Enhancing the effectiveness of peer written feedback in writing among the first year students at the ed hulis 1

Due to widely supported evidences of benefits that peer feedbackactivity can bring about to teaching and learning writing such as raisingwriters’ sense of audience, creating a cooperativ

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

The past few years has witnessed dramatic changes in methods ofteaching and learning English, and teaching and learning writing, amongother three skills has undergone considerable renovation The switch from

“product oriented approach” to “process writing approach” is one of themost striking features in teaching writing The “process writing” approachwith its emphasis on learners’ achievement through multi processes ofwriting has been highly appreciated by both teachers and students applying

it Peer feedback, also known as peer-checking or peer-editing in whichstudents play the role as editors to read and comment on their friends’writing either in oral or written form or in both forms so that their peers canimprove their drafts before handing the final ones to the teachers is oneimportant aspect of this approach

Due to widely supported evidences of benefits that peer feedbackactivity can bring about to teaching and learning writing such as raisingwriters’ sense of audience, creating a cooperative learning environment,increasing text-ownership and improving students’ writing skills, peerwritten feedback has been exploited by many teachers and learners in allover the world, among whom teachers and students of the ED-HULIS are

no exceptions

Since peer written feedback activity was implemented in the HULIS, a few studies have been carried out to investigate students’competence in doing peer written feedback and some suggestions were alsoput forward so that students could make the most of this activity However,those studies did not seem to give a thorough description of the situationbecause they tended to focus on only the act of giving without payingenough attention to the act of receiving peer written feedback whereas

ED-doing peer feedback refers to the mutual reaction of two sides, thefeedback-giver and the feedback-receiver In addition, some importantaspects concerning the implementation of peer written feedback were notacknowledged by previous researchers Therefore, the results obtainedcould not thoroughly reflect the situation, and as a result the proposedsuggestions could not help solve the problems effectively

Realizing those shortcomings, the researcher of this thesis has astrong desire to take into consideration some aspects of peer writtenfeedback that were not paid due attention to in those previous studies sothat this research can yield objective findings about the situation of usingpeer feedback in the first year writing classrooms On the basis of thesefindings, hopefully, feasible recommendations will be made in order to helpthe first year students at the ED-HULIS make the most of this activity,

which is the ultimate purpose of this study- “Enhancing the effectiveness

of peer-written feedback in writing among the first year students at the ED-HULIS”

1.2 Aims of the study

This study is carried out with the aims to:

 investigate the current practice of peer written feedback inwriting classes among the first year students at the ED-HULIS

 find out difficulties that the students often encounter whendoing this activity

 propose some recommendations in terms of procedures as well

as useful feedback models to enhance the effectiveness of peerwritten feedback at the ED-HULIS

1.3 Research questions

In order to fulfill the abovementioned aims, the study is conducted toanswer the following research questions:

 What are the strategies that the 1st year students at the EDapply to give peer written feedback?

 How do the first year students assess the practice of peerwritten feedback?

 What problems do students encounter when giving peerwritten feedback?

 What problems do students encounter when interpreting peerwritten feedback?

1.4 Scope of the study

The study will work on the current situation of peer written feedbackamong the 1st year students at the ED-HULIS who are most likely toencounter difficulties when doing this activity since their experience withpeer written feedback is not as much as that of their seniors In addition, thesooner the 1st year students are supported with useful techniques in carryingout this activity, the greater they are benefited from it Moreover, theresearch will focus on peer written feedback that is most utilized by the 1styear students at the ED-HULIS rather than the other type of peer-feedbackknown as peer oral feedback

1.5 Methodology of the study

With a view to guaranteeing the reliability of the data, three methods

of collecting information, namely, survey questionnaire, students’ writinganalysis and student interviews are exploited It is believed that thecombination of quantitative data obtained from survey questionnaires andqualitative data obtained from students’ writing analysis and studentinterviews can bring about in-depth information and first-hand experience

of the target issue

1.6 Significance of the study

Hopefully, the study will provide any interested reader with a betterunderstanding of the current situation of doing peer written feedback

activity among the 1st year students at the ED-HULIS More specifically,the efficiency of giving peer written feedback, the difficulties that studentsoften have when giving or receiving their peers’ feedback will beacknowledged in this study In addition, as inherited and developed fromthe previous studies on the same topic, this can be seen as a means to assessthe extent to which students are benefited from this activity after manyyears of implementation and also from a number of improvements made byteachers at the ED-HULIS Substantially, this study will suggest usefulstrategies for teachers and students to exploit peer written feedbackeffectively in writing classes It is expected that feedback models proposed

in this study will favorably supplement the first year writing syllabus, andmore effective application of peer written feedback will soon take shape inthe following year

1.7 Organization of the paper

The first chapter of this study has already presented an overview ofthe paper Chapter II reviews relevant literature on the process approach toteaching writing, process approach to feedback in writing and a number ofimportant aspects in useful written feedback Methodology used in thisresearch is introduced more thoroughly in chapter III Chapter IV presentsand discusses findings obtained from three instruments utilized in thestudy: survey questionnaires, students’ writing analysis and studentinterviews In chapter V, some implications and suggestions for betterpractice of peer written feedback among the 1st year students are offered.Finally, Chapter VI concludes the thesis by pointing out limitations of theresearch and suggestions for further study References and appendices areenclosed at the end of the paper

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Major approaches to teaching writing

2.1.1 Product approach to teaching writing

During the 1950s, under the impact of behavioral learning theoriesand the audio-lingual teaching methodology, teaching writing was inclined

to focus mainly on form and writing itself was recognized as a “linear”process which can be determined by the writer before starting to write(Hairston, 1982) Since then this method of teaching writing was widelyadopted and known as product approach, the focus of which is acomposition made up of a series of parts- words, sentences, paragraphs butnot the whole discourse with meaning and ideas (Sommers, 1982).Therefore, it can be seen that it is the language proficiency that determinesthe skill of composing while little attention is paid to ideas and meaning

According to Raimes (1983), the normal procedure of this writingapproach is to assign a piece of writing, collect it, and then return it forfurther revision with the errors either corrected or marked so that studentscan do the corrections

The product approach has come under great criticism due to itsignorance of the actual processes used by students to produce a piece ofwriting Rather, it strongly emphasizes on imitating and producing a perfectproduct As a consequence, the creative ability of students, the veryimportant element that needs developing, is restricted (Clenton, 2006).Another criticism is that this approach asks for constant error correction;therefore, it is said to affect students’ motivation and self-esteem Pincas(1962, p.185) summarizes the backwards of the product approach as “thelearner is not allowed to create in the target language at all; the use oflanguage is the manipulation of fixed patterns; these patterns are learned byimitation”

Despite all those above mentioned shortcomings, it is undeniable thatproduct approach has its strong points in that a final draft free error ofgrammar, spelling and punctuation will be necessary at some point.

