Changing Perceptions on and Practices of Peer Feedback in a Student Writing Club

This study examined the changes of students’ giving and receiving peer feedback in a student writing club occurring for about a year. Thirteen students who specialized in English Education participated in this study. To determine the ways of the students’ evolving practices and perceptions about peer feedback, two surveys were given to the participants: One was administered after the fall of 2011 and the other after the spring of 2012. The findings indicated that the student writing club helped the participants to develop conducting peer feedback, implying that it contributed to improve their writing ability. In other words, they developed what and how to evaluate a piece of writing and became aware of how to apply evaluation outcomes to their own writing.

Feedback in a Student Writing Club

Ho-Jung Yu

(Kyungil University)

Yu, Ho-Jung (2014) Changing Perceptions on and Practices of Peer Feedback in a Student Writing Club Studies in Foreign Language Education, 28(1), pp.69-85

This study examined the changes of students’ giving and receiving peer feedback in a student writing club occurring for about a year Thirteen students who specialized in English Education participated in this study

To determine the ways of the students’ evolving practices and perceptions about peer feedback, two surveys were given to the participants: One was administered after the fall of 2011 and the other after the spring of 2012 The findings indicated that the student writing club helped the participants to develop conducting peer feedback, implying that it contributed to improve their writing ability In other words, they developed what and how to evaluate a piece of writing and became aware of how to apply evaluation outcomes to their own writing

Ⅰ Introduction

The purpose of this study was to observe the changes of students’ giving and receiving peer feedback in a student writing club occurring for about a year The students volunteered

to organize a student writing club where they read articles about educational and social issues

* This study was supported by the research grant of Kyungil University in 2011.

and wrote argumentative pieces or summary The reading and writing activities were conducted under the writing process which, as the participants practiced, is composed of reading and discussion, writing about the reading, peer feedback, and revising Revising was selected in the first period of the writing group and was more common in the second period

of the writing group

Peer feedback has been drawing researchers’ and practitioners’ attention since the process-based writing has been popular and peer feedback is considered a viable approach in the writing process where students are supposed to produce multiple drafts Each draft is reviewed possibly by peers and the teacher in the process of completing one good final draft The practical potential of peer feedback has invited a variety of research studies in ESL and EFL settings, in relation to literature-based position papers, empirical research on the features and effects of peer feedback, and the students’ perceptions on peer feedback (Ferris, 2003) In

a Korean context, research attention to peer feedback has been relatively recent, and researchers’ interest is exponentially growing

According to Yu (2013) who reviewed 32 research articles from 12 academic journals, attention to research on peer feedback has been on a drastic rise since 16 of the 32 articles were published after the year of 2010 The research topics vary including, “individual peer feedback, collaborative peer feedback, online feedback, leaners’ perceptions, conference, written feedback, and trained peer feedback” (p 214) Positive outcomes that Ferris (2003) summarized from research studies about peer feedback from in ESL writing included the development of confidence and critical thinking skills, diverse feedback of multiple perspectives, and the promotion of a sense of classroom community The literature analysis of Yu (2013), based on Korean EFL writing contexts, corresponds with the positive outcomes that Ferris (2003) summarized For instance, peer feedback work promoted L2 learners’ cognitive skills and benefits (Ku & Park, 2011), developed social skills (Suh, 2005), and improved their writing skills by better reviewing their own writing (Cho, 2011; Huh & Lee, 2011; Joo & Kim, 2010) On top of that, a sense of audience was cultivated through the process of peer review (Huh & Lee, 2011) Likewise, although peer feedback in writing is not the answer to learners’ writing improvement, it is definitely an agreeable strategy to promote learners’

writing Such interest in peer feedback is expected to increase because it is associated with the increasing interest in writing in English education and collaborative learning in education

in general

This present study can be a contribution to peer feedback research in a growing continuum

of L2 writing and peer feedback research Although there are a growing body of research studies about peer feedback, there has been few study about peer feedback which is situated

in a writing context where learners control it by themselves Almost all of the up-to-date studies are contextualized in a traditional writing class where a teacher exists This study was based on a learners’ autonomous setting, not a traditional class setting This study presented the changing awareness of students toward peer feedback they practiced in the writing process within the student writing club for about 10 months

