Students’ Attitudes Toward Peer Feedback: Paving a Way for Students’ English Writing Improvement

Abstract

This study aimed at exploring students’ attitudes toward peer feedback to develop their English writing ability. A mixed methods research, an embedded experimental design, was adopted to elicit students’ viewpoints toward peer feedback making use of five-point Likert scale questionnaires comprising 36 statements and six open-ended questions, which were conducted to 21 undergraduate students majoring in English in one university in the three Southern border provinces of Thailand. For the data analysis, A paired samples t-test was quantitatively analyzed, wherereas content themantic analysis was adopted for qualitative data. The overall findings illustrated that the students had a positive attitude toward using peer feedback that achieved a high level in four domains in terms of the writing process, affective strategies, critical thinking skills and social interaction ability. From the result, it could also be seen that students understood about the writing strategy and were able to conduct peer feedback process more effectively, produced improved writing performance with better grammar structure. Additionally, discussing by peers evevated critical thinking skills and developed social skills through working collaboratively. Importantly, peer feedback process supports a student-centered approach and allows students to become more autonomous learners in writing. Consequently, peer feedback should be taken into consideration in the curricula of L2 writing.