2.1.2 Process approach to teaching writing

In the mid 1970s, process approach, comprising of the five stepsprewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing proved to receivegreat recognition among pedagogues and students all over the world.Writing is now viewed as a multistage process with teacher intervention asneeded, and is evaluated according to how well it can fulfill the writer’sintentions (Reid, 1993) While product approach strongly emphasizes onform, process approach considers ideas to be the determining role Inprocess approach, the text or the final product is only “a secondary,derivative concern, whose form is a function of its concern and purpose”(Silva, 1990, p.16)

If writing in product approach is deemed to be a “linear andfragmented procedure” (Hairston, 1982, p.78) with the mere target at anerror free final product, it is “a cyclical process during which writers canmove back and forth on a continuum, discovering, analyzing andsynthesizing ideas” (Hughey, et al., 1983 as cited by Joe, 1999, p.48) Bywriting a series of drafts before coming to a satisfactory final product as aresult of a process of writing, revising and editing, students can step by stepdiscover the way to express their ideas successfully In addition, studentsgain great autonomy “by means of discussion, tasks, drafting, feedback andinformed choices [thereby] encouraging students to be responsible formaking improvements themselves” (Jordan, 1997, cited in Clenton, 2009,

p 2)

To summarize the superiority of process approach to teachingwriting, Jarvis cited Heald-Taylor‘s concise remark that

In Process Writing the communication of the message is paramount and therefore the developing, but inaccurate, attempts at handwriting, spelling, and grammar are accepted, know that within the process of regular writing opportunities students will gian control of these sub-skills These skills are further developed in individual and small group conference interviews.

(Heald-Taylor, 1986, cited in Jarvis, 2002)However, process approach to writing has not always enjoyed suchkind of approval Some of the academic community who advocate that

“student writing must falls within the range of acceptable writing behaviorsdictated by the academic community” (Silva, 1990, p.17) criticize thisapproach due to its main focus on content with the exclusion of focus onform

In conclusion, considering both the strengths and weaknesses ofproduct and process writing approach, it is realized that the two approachesare not necessary to be incompatible On the contrary, it would yield goodresult if process approach and product approach are integratedharmoniously In other words, a reasonable combination of focus on formand content would enable learners to achieve communicative texts that arecreative, persuasive in meaning and precise in form

2.2 Stages in a writing process

While almost teachers share the same view on the essence of processapproach to writing as mentioned in the previous part, dividing and namingthe stages in a writing process seems to be the source of much difference.Hedge (1990) suggests seven stages as follow:

 being motivated to write

 getting ideas together

 planning and outlining

 making notes

 making a first draft

 revising, re-planning, redrafting,

 editing and getting ready for publication

Adapted from Hedge (1990)Slightly different from Hedge, by grouping the first four stages inHedge’s division as prewriting, Brown (1994) divides writing process into

4 stages, namely:

 Prewriting: In this stage, students are supposed to do some activitiessuch as brainstorming, listing, outlining, free writing, gatheringinformation, outlining, etc that help them to generate as many usefulideas relating to the topic as possible Besides, the genre, audienceand format are also taken into consideration in this stage

 Drafting: After doing some activities in the prewriting stage, studentswrite an initial draft by putting their ideas into sentences andparagraphs

 Revising: Once students have finished their first drafts, they now payattention to the ideas, the organization, the structures, the expressions

of ideas and make necessary adjustments

 Editing: After revising their writings in terms of content, studentsnow check for grammar, mechanics and spelling errors

Describing the stages of writing in those ways certainly does notmean that students have to follow the above stages in a precise linearprocess On the contrary, the writing process is recursive, a “cyclicalprocess during which writers move back and forth on a continuum,discovering, analyzing and synthesizing ideas” (Hughley et all, 1983, cited

in Joe, 1999) In other words, students may involve in any previous stageswhile they write For instance, in the drafting stage, a student may comeback to the prewriting stage to reconsider the audience or format of thewriting if he or she feels that it is necessary Besides, time allotment forstages of writing also differs depending on “students’ level of familiarity

with the genre, topic, audience, and format as well as students’ generalfluency in writing” (Schumm,2006, p 383)

Another striking feature of writing process is the different roles andresponsibilities that it assigns for teachers and students If the students arethe “authors” of their own products, the teachers are “mentors” who play animportant role in encouraging and supporting the “authors” throughdifferent stages of writing In addition, the importance of peer and teacherfeedback is strongly emphasized not only in revising stages but if possibleduring all stages of the writing process Especially, teachers are

“responsible for developing a community of authors” in which “studentslearn how to support each other while writing” (Schumm, p.383) In thenext part of the literature review, aspects concerning peer written feedback,the focus of this study are discussed

2.3 The application of peer written feedback in writing classes

2.3.1 A process approach to feedback in writing

Giving feedback can be said to be an indispensable part in processwriting The traditional feedback originating form product approachcharacterized by a concentration on the surface-level mechanic mistakes is

no longer satisfactory in the new orientation of process approach It is theprevalance of process-oriented approach that requires a completelydifferent feedback system, the focus of which is on how to give “reader-based” feedback (Elbow, 1981) and accuracy on forms “is postponed to thefinal stage” (Joe, 1999, p.48)

Not only does the manner of giving feedback change in processapproach, but the roles of teachers and students also become different incomparison to that of product approach Feedback system of processapproach now requires the teacher to play “two roles” as suggested by Joe(1999, p.49) Teachers may first, on one hand, act as helpful facilitatorsgiving students’ support and guidance and, on the other hand, act as

authorities whose critical judgment on their writing products is important

as well Students, in turn, need to discuss, to expand their ideas in response

to their teachers and their peers’ feedback so that they can have betterproducts

Joe (1999, p.53) before presenting a thorough concept of feedback inprocess writing, summarizes the four basic assumptions about givingfeedback as follow:

a FEEDBACK IS RECURRENT

Feedback and response must be incorporated within the writing process asrecursive and cycling events

b FEEDBACK IS INPUT FOR REVISION

Feedback and responses shall always be given as a kind of input for furtherrevision and redrafting

c FEEDBACK IS NOT GRADING

Feedback and response to a writer’s efforts should not be postponed untilthe last stage of the writing process Providing feedback must bedistinguished from grading or making

d FEEDBACK IS GIVEN AS APPROPRIATE

Different kinds of feedback and responses (e.g content-focused and focused) must be given to the writers at different points in the writingprocess as appropriate

form-Talking about the concept of feedback in process writing, it can be said thatthe definition suggested by Joe (1999) is one of the most thorough one:

“Feedback is an indispensable and recursive component of both the teacher’s instruction and the writing process It represents a sense of audience and purpose

in forming the on-going writing process, while establishing a concept of collaborative reader-editor relationship between teacher and student The feedback from the reader-editor appears as input for further reexamination and revision of the prior written work by providing optimum opportunities to develop and refine ideas, and may take various forms such as conference and interview.” (p.53)

The above concept can be seen as the most comprehensive one in thelight of process writing in that it does not just narrow the term feedback asjust of teachers’ work to response to students’ writing but it can also fullycharacterize the work of students “sharing their strategies and their work”(Reid, 1993, p.206) known as peer- editing, peer-review, peer-evaluation,peer- feedback or peer-response on which the researcher of this studyconcentrate Though slightly different, these terms almost indicate the sameactivity To be more convenient for the researcher and the readers as well

as precisely stating the focus of the study, the term peer-feedback will beused consistently throughout this study

2.3.2 Benefits of peer written feedback in writing classes

Talking about the benefits of peer written feedback, anindispensable activity in writing classes, there can be summarized asfollow:

First, peer written feedback can enhance attitudes towards writing,reduce writing anxiety, and increase motivation to write and revise(Chaudron, 1984; Hafernik, 1983; Witbeck, 1976; Fox, 1980) Students’attitude change in that most of the time they are taught effective writing isfor a specific audience and a specific purpose; however, students often fail

to see the importance of these two elements It is a fact that they write toplease a limited audience, their instructors, their teachers for a limitedpurpose, getting good grades Therefore, working with peers helps students

to realize the importance of a wide audience and a specific purpose inhaving good prose If students carry out their writing as isolated writers andthen hand it in to their teachers, they cannot gain a sense of wider audience

as it is in peer written feedback activity where they can interact and ask fortheir friends’ comments (Chaudron, 1984; James, 1981; Lamberg, 1980;Newkirk, 1984)

Second, when practicing peer written feedback, students play the role

of both writers and readers or audience; therefore, this enables students toacknowledge the readers’ needs Moffett (1968) states that the majorobstacle that hinders students from successfully communicating with theirreaders as writers is egocentricity, in which students impose their ideas ontheir readers Flower (1979) labels this egocentric written work “wrier-based pros” and labels the more effective written work which takes readers’feelings into consideration “reader-based prose” By responding critically

to classmates’ works, students get used to thinking critically what theyshould do to betterment their own piece of writing (James, 1981; Koch,1982; Lamberg, 1980; Moore, 1986; Witbeck, 1976)

Third, the application of peer written feedback in writing classeshelps to make the classes’ atmosphere improve once it becomes an integralcomponent in that students now see themselves “ actively involved in theaim of the class: helping each student improve his/her writing skills”(Hafernik, 1983, p.50)

Fourth, peer written feedback can be used as a diagnostic tool and ateaching tool Not only does teachers read students’ drafts to see whatneeds to be improved but they can also see the strengths and weaknesses ofthe editor as a writer from his/her editorial comments For instance, if aneditor after reading his/her friend’s paper and gives a comment that “Thepaper is clear in terms of thesis and enough supporting ideas”; however, infact, the paper does not meet the requirements of thesis or supporting ideas

or both, then he /she may have not grasped these two concepts yet In otherwords, peer feedback can be a means for the teachers to have a thoroughunderstanding of students’ cognitive skills as well as grammatical skills sothat they can provide their students with prompt support

Besides the abovementioned major benefits that peer writtenfeedback offers in writing classes, there still exists some problems One

problem might come from the fact that students, due to the lack ofexperience, tend to correct only surface errors like grammar or spellingrather than semantic or textual ones In addition, the peer evaluators mayhave disagreement resulting from a distrust in their peer’s Englishcompetence or their unfavorable comments toward student-writer’s writing(Jacobs, 1987); therefore, it is necessary to have strategies that help studentmake the most out of this activity.

2.3.3 Strategies for effective implementation of peer written feedback activity in writing classes

Since peer written feedback was widely approved due to its greatbenefits in teaching writing, many teachers and researchers have carried anumber of experiments and studies on how to implement it appropriately,the results of which are some theories as well as the procedures and steps

on how to do peer written feedback In general, those strategies sharedmany same things despite some differences in the focus and the need of theresearchers In the limited scope of a small study, the researcher onlyprovides some popular ones as follow

Saito and Fujta (2004) present three steps in implementing a peerfeedback session: training by modeling, telling the major items tocomment, making comments, each of which is equally important to thesuccess of the activity

Sargent (1997) goes through two more steps in comparison to that ofSaito and Fujta They are: training by modeling including showing majoritems to comment, grouping, commenting and monitoring, teacher’sreflecting

Hansen and Liu (2004) claim that implementing effective peerfeedback needs more stages than it used to They consist of before peerresponse including 13 steps, during peer response and after peer response

In each phase there are different activities

Berg (1999) points out that to make the most out of peer writtenfeedback it is a prerequisite for student to be well prepared Berg hasdeveloped an eleven point preparation program for peer written feedbackand experimented with her students The target of this program is to makestudent first understand the importance of peer written feedback in writing,second, to create a habit of working in groups, third, to guide them onimportant aspects of writing and last to provide students with appropriateway of responding to writing

In sum, it is a matter of fact that different people have differentviews on the procedure or strategies of implementing peer written feedbackand different contexts also require different focuses on certain steps;therefore, teachers should adapt it to suit their own context and their ownpurposes

2.4 Features of good peer written feedback

The above are strategies for successful implementation of peerwritten feedback activity in writing classes hopefully contributing toeffective peer written feedback that can be presented by some certainaspects

According to Hirsh (1977, p.161), helpful feedback should meet therequirements of being non-judgmental and providing students with criteria

on which students can rely to measure their skills, knowledge and validatetheir own feelings or impressions about their performance

