Assessing peer review pattern and the effect of face-to-face and mobile-mediated modes on students’ academic writing development

Abstract

This study examines the distribution of peer review in face-to-face and mobilemediated peer review groups and their effects on students' revision skills and academic writing development. Seventy-two first-year English for academic purposes (EAP) students participated in an 18-session IELTS academic writing course in a Canadian university the mobile-mediated peer review group (MMPR) used Telegram to exchange peer comments synchronously, while the face-to-face peer review group (FFPR) did peer review in the classroom. An adapted analytic scheme (Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2, 193-227, 2003) and the IELTS academic writing assessment criteria were used to conceptualize the peer comments in terms of frequency, area, type, nature, and IELTS assessment categories. Results indicated that the total number of comments, the percentage of revision-oriented comments and actual revisions made by the MMPR group were statistically more significant than those by the FFPR group. Furthermore, the MMPR group made more local revisionoriented comments than that of FFPR. However, the revision-oriented suggestion in local areas was the most distributed type of comment made by both groups. Regarding the IELTS assessment criteria, the FFPR group made more comments on task achievement and coherence and cohesion, whereas the comments made by the MMPR group targeted more lexical resources, and grammatical range and accuracy. In addition, the results showed that both MMPR and FFPR groups developed their IELTS academic writing skills while the MMPR mode of collaboration outperformed the FFPR.

How effective are lexical richness measures for differentiations of vocabulary proficiency? A comprehensive examination with clustering analysis

“…Intuitively, the higher the lexical richness of a discourse, the more verbally diversified and complex it is perceived to be (although an optimal degree of sophistication should not go beyond the reader or listener's comprehension for the purpose of effective perception). Because of this indicative function, LR is routinely applied in quite a number of areas of language studies, such as lexical complexity, as well as in vocabulary knowledge, language fluency, and lexical proficiency measurement, which is close to the aim of the current study (Crossley et al, 2011;Farahani et al, 2019;Johansson, 2008;Laufer & Nation, 1995;Skehan, 2009). The applications of LR are not restricted to the mainstream SLA topics.…”

Online Versus Offline Peer Feedback in Higher Education: A Meta-Analysis

“…Online peer feedback has several benefits for both students and teachers. An online environment for peer feedback can create a more collaborative environment where students can receive feedback from more than one peer (Farahani et al, 2019). Moreover, teachers have the ability to monitor feedback comments more closely (DiGiovanni & Nagaswami, 2001), which in some cases can result in a stronger relationship between teacher and students because teachers can provide assistance in real time (Novakovich & Cramer Long, 2013).…”

Different dimensions of teacher and peer assessment of EFL learners’ writing: descriptive and narrative genres in focus

“…From a different perspective, Yu (2020) argued that the participants would likely adopt a "passive stance" and have a tendency to focus more on the language form, rather than the genre-based conventions in their written and oral peer feedback. Farahani et al (2019) also speculated an unwanted synergy or a "sequential skill acquisition" (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1997) between TA and PA, as a consequence of students' close "observation and emulation" of the teacher corrective feedback to increase their evaluative judgments in PA practice. The findings of this study corroborated in to a number of other experimental research as far as the differences between teacher assessment and peer assessment are concerned (Sermsook et al, 2017;Tai, Lin, & Yang, 2015;Wang, 2014;Zarifi, 2017).…”

“…This study simulated a "multi-perspective" assessment setting in which the solid and outcome-oriented teacher assessment was integrated into dynamic and community-oriented peer assessment in EFL learning environment. The efficacy of each mode of assessment can be predicted with reference to the extent of teacher-student sociocultural interactions, type of language tasks, and the purpose of the course (Farahani et al, 2019). Besides the critical lead of TA as a standard practice, PA as a shared responsibility will help students adopt a more proactive role to reflect on their own writing and others, to evaluate their performance against a well-defined rubric, to re-draft and revise it, and to learn and improve their own work.…”