Students’ uptake and perspectives on teacher and peer feedback on written assignments

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the uptake of peer vs. instructor feedback provided on written essays by undergraduates in a writing course at a public university in Saudi Arabia.Design/methodology/approachThis was a classroom intervention exploratory study with 16 pairs of students attending a writing class over a period of 14 weeks.FindingsAnalysis of feedback and uptake indicated that the students incorporated a high rate (85.21%) of feedback in revising their essays. The results also showed that the quantity of students’ uptake of instructor feedback (88.77%) was higher than that of peer feedback (82.17%). In terms of the rate of uptake of global feedback focusing on content and organization vs. local feedback focusing on language and formatting, the rate of uptake of local feedback (85.34%) was slightly higher than the uptake of global feedback (84.90%). The current results also showed that the quality of feedback (peer vs. instructor feedback and global vs. local feedback) also varied. Students’ perspectives on feedback underlined their perceived value of feedback on writing, their preference for instructor feedback and the perceived benefits of providing and receiving feedback.Originality/valueThis study investigated an area that has been under-researched in the Saudi higher education context and it has direct implications for the provision of feedback in writing classes.

The Impact of Peer and Teacher Feedback Using Twitter on FFL Writing Class

“…This claim is interpreted by the increase in student writing results, which can be seen from the increase in score gain during the pre-test and post-test, as well as the t-test results, which shows that the peer and teacher feedback technique using Twitter increases student writing performance. The results of this study are in line with research conducted by Maarof et al (2011), Han & Xu (2020), Alharbi & Alqefari (2022), Gonzalez-Torres & Sarango (2023), and Zou et al (2022 who found that combining the collaboration of peer feedback and teacher feedback techniques in learning writing skills is a more effective approach than using only one of these learning techniques. In addition, the presence of Twitter as a learning tool is also one of the supporting aspects of improving students' writing skills.…”

“…Twitter was used as a learning tool for A2-level French narrative text writing during the treatment. The flow of the treatment developed was adopted from the research of Han & Xu (2020) and Alharbi & Alqefari (2022) as follows:…”

“…Various previous efforts have been made by teachers in order to help overcome the difficulties faced by students, including by applying an eclectic approach to learning methods, techniques and strategies (Destariani, 2018;Pratiwi, 2021;Alsehibany, 2021;Santuri et al, 2022;Siregar, 2022). Among the various methods, techniques, and strategies for learning writing skills that can be applied, peer and teacher feedback techniques are still widely applied in the last decade (Ruegg, 2018;Darmawangsa, 2018;MeiliaRasiban et al, 2018;Tian & Zhou, 2020;Nahru, 2020;Alsehibany, 2021;Pratiwi, 2021;Mulyadi et al, 2021;Alharbi & Alqefari, 2022). The numerous good practices and studies on applying these two techniques mentioned above illustrate that these techniques are still relevant and advantageous to be employed.…”

“…In this regard, a study from Han & Xu (2020) found that teacher feedback can strengthen students' confidence while implementing peer feedback. Another study stated that the combination of peer feedback and teacher feedback in writing learning is more appreciated and liked by students (Maarof et al, 2011), and it has an important role in improving the quality of student writing (Alharbi & Alqefari, 2022). In addition, the presence of teacher feedback in the implementation of peer feedback makes the feedback instruction more constructive; therefore, the evaluation of student writing is maximized (Phoungsub, 2019).…”

Exploring Conflict Dynamics Model in Second Language Collaborative Writing Classrooms

“…Collaborative writing (CW) refers to two or more writers engaged in substantial interaction to compose a jointly produced text (Lunsford & Ede, 1990). Recent empirical and theoretical publications on face-to-face collaborative writing demonstrated considerable attention to the outcomes that collaborative writing produced, ranging from the effects on students' writing fluency (Pham, 2021), the value of peer reflective practices (Herder et al, 2018), how dialogic feedback is constructed in tasks (Alharbi & Alqefari, 2022). However, the present research failed to illustrate the approaches used by the collaborators to push forward the de-escalation of disagreements or potential intragroup conflict in the collaborative writing classroom.…”