Coffin et al (2003, p.101) presents in much more detail crucialcomponents contributing to effective feedback, namely, “positivecomment”, “criticism” and “suggestion for improvements” A combination

of those three elements, according to Ferris & Hedgcock (1998) will yield

“best effects” (p 128) in that while positive comments encourage thewriters, criticism draws the writer’s attention to problematic areas, and asuggestion is necessary for better revision

Beachle & Lian (1990) and Mastropiery & Scruggs (1994), as cited

by Knold & Miller (2004) suppose that useful feedback should be timely,accurate, constructive, outcome-focused, encouraging and positive Inaddition, Mosher (1998) mentions another important aspect relating tofeedback that is using coding schemes Coding schemes in good feedbackmust be clear and understood by the feedback receiver Besides, ambiguousand unobtainable suggestions from feedback giver also decrease theeffectiveness of the feedback

The following will present some above mentioned aspects thatcomprise effective written feedback in detail

2.4.1 Focus of peer written feedback

The shift of teaching writing from product approach to processapproach has also raised another very important issue that is the shift offeedback focus The issue has already been paid much attention to by manyresearchers who advocate that feedback should first focus on the overallproblems of content rather than on form or grammar and mechanical errors

Coffin et al (2003, p.105) states that “Feedback seems to be, and indeed to a certain extent is, about the content of writing” The focus offeedback on surface errors, according to Sommer (1982), may createnegative impact on students in that they will consider correcting grammarand mechanical mistakes their main task when revising their writings,whereas making changes for better improvement in terms of content is theultimate purpose of giving feedback Sharing the same view with Sommer,Deans (n.d) states that focusing on sentence-level at too early stage ofwriting process can hammer substantial revision

With an extreme emphasis on focus on content, Truscott (1996)evens suggests that “grammar correction should be abandoned” (p.360)because “no one can give effective feedback on errors” (p.345) However,

to get the best result, it is believed that a focus both on content and form is

sure to be much more beneficial to students’ writings as “grammaticalinaccuracies can have negative effect on the overall quality of the studentwriting” (Raims, 1992, p.308) Therefore, in order to yield good results,teachers should orient students to focus their attention first on content andthen on form when giving feedback to their peers.

2.4.2 Amount of correction in peer written feedback

As stated above, there should be feedback on both content and formbecause the focus on content only is sure not to make the most of peer-feedback activity What is more, considering the situation of ESL studentswho “are prone to worry about their grammar almost exclusively”(Hafernik, 1983, p.52) the ignorance of feedback on form is impossible.However, the question here is what the appropriate amount of correction is?

It is concluded by Bartram and Walton (1991) that neither over-correctionnor non-correction is beneficial to the writers A paper with full correctionmarks is sure to dishearten the writer’s effort and discourage the revisionprocess a lot However, if the writer receives no correction for the writing,the problem is even more serious because the writer has no suggestion forrevision

Therefore, to reach a balance in the amount of correction, it is highlyrecommended that the feedback givers should select some major mistakes

in the writing and do some correction rather than unnecessarilyoverwhelming the paper with mistake corrections In some cases, thereviewers may warn the writers about the pattern of mistakes so that theycan identify and correct the mistakes on their own

2.4.3 Types of peer written feedback

This part will discuss some major types of peer written feedback:positive feedback & negative feedback, direct feedback & indirectfeedback, text-specific feedback & general feedback These types of

feedback will be presented in pair in terms of their differences, theadvantages and disadvantages of one type over the other

2.4.3.1 Positive feedback versus negative feedback

The contribution of positive and negative feedback to students’progress in revision has long been proved by many researchers Walkclaims that writers need to be given positive feedback to know “what works

in their writing if they are to repeat successful strategies and make them apermanent part of their repertoire as writers” He also points out thatreceiving positive feedback encourages students to try hard to improve theirwriting

In the same way, according to Mosher (1998) negative feedback with

a function to show the writers aspects that need improving in their writing

is sure to bring effective revision However, too much positive feedback ortoo much negative feedback may exert bad influence on the writers in that

“too much praise may confuse, mislead or demotivate students” (Cardelle

& Corno, 1981, as cited from Keh, 2004) while too many criticisms woulddiscourage the writers’ effort to revise the writings Therefore, a balancebetween praise and criticism is suggested to yield “the best effects” asstated by Ferris & Hedgcock (1998, p.128)

2.4.3.2 Direct versus indirect feedback

Direct feedback indicates the identification and explicit correction oferrors found out by feedback givers whereas indirect feedback refers toidentifying without correcting the errors which is considered to be the task

of the writers themselves

Ferris (2002) points out in his study that indirect feedback in mostcases contributes more to student writers’ progress due to its ability toinvolve students in greater cognitive engagement, reflection, guidedlearning and problem solving It is undeniable that when the writer has to

correct the mistakes by themselves, they are more likely to remember themistakes better and able to avoid them in the next writings.

Direct feedback, on the other hand, is considered to deprive theoriginal writer of “the opportunity to learn and improve as a writer”(McMurrey, 2000, p.18) In this form of feedback, all the mistakes arepointed out and corrected; therefore, it stands a high chance that studentsstill make the same mistakes in their future papers (Straub, 1997, cited inMosher, 1998) However, not all the time, direct feedback do harm tostudents On the contrary, in some cases when the mistakes are toocomplicated and challenging, a direct feedback is expected more than anindirect one because the writers are not only shown some directions forcorrection but also avoid disappointment when they can not find ways tocorrect the mistakes themselves

Therefore, a reasonable application of direct and indirect feedbackshould be utilized by the feedback givers so that they can benefit thewriters as much as possible

2.4.3.3 Text-specific feedback versus general feedback

Text-specific feedback according to Ferris & Hedgecock (1998) isfeedback “that is directly related to the text at hand” while general feedback

“can be attached to any paper” (p.133) Therefore, it is highlyrecommended that students give feedback that is unambiguous and closelyrelated to their friends’ writings because “students did not responsefavorably to any comment that they saw as vague or difficult tounderstand” (Straub, 1997, p 102)

What is more, even when the feedback is positive like “You havedone a good job”, it is not sure to bring about effective revision because thewriter can not know what is meant by “good” or what he did perform well

in the task Therefore, the feedback should demonstrate clearly what thewriter has done successfully so that he or she can develop such strong

points in the next writings Besides, a specific feedback not only draws thewriters’ attention to problems in the writing but also offers somesuggestions for improvement as well Clearly, students achieve greatbenefits if the comments are informative and adequate as much as possible

