diff --git a/R/pkg/tests/fulltests/test_sparkSQL_arrow.R b/R/pkg/tests/fulltests/test_sparkSQL_arrow.R
index 97972753a78fa..16d93763ff038 100644
--- a/R/pkg/tests/fulltests/test_sparkSQL_arrow.R
+++ b/R/pkg/tests/fulltests/test_sparkSQL_arrow.R
@@ -312,4 +312,22 @@ test_that("Arrow optimization - unsupported types", {
   })
 })
 
+test_that("SPARK-32478: gapply() Arrow optimization - error message for schema mismatch", {
+  skip_if_not_installed("arrow")
+  df <- createDataFrame(list(list(a = 1L, b = "a")))
+
+  conf <- callJMethod(sparkSession, "conf")
+  arrowEnabled <- sparkR.conf("spark.sql.execution.arrow.sparkr.enabled")[[1]]
+
+  callJMethod(conf, "set", "spark.sql.execution.arrow.sparkr.enabled", "true")
+  tryCatch({
+    expect_error(
+    count(gapply(df, "a", function(key, group) { group }, structType("a int, b int"))),
+    "expected IntegerType, IntegerType, got IntegerType, StringType")
+  },
+  finally = {
+    callJMethod(conf, "set", "spark.sql.execution.arrow.sparkr.enabled", arrowEnabled)
+  })
+})
+
 sparkR.session.stop()
diff --git a/docs/sparkr.md b/docs/sparkr.md
index fa1bb1b851815..05310f89f278d 100644
--- a/docs/sparkr.md
+++ b/docs/sparkr.md
@@ -681,12 +681,12 @@ The current supported minimum version is 1.0.0; however, this might change betwe
 Arrow optimization is available when converting a Spark DataFrame to an R DataFrame using the call `collect(spark_df)`,
 when creating a Spark DataFrame from an R DataFrame with `createDataFrame(r_df)`, when applying an R native function to each partition
 via `dapply(...)` and when applying an R native function to grouped data via `gapply(...)`.
-To use Arrow when executing these calls, users need to first set the Spark configuration ‘spark.sql.execution.arrow.sparkr.enabled’
-to ‘true’. This is disabled by default.
+To use Arrow when executing these, users need to set the Spark configuration ‘spark.sql.execution.arrow.sparkr.enabled’
+to ‘true’ first. This is disabled by default.
 
-In addition, optimizations enabled by ‘spark.sql.execution.arrow.sparkr.enabled’ could fallback automatically to non-Arrow optimization
-implementation if an error occurs before the actual computation within Spark during converting a Spark DataFrame to/from an R
-DataFrame.
+Whether the optimization is enabled or not, SparkR produces the same results. In addition, the conversion
+between Spark DataFrame and R DataFrame falls back automatically to non-Arrow optimization implementation
+when the optimization fails for any reasons before the actual computation.
 
 <div data-lang="r" markdown="1">
 {% highlight r %}
@@ -713,9 +713,9 @@ collect(gapply(spark_df,
 {% endhighlight %}
 </div>
 
-Using the above optimizations with Arrow will produce the same results as when Arrow is not enabled. Note that even with Arrow,
-`collect(spark_df)` results in the collection of all records in the DataFrame to the driver program and should be done on a
-small subset of the data.
+Note that even with Arrow, `collect(spark_df)` results in the collection of all records in the DataFrame to
+the driver program and should be done on a small subset of the data. In addition, the specified output schema
+in `gapply(...)` and `dapply(...)` should be matched to the R DataFrame's returned by the given function.
 
 ## Supported SQL Types
 
diff --git a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/objects.scala b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/objects.scala
index 4b2d4195ee906..c08db132c946f 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/objects.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/objects.scala
@@ -567,7 +567,14 @@ case class FlatMapGroupsInRWithArrowExec(
       // binary in a batch due to the limitation of R API. See also ARROW-4512.
       val columnarBatchIter = runner.compute(groupedByRKey, -1)
       val outputProject = UnsafeProjection.create(output, output)
-      columnarBatchIter.flatMap(_.rowIterator().asScala).map(outputProject)
+      val outputTypes = StructType.fromAttributes(output).map(_.dataType)
+
+      columnarBatchIter.flatMap { batch =>
+        val actualDataTypes = (0 until batch.numCols()).map(i => batch.column(i).dataType())
+        assert(outputTypes == actualDataTypes, "Invalid schema from gapply(): " +
+          s"expected ${outputTypes.mkString(", ")}, got ${actualDataTypes.mkString(", ")}")
+        batch.rowIterator().asScala
+      }.map(outputProject)
     }
   }
 }