Ⅱ Review of Selected Literature

This present study is related to the up-to-date research studies in a Korean EFL context involving the students’ perceptions about peer feedback since the central focus of this study is

on the learners’ changing awareness of peer feedback Therefore, this section intends to present some sample peer feedback studies about how learners perceived peer feedback According to Yu’s literature study (2013), 13 of the 32 studies investigated learners’ perceptions, although their research foci were slightly different from each other Therefore, the studies provided many different details in relation to how learners perceived peer feedback in different contexts of the writing process

Among the above peer feedback studies, the new tendency is that researchers have brought technology into teaching writing, therefore, paying closer attention to online peer feedback (Kim, 2009; Cha, 2007, 2008; Cha & Park, 2010) Kim (2007) investigated the learners’ perceptions and attitudes toward peer response, differing from electronic to traditional modes, along with quantitative and qualitative differences between peer response in e-mode and

t-mode e-mode feedback was based on blogging; t-mode peer response sheet The participants were 24 elementary school students, who were returnees, and the study was based on survey questionnaires and an interview The findings indicated that the students of e-mode and t-mode answered positively about receiving comments from their peers and integrating those comments into their writing e-mode participants focused on the enjoyment aspect as the t-mode participants considered the benefits of the peer response itself

There has been research about the perceptions of peer feedback, conducted in a traditional classroom setting The perceptions were examined from a number of standpoints: comparison

of other feedback methods, comparison of different group configurations, and relation of English proficiency For instance, Lee (2011) investigated the students’ perceptions on the strengths and weaknesses of peer feedback and an ideal feedback writing classroom Sixty five university students were served for this study, as they had already experienced basic writing education The strengths of peer feedback were students’ ‘knowledge about concepts’ for getting ideas and recognition of their grammatical problems through their peers’ work Regarding weaknesses of peer feedback, students felt that their peers were not qualified to revise the grammatical aspects and tended to distrust their peers’ recommendations To students, an ideal type of feedback was anonymous peer feedback Results were anonymous peer feedback(14), closest peer feedback(7), group peer feedback(11), teacher feedback(13), combination for peer and teacher feedback(9), and self evaluation(1) Yi (2010) delved into peer feedback based on learners’ writing competence and their perceptions about feedback effects on their writing Thirty majoring in English Education were participated in the study The findings indicated that advanced-level students gave more feedback and also did it in a more definite and directive way than the beginning-level students who gave feedback without confidence One interesting finding is that even the advanced-level students preferred giving corrective feedback to formative feedback According to the researcher, the reason might be that even the advanced learners did not have enough educational experience in which writing

is a type of communication and writing feedback needs to be done formatively to refine better communication Nevertheless, the students of both levels pointed out that peer feedback was beneficial to revising their work and so improving it from various aspects

There are also the studies that involved the learners’ perceptions about peer feedback effects on their subsequent writing (Cho & Sohn, 2007) Especially, Cho (2005, 2006, 2011) was dedicated to her inquiry about the students’ peer feedback which was reflected in their actual drafts One of her studies (2011) was geared toward investigating peer feedback in the form of case studies with three Korean learners The research findings indicated that even the act of giving peer feedback can help learners develop a critical view of writing and enable them to apply that same critical perspective to their own writing, resulting in their making the same kind of corrections they asked of their peers For example, based on self-initiated revisions, the participants actually revised their texts by incorporating changes they had recommended to their peers in their revisions

All in all, ESL or EFL writers do not trust the quality of the feedback peers make to the full extent In a similar vein, they expect writing experts like professional teachers and native speakers of English to provide it Although the above complaints are the leaners’ constant concern, the above study results have shed light on peer feedback in academic research and at the same time in practice