Though text-specific comments are proved to be much morebeneficial to the writer (Fathman& Whalley, (1990); Zamel, (1985)),general comments are deemed to be necessary so that he or she can have ageneral view of his or her performance in the writing In other words, thereshould be both text-specific and general comments included in the feedback

2.4 4 Tone of peer written feedback

Besides showing the writer what to revise in the writing, it isnecessary for the feedback giver to be able to convey his or her suggestions

in a helpful and friendly tone because harsh and bossy comments arecertain to demotivate the student writer to revise no matter how significantthe issue is

The negative feedback as mentioned above is beneficial but thestudent writer can only make the most of such feedback once it isappropriately worded Constructive criticisms are proved to be most useful

if expressed gently and specifically (Reeve, 2005), and students areinclined to accept critique easily if it is originated from positiverespondents rather than destructive ones whose attempt is to impose theirideas on others’ papers (Frus, 2004)

In conclusion, this chapter discusses the literature review of the studyincluding approaches to teaching writing, peer feedback in writing andmajor issues of peer written feedback which serve as the foundation forconducting the research and drawing up some implications

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter introduces the methodology of the study in which theresearch approach, the subjects, the methods of data collection, and themethods of data analysis are presented and elaborated

3.1 Research approach

With a view to achieve the desired aim, in this study a combination

of both quantitative and qualitative method was utilized

Babbie (1983, p.537) defines quantitative method as “the numericalrepresentation and manipulation of observation for the purpose ofdescribing and explaining the phenomena that those observations reflect”

To put it simple, quantitative method helps “seek facts or causes of socialphenomena without regard to the subjective states of the individuals”(Nunan, 1989, p.4) Therefore, this method manifested in the form ofsurvey questionnaires best suits the researcher’s purpose to gain thoroughunderstanding about the current practice of peer written feedback amongthe first year students at the ED-HULIS

However, a shortcoming of quantitative method is the “socialdesirability” in which the choices tend to reflect “what the respondentsreport to feel or believe rather than what they actually feel or believe”(Nguyen, 2007, p.19) Likewise, concerning students’ proficiency in doingpeer feedback, students may in fact be aware of steps that they shouldfollow; however, there might be a discrepancy between what students thinkand how they apply these steps Therefore, to have a panoramic picturefrom data collected through quantitative method, the use of qualitativemethod defined as generally examining people’s words and actions innarrative and descriptive ways (Maykut and Morehouse, 1994) is deemed

to be indispensable in this research It can be seen that while quantitativemethod can bring the researcher reliable data, more validity would be

yielded through rich, real and deep data as long as qualitative method isemployed In this research, qualitative method is based on artifact analysis

of the target subjects’ writing papers and structured interviews It isexpected that structured interviews would serve as a retrospective process

of “observing and reflecting on one’s thoughts, feeling, motives, reasoningprocess and mental stages with the view to determining the ways in whichthese processes and states determine one’s behavior” (Nunan, 1989, p.115)

3.2 Instruments of data collection

3.2.1 Survey questionnaires

3.2.1.1 Objectives

The first method aims at collecting statistical data to answers threeresearch questions: (1) How do first year students at ED-HULIS assess thepractice of peer written feedback?, (2) What problems do studentsencounter when giving peer written feedback? (3) What problems dostudents encounter when interpreting peer written feedback? The dataobtained not only provided the researcher with an overall understandingabout the current situation of peer written feedback but also the foundationfor some pedagogical implications for the practice of giving feedback at theED

3.2.1.2 Selection of participants

The subjects selected for the study include 100 first year studentswho are in the second semester of the academic year 2008/2009 at theEnglish Department, Hanoi University of Languages and InternationalStudies As the researcher anticipated the problems that if thequestionnaires were given to students who were in their classes, the results

of the collected data might be affected due to some factors such as thenoise, students’ concentration on their subject matters…Therefore, studentsliving at the hostels were targeted at with a hope that they would answer thequestionnaires more carefully once they were given much more time and

feel comfortable at their own rooms The researcher after distributing thesurvey questionnaires to students in hostels collected 106 papers back,however, for the sake of convenient data analysis a round number of 100were chosen In addition, because this was a small scale study, this number

of subjects was considered to be manageable and reasonable to theresearcher

3.2.1.3 The survey questionnaires

The survey questionnaire includes two main parts: students’responses as feedback givers and feedback receivers because peer writtenfeedback is, in itself, an interactive activity between two sides Thequestionnaire was mainly consisted of multiple choice questions, openended questions and ranked questions The distribution of thequestionnaires was made in the presence of the researcher so thatclarification and disambiguation could be given timely

3.2.2 Students’ writings analysis

 It provided materials for the retrospective interviews with thestudents at the ED

3.2.2.2 Selection of participants

25 portfolios of students coming from 4 different groups consisting

100 writing papers of peer written and final drafts were borrowed As theresearcher aimed at finding out the current practice of peer feedbackactivity at the ED; collecting the portfolio from 4 random groups wouldguarantee the objectivity of the data obtained

3.2.2.3 Implementation

The procedures of implementing students’ writing analysis can bereported as follow In the first place, the researcher borrowed 25writingportfolios from teachers of 4 groups She then read commented writingpapers and analyzed important aspects such as feedback contents, amount

of mistake correction, feedback tone The researcher also took intoconsideration the revised drafts of the feedback receivers so that she couldhave a thorough judgment of the extent to which students were beneficialfrom their friends’ feedback The findings were then discussedsimultaneously with those of the questionnaires

Four students from 4 groups whose writing portfolios the researcherborrowed for the purpose of data analysis were invited to take part in theinterviews This number was deemed to reasonable in that if it was greaterthe qualitative data would be too enormous for the researcher to manage.

