Re-Thinking Peer Reviewing in the Virtual Context: The Roles of Giving and Receiving Online Feedback in L2 Spanish Classrooms

Emilia Illana-Mahiques

doi:10.3390/languages6030151

Abstract

This study explores learners’ online peer review practices during a four-week second language writing project. The project was developed in a multi-section Spanish writing course at the college level. The study investigates how college Spanish learners give online feedback to their peers, whether there is any relationship between the feedback roles they assume and their final performance, and the additional factors that may influence online peer reviewing practices. A total of 76 students participated in the study, all of whom received training prior to writing three drafts and giving and receiving feedback comments during two online peer review sessions. Descriptive statistical measures were used to analyze the types of online feedback students used most frequently. The comparative effects of giving comments were analyzed along with those of receiving comments by means of multiple regression analyses, in order to examine the relationship of these elements to final project performance as writers. Results support the learning-by-reviewing hypothesis, which argues that giving feedback to peers helps feedback-givers write better essays themselves. A follow-up analysis also shows that learning by reviewing online is most evident when giving specific types of online feedback, which students of all proficiency levels can learn how to do.

Highlights

The type of comment used the least was explanation of the praise, and the second least used was problem identification. These results indicate that students offer many suggestions, but the specific problem is not always pointed out
This study has demonstrated the complexities involved in online peer reviewing, emphasizing the role of the feedback-giver and their final essay scores after they receive appropriate peer review training
Online peer reviewing should not be understood as a mere process of transmitting information from the reviewer to the writer through a technological platform

Summary

Introduction

Digital technologies started an era of social transformation with constant changes of conventions, discourses, textual forms, and communities (Lotherington and Ronda 2014). Institutions and other organizations, need to rethink how, when, and where people learn while continuously raising the question of what it means to live, learn, and communicate in a digitally transformed future (Besseyre des Horts 2019; Choudhury 2016). Body: Event sequence is pleasant to read and to follow. Inventive, and descriptive; mostly follows the events of the story and adds to the meaning of the story, but may lack depth and originality 1-FAIR. Inventive, and descriptive; but it may not follow the events of the story or continue its meaning, or it may be too simple or confusing.

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Conclusion