Supervisory feedback, reflection, and academic discourse socialization: Insights from an L2 doctoral student's paper writing experience

Abstract

In this qualitative case study, the researcher explored an early-stage L2 doctoral student's reflective practice about her supervisor's feedback on the drafts of her research article and the role of reflection in her academic discourse socialization (ADS) as a researcher and an English academic writer. Data was collected over one and a half year from semi-structured interviews with the student and her supervisor, the student's drafts with supervisory feedback, informal conversations with the student, the student's written self-reflection, and observation of the student in academic activities. Qualitative and inductive analysis revealed that the supervisor-student dyad had a shared goal of paper writing, which was to provide the student cognitive skill training for research and academic writing. They also had different goals of paper writing, which characterized the social and negotiated nature of the student's ADS. Moreover, the student digested feedback through an interactive process of reflection-on-feedback, reflection-in-feedback, and reflection-for-feedback at different stages of writing, showing that reflective practice is indispensable for feedback to serve as useful and readily available resources for writing. Such reflective practice about feedback was found to contribute to the student's ADS cognitively, emotionally, and socially. The findings provide implications for L2 doctoral supervision, learning and socialization.