3.2.3.3 Implementation

The interviews were conducted face to face informally in the nativelanguage of both the students and the researcher to create a relaxingatmosphere between the interviewer and interviewees If the students wereinterviewed in English, they might find it hard to successfully convey theirideas; therefore, the researcher could not yield information as specific asexpected During the interview, audio recorder was utilized for benefits that

it offered such as accuracy, time saving All the data were then transcribedand translated into English for data analysis

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 FINDINGS AND INTERPREATIONS FROM STUDENTS’ QUESTIONAIRES AND WRITING ANALYSIS

After analyzing 100 questionnaires and 100 students’ writing papers,the researcher has come up with answers for research questions raised atthe beginning of the study The data obtained from these two instrumentswill be simultaneously presented hereafter What is more, though thequestionnaire surveys were divided into two parts, one for feedbackreceivers and one for feedback givers, the researcher does not present thedata collected separately, rather, she chooses to make a good contrast ofstudents’ attitudes towards peer written feedback activity and theirperformance in two roles: feedback giver and feedback receiver wherepossible

4.1.1 Students’ attitude towards carrying out peer written feedback activity in writing classes (Figure1)

A: Giving peer feedback is a beneficial activity

B: Giving peer feedback is a time consuming and unnecessary activityC: Giving peer feedback is unpleasant (mistake hunters rather than readers)

Before finding the answers to the efficiency of the 1st year students atthe ED in giving peer written feedback to their friends, it is necessary to

87%

A C

have an overview of their opinion on the peer written feedback activityitself The finding showed that when asked, 87% (87 out of 100respondents) considered giving written feedback to their friends to be abeneficial activity in that they can learn a lot from their friends’ writings.The relatively high figure 87% indicates that the majority of the 1st yearstudents at the ED-HULIS actually enjoyed peer-feedback activity and thatthey realized the importance as well as its usefulness in enhancing theirwriting skill.

However, besides 87% of respondents with positive feedback aboutthe activity, there still exists 5% ( 5 out of 100 students) claiming thatgiving peer written feedback is a time consuming and unnecessary activityand 8% (8 out of 100 respondents) thought that giving peer writtenfeedback is unpleasant because they seem to be mistake hunters rather thanreaders The situation may stem from students’ lack of orientation rightfrom the beginning about the essence of peer written feedback activity orperhaps those students could not gain much from the activity as they hadexpected due to the lack of experience in giving peer written feedback Inother words, those students could take no advantage of giving peer writtenfeedback in improving their writing skill

Though the number of students did not have good feedback on thisactivity is quite small in comparison with the big proportion of studentswith positive opinion, it really helps notify teachers at the ED, HULIS toguide students clearly from the onset the essence of this activity as well asintroduce students useful techniques when giving peer written feedbackconcerning focus of the feedback, for instance, so that they can haveappropriate attitude towards carrying out the activity Besides, somestudents may feel it hard to do their tasks as feedback givers due to someproblems originating from themselves; therefore, it would be workable ifthe teacher hold workshops for students to express their difficulties when

giving written feedback to their friends’ writing so that teachers’ supportsare given timely to solve the problems.

4.1.2 Students’ preferences for peer’s English writing proficiency

Figure 2: Students’ preferences for peer’s English writing proficiency as

feedback givers

A: higher writing competence

B: lower writing competence

C: similar writing competence

As pointed out by many previous researches, psychological factorshave great influence on students’ practice of peer written feedback activity.Among those factors, pairing or grouping is an important element To put itsimply, finding students’ preferences towards peers that they want to workwith is deemed to contribute to the effectiveness of peer feedback activity

As for the feedback givers, it is quite a surprise for the research tofind out that 75 out of 100 respondents (75%) stated that they liked givingfeedback to peers whose writing competence is higher than theirs Thisfinding is contradictory to previous result gained from a study concludingthat students are much more in favor of giving feedback to students oflower English writing competence This may be explained in terms ofdifferences in class settings The objectives of the above mentioned areWestern students whose egocentrism is quite high, as a result they may find

75%

13%

12%

A C

it hard to be dominated by friends of higher competence whereas theautonomy of Vietnamese student is not so big; rather they consideredworking with friends of higher English writing proficiency as a chance tolearn from their friends’ good points In addition, this finding is quiteconsistent with result obtained from the first question in which 87 out of

100 respondents claimed that giving peer feedback is a beneficial activitybecause they can learn a lot from their friends’ writings

Likewise, peer feedback activity is a mutual interaction between thefeedback givers and feedback receivers Therefore, it is necessary for theresearcher to consider the feedback receivers’ preference towards peerswho they like working with

78%

A B C

Figure 3: Students’ preferences for peer’s English writing proficiency as

feedback receivers

A: higher writing competence

B: similar writing competence

C: lower writing competence

78% (78 out of 100 respondents) liked receiving feedback from peerswhose writing competence is higher than theirs, no respondent expressedreferences towards working with peers of lower English writingproficiency 22% (22 out of 100 respondents) were in favor of receivingfeedback from peers having the same writing competence Thosepercentages are quite understandable in that psychologically, students tend

to trust and appreciate feedback from friends of higher English competencethan of lower ones for fear that those feedbacks are of little use Forrespondents in favor of grouping with peers of the same competence, theymay find it more relaxing and less of being imposed when receivingfeedback

It can be seen that the majority of students as feedback givers andfeedback receivers expressed their liking to work with peers of higherEnglish writing competence If the teacher can organize students to workwith friends of expected writing proficiency, it would encourage them toenjoy the activity However, in a writing class room setting with students ofdiverse writing competence, it is extremely difficult for the teacher tosatisfy all students’ preferences towards grouping with their peers What ismore, most of the students want to give feedback to students better atwriting than them and in turn, most of the time they trust feedback fromstudents of higher writing competence The question here is what happens

to students of lower writing level? Are their writings not expected to beread by other peers?

Perhaps, it is this way of thinking among students that reduces theeffectiveness of peer written feedback activity Therefore, it is highlyrecommended that the teacher should make students understand theultimate purpose of this activity is to create an environment in whichstudent- writers also playing the roles of student-reviewers help theirfriends improve their writing skills As feedback receivers, students shouldunderstand that even the seemingly worst comments from friends are worthconsidering (Wyrick, 2001) because they do not write for good students toread only In fact, a piece of writing is considered to be successful once it isunderstood by a wide variety of audience Therefore, teachers shouldprepare students mentally to take their friends’ feedback seriously nomatter how the level of the feedback giver is By doing so, students can

have good preparation and stand high chance of enjoying the peer writtenfeedback activity itself.

