Abstract
The current study focused on exploring the benefits and challenges arising from engagement of 40 undergraduates in peer feedback in a writing course from the feedback providers’ and receivers’ perspectives. The data was collected from students through a survey and follow-up interviews at the end of two rounds of peer feedback: Round 1 (20 students acting as feedback providers while 20 as receivers) and Round 2 (reserving the roles of students). The findings revealed several benefits of peer feedback for both providers and receivers, which are synthesized under three major themes: being beneficial for students’ learning and writing, fostering students’ positive feelings and engaging students in reviewing and revising strategies. Despite its benefits, peer feedback is of several challenging concerns for providers and receivers. For providers, they are challenged by their lacking feeling of comfort and low self-confidence as well as lacking certainty about the quality of their feedback. For receivers, they are challenged by their doubts about the reliability of peer feedback and difficulty understanding some feedback as well as the poor quality of records of oral feedback. The study, therefore, provides important pedagogical implications for effective peer feedback practices in writing classrooms.
Highlights
Peer/group feedback on second language (L2) and foreign language (FL) writing has been the focus of extensive research investigation
The students’ responses to the seven statements of the survey (Table 1) are evidence on their perceived value of peer feedback on writing for both providers and receivers. Both providers and receivers perceived the value of peer feedback as a strategy for learning (M=3.71 & 3.82) and its role in helping them to engage in active learning (M=4.101 & 3.91)
Based on the above findings, the current study has several pedagogical implications for EFL writing in higher education
Summary
Peer/group feedback on second language (L2) and foreign language (FL) writing has been the focus of extensive research investigation. Research on peer feedback has mainly focused on several aspects of peer feedback, including the patterns of feedback based on analyzing the language functions and foci of feedback (e.g.,Villamil & De Guerrero, 1996; De Guerrero & Villamil, 2000; Hanjani & Li 2014; Gaynor 2020) These studies concluded that as learners engage in peer review of writing, they formulate their peer feedback using different language functions (e.g., questioning, suggestion, evaluation and so on) and pay attention to global (e.g., content) and local issues (e.g., language) in their writing. Research has explored the role of integration of technological tools in facilitating peer feedback activities in writing classrooms (Bradley, 2014; Liou & Peng, 2009; Liu & Sadler,2003). In responding these gaps and needs in research on peer feedback, the current study aimed to answer the following research questions: What are the perceived learning opportunities afforded by peer feedback as part of formative assessment of written assignments from provider and receiver perspectives?
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