Google Docs or Microsoft Word? Master's students' engagement with instructor written feedback on academic writing in a cross-cultural setting

Abstract

• Master's students use cognitive, metacognitive and affective strategies in engaging with electronic written feedback. • Most of the feedback is integrated in writing and additional revisions are made to research proposals. • Google docs is viewed as an interactive platform that facilitates postgraduates’ responses to feedback and editing of writing. • Culture plays a role in influencing how learners engage with the instructor feedback. Despite the importance of feedback in academic writing, how graduate students respond to feedback has received scant attention. This is important, especially among international graduate students whose familiarity with digital feedback should not be taken into granted. Therefore, the study explores the process in which two Master's students respond to feedback through Google Docs and Microsoft (MS) Word in a Malaysian public university using comments on feedback, oral reports, text revisions, and follow-up interviews. Despite the role of both tools in facilitating the two graduate students' engagement with feedback, Google Docs appeared as an interactive tool because it supports synchronous and immediate edits. Engagement was found to vary according to (1) the tools used in receiving the feedback, (2) the types of feedback, and (3) students' cultural backgrounds and experiences in feedback. The study provides useful suggestions for teacher feedback practices in higher educational institutions.