensions of accuracy, fluency, and complexity are taken into account. A balanced development of L2 writing, according to Skehan [6], lies in an equal attention given to its accuracy, fluency, and complexity. ese concepts have been indicated as main research variables in second language acquisition research [7]. Moreover, a worthwhile endeavour would be to un- derstand how scaffolding patterns affect the writing quality using advanced linguistic forms accurately, fluently, and appropriately.Regardlessofthesignificanceofcollaborative writing practice in language classes, there are still some Hindawi Education Research International Volume 2020, Article ID 5292356, 10 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/5292356