Ⅲ Research Method

1 Research Background and Participants

This study is part of a larger study about a student-centered writing club where I comprehensively compare the changes of the participants’ writing capacity throughout the about 1 year-long duration of the writing club This present study report primarily focuses on the perceptions that students had developed about peer feedback practices for the course of about a one-year-long student writing club from September, 2011 through July, 2012 Thirteen students who specialized in English Education participated in this study; however, eleven students served best for the analysis of this study because of their participation in this writing

club and by completing all of the works All of them were highly motivated partly because

of their genuine writing improvement and partly because of their preparation for the writing-based test in the secondary English teacher appointment exam

2 The Student Writing Club

The researcher who had taught the group of students had to leave them for his transfer to another school He had built rapport for 2 years by teaching them English composition in a regular credit-bearing course and extracurricular courses like summer and winter writing seminars They were eager to maintain their writing community so that they continued expose themselves to a writing context in order to satisfy their internal motivation – genuine writing development – and the external motivation of the intensive writing test in the national test for English teacher appointment Hence, they created their own writing club

During the two distinctive periods of the student writing community: the fall of 2011 and the spring of 2012,1) the contents and procedures of the student writing club were consistent and systematic During the fall of 2011, taking turns, participants prepared an article to read about an educational issue, read it and comprehended the content of the article together Then they wrote an opinioned paragraph, and provided feedback on the paragraph During the spring of 2011, the researcher aided them in finding an article according to their request He provided articles to read and write about, whose topic was not only directly about education but also about an education-related one like psychology and technology Regarding the process

of writing, the research did not assist and control the methodology of peer feedback which they practiced after reading and completing a writing piece after reading The findings about peer feedback associated with their writing development were from the genuine changes in the due process of the writing club

1) The students did not stop their writing club for the winter of 2011, but the period was served for the students to review it for the fall of 2011 and accordingly to plan for the spring of 2012.

3 Data Collection and Analysis

To determine whether the distinctiveness could be observed in the students’ evolving practices and perceptions about peer feedback, the researcher administered two surveys: the first survey was administered after the fall of 2011 and the second after the spring of 2012 The first survey was divided into five sections: ‘writing skills,’ ‘peer feedback,’ ‘writing task,’

‘mentoring,’ and ‘overall evaluation’; and the second survey was divided into: ‘writing skills,’

‘peer feedback,’ ‘teacher’s participation,’ ‘Internet cafe,’ and ‘overall evaluation.’ The present study reports the detailed analysis of peer feedback, whose questions thematically include practices of giving and receiving feedback, its usefulness, and participants’ confidence in practicing feedback The participants wrote their responses in detail, although This study presents the responses to the following questions: 1) How did you provide feedback on student writing? What areas did you mostly focus on? (i.e., organization, grammar, content, cohesion, vocabulary, etc.) Why did you focus on those areas? 2) Did you find it useful to have your classmates read your draft and provide suggestions? Please describe the reasons for your answer, whether it is ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ or ‘both, and 3) Did you feel confident in providing feedback as time progressed?

The analysis of students’ responses was not complicated since each question was straightforward Except for the explanation of feedback areas, the researcher directly used the students’ responses directly in most cases He, however, carefully read and reread the responses to identify and present the changes of peer feedback and the students’ perceptions between the two distinctive periods of the student writing club Responses from all of the students were not eligible to represent the results of this study since some students did not respond to the questions clearly If that was the case, the responses were excluded from the analysis of the study

Ⅳ Findings

1 Providing Peer Feedback: How did you provide feedback on student writing? What areas did you mostly focus on? (i.e., organization, grammar, content, cohesion, vocabulary, etc.) Why did you focus on those areas?

