The efficacy of direct feedback on accuracy and complexity in low and high proficiency writings

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of comprehensive direct feedback on learners’ grammatical accuracy in new writings for two proficiency levels. It also attempted to determine how the feedback affected syntactic complexity and whether there was a trade-off effect between accuracy and complexity. Participants were 17 low proficiency and 17 high proficiency foreign language university learners. All learners took a pre-test, wrote on five new topics and a post-test over a 15 week semester. Results showed that direct feedback helped the high proficiency group develop in accuracy while showing a decline in complexity indicating a trade-off effect, while the low proficiency learners showed a decline in both accuracy and complexity.