4.1.3 The frequency that students carried out peer written feedback activity.

Figure 4: The number of friends that students give feedback per each

writing assignment

When students were asked about the number of peers that they oftengave feedback to, the majority of respondents 34% (34 out of 100 students)said that they often response to 2 classmates in each writing assignment.Coming next is 32% (32 out of 100 students) who responded to 3 friends ineach assignment and 20% (20 out of 100 students), 9% (9 out of 100students) reported to respond to 1 and 4 classmates respectively The rest5% reported the number of friends that they gave feedback differed in eachwriting assignment While giving feedback to 2 or 3 friends is considered

to be suitable, it is much more expected for the 20% of students whoreported to response to one peer only to work with more friends so that peerfeedback activity can develop its benefit to create a sense of audience forthe writer Having the draft read by one peer is certain not to provide thestudents with a good impression of how well they perform in their writings

Therefore, it will be more useful if the teachers organize for the students towork in groups of three or four so that they can make the most of thisactivity.

Figure 5: The frequency of giving written feedback on each peer’s draft

Concerning the times students give feedback on per a writingassignment 51% (51 out of 100 respondents) gave feedback only one timefor each friend in a writing assignment 31% (31 out of 100 respondents)commented two times on each of their friends’ writing assignment Therest, 18% (18 out of 100 respondents) gave feedback three times and noneexceeded three times of giving feedback on each piece of writing

It can be seen that the majority of students gave feedback only onetime on each piece of writing for a peer Probably, the lack of timeprevented students from giving more than one time of feedback per awriting assignment In addition, working in large groups of more than 4people (students give feedback to 3 friends), which means that studentshave to comment on 4 pieces of writing at one time may make it impossiblefor the feedback givers to give feedback more than 1 time for each friend

on each piece of writing

The percentage of students giving feedback two times on a writingpaper is 31% As suggested by many researchers, commenting two timesfor a writing paper is a desirable number Therefore, to make the most of

29%

YES NO

this activity, the students should be organized to work in groups withappropriate number of 3 which enables the writer to get a large sense ofaudience and also be given enough thorough feedback for improvement

It is also quite a pleasant surprise to find that there are 18respondents giving three times of feedback to their friends per each writingassignment Though this is quite a small number, it to some extent indicatesthat some students are very dedicated to their duty of giving feedback totheir friends’ writings Besides, it also shows the feedback receivers’ effort

in rewriting their drafts after receiving feedback from their friends Makingthe majority of students increase the frequency of giving feedback on eachwriting assignment up to 3 times for each of their friend is quite difficult oreven impossible; however, this is a positive sing for the implementation ofpeer feedback activity among 1st year student at the ED- HULIS

4.1.4 Teachers’ support for students in doing peer written feedback activity

Figure 6: Teachers’ concern to instruct students on doing peer written

feedback

Acknowledging the importance of teachers’ guideline or support inthe implementation of peer written feedback activity, a question concerningteachers’ role was asked It is really optimistic that 71% (71 out of 100)said that they received teachers’ guidelines on how to give peer written

feedback right from the beginning This high percentage shows thatteachers at the ED-HULIS paid due attention to helping students so thatthey can carry out peer feedback activity with few difficulties

However, beside 71 students who are lucky to be provided withteachers’ guidelines, there still existed 29 students making 29% claimed not

to have such guidelines Though this is not a considerably high percentage,

it is clear that even with students receiving teachers’ instructions still havedifficulties when doing peer written feedback not to say students withoutteachers’ guidelines In the absence of teachers’ support, low effectiveness

of peer feedback activity is quite predictable

Figure 7: Students’ assessment of the effectiveness of teacher’s support

On being asked to assess the extent to which 71 respondents felt theywere beneficial from the teachers’ guidelines, 14 out of 71 respondents saidthat they did not benefit much, 31 out of 71 respondents assessed thebenefit as of average and the rest counting to 26 claimed to benefit quite alot from the guidelines Despite the fact that the majority of studentsreceived teachers’ instructions on how to give peer feedback right from thebeginning, it can be realized that students perceived its usefulnessdifferently

14

31 26

0 0

5 10 15 20 25 30 35

not much average quite a lot very much

The thing that a great proportion of students consider the guidelines

as of average benefit and no students said to benefit very much from theseinstructions might result from the shortage of time and the constraint of thesyllabus that made it impossible for the teachers to train students on how togive peer written feedback carefully Consequently, students can not makethe most of the teacher’ guidelines Though it is a fact that training students

on how to do peer written feedback is quite time consuming, as first yearstudents, if they are sufficiently coached right from the beginning, thebenefits that students can enjoy from the activity is sustainable, whichcertainly will be a good foundation for their study of writing skill in the upcoming years

As mentioned above, to first year students who do not have muchexperience in doing peer written feedback, the support of teacher is anindispensable part in the implementation of this activity Beside initialguidelines or training, teachers spending time making remarks aboutstudents’ feedback on their friends’ writings is considered to be necessary

Figure 8: Teachers’ attention to students’ written feedback to their friends

47 % (47 out of 100 respondents) said that their teacher did remarkremarks on their feedback to their friends and the rest reported to receive

no comments at all Once again the reasons for this may be the lack of timeand heavy workload that prevent teachers from doing this In fact, receiving

47%

53%

YES NO

teachers’ remarks on students’ feedback to their friends can help thefeedback givers know what they have performed well and what should beimproved so that their feedback is more useful to their friends What ismore, when students give comments to their friends’ writings, it is alsoanother way of practicing writing skill In other words, such writtenfeedback is another embodiment of students’ writing skill; therefore,having a look at students’ feedback may help teacher realize problems instudents’ writing skill and give support for better improvements

As the researcher read written feedback samples collected from thestudents, it was not uncommon to come up with wrongly-categorizedmistakes or even the “correction” of completely acceptable expressions.The wording of the feedback sometimes implied students’ problems such as

“Your report is rather abbreviation & clear” etc…In the absence ofteachers’ attention to students’ performance as feedback givers, a greatnumber of students’ mistakes would be passed unnoticed Another reasonthat makes teachers’ judgments on students’ written feedback necessary isthat students will be much more encouraged to fulfill their task as feedbackgivers when knowing that their teacher do care about the way they givefeedback to their friends

For these above benefits, it would be highly desirable for teachers topay due attention to students’ feedback by making remarks or even relying

on students’ written peer feedback as a means of assessing students’writing competence beside students’ writing papers on some certain topics.Perhaps, in the limit of time, teachers reading students’ feedback for thefirst few writings is expected because students may gain more experience

or have good notion of what good peer written feedback is after readingteachers’ responses and can manage themselves once they get used to it

4.1.5 Students’ efficiency in giving peer written feedback

A very important aspect of this study is to find out the 1st yearstudents’ efficiency in giving peer written feedback Given that the studentshad been given some guidelines from the teachers, whether they can fullyapply those instructions in doing peer written feedback or not is also aquestion for which the researcher wants to seek the answer Due to thelimited size of a research paper, only some main factors of peer writtenfeedback are taken into consideration namely focus of peer writtenfeedback, amount of mistake correction, and types of written feedback.