Yoon pointed out every mistake, and then talked with the writers based on their needs

read a draft several times to understand it, concentrated on each sentence for feedback, also wrote general comments and explained them to the writer

Yoo tried to check every error though

exhausting and time-consuming

marked errors line by line and wrote overall comments on a draft

Min checked grammar errors that were noticeable

swiftly read to comprehend a draft, checked if

it was based on the writing task, provided indirect feedback on grammar if the writer had

a mistake, and mostly gave feedback on content Geon

moved from grammar to sentence and coherence

check, gave writing hints and comments to

let the writer correct errors by herself

gave feedback with the ‘memo’ function of

MS Directly fixed grammar errors and left summative comments about the entire writing

Ha directly corrected grammar and checked

illogical sentences

corrected global errors and wrote down general comments with strong and weak points Seul underlined grammatical errors and put a question mark on unclear meaning

first read the draft by checking sentences and content with comments, and then read it again for feedback on vocabulary and grammar Min directly fixed errors underlined wrong expressions to let the writer

fix them by themselves Table 1 Comparison of Feedback Methods

This section reports the participants’ practice in providing feedback on student writing in term of the areas, methods, and rationale of feedback Table 1 shows how students provided peer feedback to peers from the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2012, and the results of the feedback methods were presented in a way whereby those periods were compared

Students Fall of 2011 Spring of 2012

Yoon syntactic errors → cohesion, organization cohesion, organization

Yoo accuracy: grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary grammar, sentence structure, cohesion,

organization, overall feelings as a reader Table 2 Comparison of Feedback Areas

Comparing the feedback methods of the two periods, first, they can be explained, in terms

of whether participants provided feedback directly and indirectly It is noticeable that students constructed direct feedback by pointing out and fixing every possible error, and the errors involved in grammar, although an infrequent response toward an indirect approach existed like

‘writing hints and comments to let the writer correct errors by herself.’ Nevertheless, direct feedback was dominant, indicated by the responses of ‘pointed out every mistake,’ ‘tried to check every error,’ ‘directly corrected grammar and checked illogical sentences,’ and ‘directly fixed errors.’

Unlike in the fall of 2011, in the spring of 2012 the participants selected more indirect feedback, and the methods of giving feedback were varying and systematic by spending more time in assessing peer’s writing For instance, according to Yoon, he first tried to understand the writer’s intention, balanced local and global comments, and finalized the feedback process

by clarifying them to the writer Like Yoon, Min also allowed herself to understand what the writer tried to communicate within the context of each writing task She selected an indirect method for grammar and mostly concentrated on content One participant like Geon constructed feedback electronically by using the functions of MS Word, following the conventional but ideal patterns of giving in-text and summative comments Although giving indirect and systematic feedback is not an inclusive feedback tendency in the spring of 2012,

it is definite that such way of handling feedback became more common, and the participants took feedback into consideration in a more structured and advanced way Also, they certainly constructed direct feedback, which however was contextually selected in the middle of a slightly complex but systematic peer feedback process

Min grammar, cohesion grammar, content

Geon cohesion, organization, content grammar, organization, content

content

Do cohesion, coherence intention: all areas, reality: grammar

Soo grammar, organization cohesion, organization

Table 2 presents what areas the participants concentrated on in the fall of 2011 and the spring of 2012, showing the similarities and differences of giving feedback The areas of giving feedback became extensive, as time progressed, and it was observed that some participants realized that every area was important, ranging from local to global

In the fall of 2011, it is evident that local areas like grammar are dominant areas for feedback There are a couple of reasons that students are geared toward concentrating on grammar One representing reason is that a grammar mistake is easy to notice For instance, Yoo stated, “I focused on accuracy because that part was easier for me to check than other areas.” Seul repeated the same, as in “The reason why I focus on grammatical errors is that I can find them easily.” In the spring of 2012, the participants did not overlook grammar and other local areas for their feedback focus Including those areas, students move toward being more comprehensive Yoo stated:

I seem to focus on grammar and cohesion It is because that grammatical errors are the most noticeable to me while reading, and I usually pup emphasis on close and rational relationship between sentences I think the most important thing as a writer is to make readers understand its own message easily and fluently

The above comment is associated to the way of providing peer feedback addressed in the previous section where many students first read through peer’s writing multiple times to construct valid and accurate feedback In a similar vein, many participants perceived that