Dialogic feedback and literary disciplinary knowledge in L2 writing instruction: how attitude to feedback influences academic achievement

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent research has foregrounded the importance of student engagement with feedback on writing (Quinton & Smallbone, 2010; Zhang & Hyland, 2018; Handley, Price, & Millar, 2011). At the same time, there is a small but growing body of scholarship exploring the role that feedback plays in developing discipline-specific competencies in student writers in an L2 context (Hyland, 2013). This study aims to contribute to this burgeoning field by exploring the complex relationship between student attitude to peer and teacher feedback, academic achievement, and dialogic engagement with such feedback, with particular focus on the development of literary disciplinary knowledge in an L2 context. The findings of this mixed-method exploratory study reveal a positive correlation between student attitude to feedback pertaining to disciplinary knowledge development, and achievement within the field of literary studies. This stands in contrast to other findings in this study which see only a weak correlation between attitudes to both peer and teacher feedback, and writing performance. Furthermore, this study argues that active engagement with feedback is linked to greater levels of discipline-specific writing competencies.