In terms of feedback focus, the respondents are asked to rank 6 items

in the order of the most frequent to the least frequent area that they oftenfocus on when giving feedback The results obtained are as following:Grammar was the most frequent area that students gave feedback on, andthen came content, expression, organization, format and mechanicsrespectively The findings indicate that students focus both on form andcontent in their feedback; however, the big gap between the two percentage(48% in comparison with 23% respectively) revealed that while focus oncontent should be treated with priority in process approach to feedback, the

1st year students at the ED-HULIS still paid most of their attention togrammar or focused primarily on form This may originate from thesituation that although students were aware of the importance of content-focused feedback or in other words they might already realize such acrucial demand for effective written feedback, they probably found it hard

to give feedback on the ideas of the writing Given that first year students atthe ED are quite good at grammar because it is a fundamental requirementfor them to pass the national entrance exam to the university; therefore, tosome extent it is easier for them to generate local comments on surfaceerrors than global comments concerning ideas or organization of thewriting which is a more demanding task However, students’ focus on form

may be also due to their lack of understanding about the requirements ofeffective written feedback as well

The above is what the feedback givers claimed to focus on whengiving peer written feedback In order to have a more thorough look at theissue, the researcher asked students to rank from 1 to 6 in the order of themost frequent to the least frequent area that they often receive writtenfeedback on The result is quite similar to that of feedback givers except forthe reverse order of content and expression The relative similarity in theresults gained from students’ answer as feedback givers and feedbackreceivers indicated considerable reliability of the respondents’ participation

in answering the survey questionnaires, which enabled the researcher to bemore confident when discussing the issue

While the feedback givers claimed to focus on content as the secondmost important area, the feedback receivers stated that the second mostfrequent area that they were often given feedback on was expression Therecan be seen a discrepancy between the two findings Therefore, theresearchers felt a need to consult her findings from students’ writing papersanalysis

It was found that 40% of students’ comments were on grammar, thencame expression with 18,84% and next was content with 13,17% Thosewere the three highest areas that students focused on when giving writtenfeedback There was a correlation between the researchers’ finding throughstudents’ writing analysis and the feedback receivers’ answers, whichrevealed that though students were aware of their need to focus on contentwhen giving feedback, they still had problems generating such contentfocused comments, rather they passed comment on grammar andexpression including sentence structures or word choices It is quite clearthat not everyone can give feedback on macro-issue such as content or theorganization of the writing because this depends on the feedback givers’

writing competence On the other hand, the feedback on grammar or wordchoice to some extent is much safer and easier to be given Therefore, tohelp students focus on content when giving feedback, the teacher shouldencourage students to give feedback two times on each of their friends’writing The first time of feedback is only for issues relating to the contentand the organization; then the second time of feedback is on surface errors

of the writing Once students have created a habit of concentrating onfeedback on content first, they can reduce the times of feedback to one per

a writing assignment

Figure 9: Students’ preference for amount of mistake correction

A: pointing out and correct all the mistakes identified

B: pointing out all the mistakes but correct only the major ones

C: pointing out the mistakes and let their friends correct by themselvesD: pointing out and correct major mistakes only

E: pointing out only major mistakes and let their friends correct themselvesF: only writing general comments and let their friends revise all thewritings

G: ignoring all the mistakes

Concerning the amount of mistake correction, 49 % (49 out of 100students) chose to point out and correct all the mistakes that they canidentify This approach to error treatment has long been proved not to bring

about effective revision in that receiving a paper with too many mistakespointed out by their friends may discourage the writers’ efforts to revise thewritings What is more, the 1st year students tend to focus on feedback onform rather on content; therefore, this approach seems to perpetuate thenegligence of students towards comments on ideas and organization

Another approach that 20 % (20 out of 100 students) chose was topoint out all the mistakes and let their friends correct the mistakesthemselves To some extent, this method is an indirect form of feedbackwhich requires the feedback receiver to work harder than the method ofpointing out and correcting all the mistakes However, this approach tomistake treatment poses a threat to disappoint the students when they cannot correct the mistakes themselves and thus the very first essence of peerfeedback activity in which students help each other in better their writingskill is played down

Taking the third biggest proportion was the choice to point out all themistakes but correct only the major ones with 16% (16 out of 100 students).This way of feedback is considered to be a much more practical approach

to mistake correction in comparison with the above two ways However,the desirable approach to point out and correct major mistakes only did notgain much favor among the 1st year students at ED-HULIS The evidence isthe fact that only a small proportion of 5 % (5 out of 100 respondents)reported to adopt this approach The same percentage said that they oftenpointed out only major mistakes and let their friends correct themselves.This might help motivate the writers to revise their writing but once again

as mentioned above, this way of mistake correction may be counterproductive in that the writer may be demotivated when encounteringmistakes difficult to correct

Indirect type of feedback that implying there are mistakes in thewriting without pointing out was chosen by only 3 respondents, taking a

small proportion of 3 % It can be seen that students are not accustomed totreating their friends’ mistakes indirectly Perhaps they are afraid that theirfriends would consider them to be lazy feedback givers or even skepticalabout their competence as well The same reason may be cited to explainfor the minority of respondents who chose to ignore the mistakes because

of their focus on content not on form In other words, the 1st year students

at the ED actually focus on both form and content when giving writtenfeedback to their friends Nevertheless, considering the pros and cons ofthose above mentioned approaches to mistake correction, coaching students

to point out and suggesting corrections for some major mistakes in theirfriends’ writings would be the most practical one, otherwise the studentswill lack concentration on feedback on content

The next aspect that the researcher wants to find out relating tostudents’ efficiency when giving written feedback is whether they utilizedboth positive and negative feedback in their comments or not

Figure 10: Students’ preferences for positive and negative feedback

A only point out weaknesses

B only point out good points

C point out good points first and weaknesses later

D point out weaknesses first and good points later

18 1

2

50 5

19 5

0 10 20 30 40 50 60