Online Peer Motivational Feedback in a Public Speaking Course

Abstract

Providing peer feedback is commonly practiced in teaching and learning of public speaking courses. However, there is limited research examining peer motivational feedback in an online setting. This study adopted a qualitative, descriptive approach using document analysis to investigate the frequencies of peer motivational feedback which students' use in a public speaking course within an e-learning system of a local university. In addition, the specific public speaking skills and the nature of the feedback offered by students were also examined. Twenty-three final year undergraduate students video recorded their speeches, uploaded their videos, offered and received online peer feedback in the e-learning platform. All of the recorded online peer feedback went through a thorough classification process to identify, arrange, and systemize into the specified types of feedback. The data was examined at three levels of analysis to ensure concrete conclusions were drawn. Frequencies and examples of online peer motivational feedback were also presented. The results indicated that students provide relatively more motivational feedback on delivery and voice control skills, while paying less attention to language and proficiency skills. The process of giving and receiving feedback has acted as individualized feedback in which peers helped clarify the goal, criteria and expected standards of good performance. Thus, this study suggests that online peer motivational feedback could be used as a form of practice in the teaching of online public speaking courses due to its ability to motivate and sustain students' interest in learning public speaking while creating a student-centered learning environment.

Oral Peer Feedback in Online Settings to Foster Self-Regulated Learning

“…Saidalvi and Samad (2019) got similar finding in their study that students offered more motivational feedback for delivery and voice control skills and they seem more confident to provide feedback in this area of public speaking skills since it is observable during the presentation of the speech. They might lack the knowledge related to language specifically; thus were reluctant to comment on language and proficiency skills (Saidalvi & Samad, 2019). Cheung and Yang (2019) highlighted this challenge in their study that the subject knowledge was one of the factors which made the feedback was too general.…”

“…Data analysis began by analyzing the field notes to identify the types of feedback which were categorized into two types including motivational and corrective peer feedback. Motivational feedback provides motivation to a learner to perform a task and does not improve learning but rather makes the learner feel good on the task performed (Saidalvi & Samad, 2019). Corrective feedback refers to the information given by the reviewer which focuses on error correction of the task performance or content (Saidalvi & Samad, 2019) and it facilitates learners' noticing of the differences between their incorrect utterance and the target form (Kartchava et al, 2020).…”

“…Regarding feedback in language learning, specifically dealing with students' performances, it is mostly done by teachers to give awareness to students on their strengths and weaknesses. However, the practice of giving feedback has transformed from students passively receiving feedback from the teacher to peer feedback; and this type of feedback is known to be more powerful even in an online setting (Saidalvi & Samad, 2019). Providing feedback is important in giving students a good idea of the criteria and developing a sense of confidence while receiving feedback mostly serves to improve their performances or products (van der Pol et al, 2008) Even though there are still some voices challenging about the effectiveness of peer feedback and consider it as a magic wand to improve language skills (Wu & Miller, 2020), the trend of web-based technologies has opened up more opportunities for peer feedback to be implemented comparing to the traditional classroom feedback which has limitations in terms of time and space (Luo, 2016).…”

Teachers’ Training Course Using Synchronous Conferencing Tools for Hospitality and Tourism Education in Vietnam: A Constructivist Approach

“…What is genuinely associated with "a strong class community", according to [2], is to strengthen the professional relationships among class participants through activities such as open discussions, collaboration, working together, experiencing each other's work, and offering constructive and supportive feedback to each other. Such a safe and supportive learning community has been proved in numerous studies to enhance teachers' confidence in teaching with new technology [2], [24], [27], [28].…”

A constructivism-based training course for hospitality and tourism instructors in Vietnam to improve their self-confidence in synchronous online teaching

“…Creating “a strong class community,” according to Kosnik et al (2018), means strengthening the professional relationships among the class participants through activities such as open discussions, collaboration, working together, experiencing each other’s work and offering constructive and supportive feedback to each other. Such a supportive learning community has been proven to enhance teachers’ confidence in teaching with a new technology (Arbaugh and Benbunan-Fich, 2006; Kosnik et al , 2018; Saidalvi and Samad, 2019; Wang and Ha, 2012).…”