Peer Feedback use on Collaborative Essay Writing within Project Based Learning: University Students’ Perceptions and Experiences

Abstract

This article makes use of information gathered through questionnaires and documents that were conducted as a part of a bigger study and specifically describes students' perspectives and experiences of project-based learning and collaborative essay writing in the Essay Writing Course and investigates students' perspectives and experiences of peer feedback use in collaborative essay writing. The study used a classroom action research (CAR) design and involved a group of 42 English Language Education Study Program students from Khairun University who were enrolled in the "Essay Writing" course during the academic year 2021–2022. The findings show that all the students were enthusiastic and active in collaborative essay writing. The findings also show that in collaborative essay writing, the students prefer group members and essay topics determined by their lecturer. The students viewed that peer feedback is important to improve group essays and the same is the feedback from their lecturer. In the introductory essay writing collaboratively, for instance, they experienced difficulties in providing peer feedback on focus, purpose, and thesis statement. This was revealed in their essay task completion that two of nine groups of students had the completed elements of the essay introduction (initial sentence that indicates the general topic, background information to the topic, thesis statement, and sub-topics to be included) throughout the seven tasks. Four other groups lacked thesis statements and subtopics to include in their essay introductions. The remaining three groups missed the thesis statement and sub-topics to be included in one or some of the seven essay tasks.