The effects of peer feedback on the first year students’ writing performance

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỒNG HOÀNG MINH THE EFFECTS OF PEER FEEDBACK ON THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS’

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỒNG HOÀNG MINH

THE EFFECTS OF PEER FEEDBACK ON THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS’ WRITING PERFORMANCE: AN ACTION RESEARCH

PROJECT AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY

Ảnh hưởng của phản hồi từ bạn học đến kỹ năng viết tiếng Anh của sinh viên

năm thứ nhất đại học Luật Hà Nội

MA MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỒNG HOÀNG MINH

THE EFFECTS OF PEER FEEDBACK ON THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS’ WRITING PERFORMANCE: AN ACTION RESEARCH

PROJECT AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY

Ảnh hưởng của phản hồi từ bạn học đến kỹ năng viết tiếng Anh của sinh viên

năm thứ nhất đại học Luật Hà Nội

i

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY

I declare that this thesis submitted for the Master of Art degree at the University of Languages and International Studies is a presentation of my own research and has not been previously submitted at any other universities for any degrees Wherever contributions of other researches are involved, every effort is made to indicate this clearly, with due reference to the literature, and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussion The work was done under the guidance of Associate Professor Nguyen Van Trao, at Hanoi University

I would like to send my sincere thanks to my colleagues and the first year students at Hanoi Law University who have enthusiastically filled out my survey questionnaire and provided me with their writing papers Without their assistance, it would have been really difficult for me to handle the task

I own a great debt of gratitude to my family for all the support I received to finish this thesis

iii

ABSTRACT

Peer feedback plays an essential part in enhancing students’ writing skills The reality of the students’ writing performances at Hanoi Law University suggests that they still repeat common writing mistakes after their writing products are reviewed carefully by the teachers

This study is aimed at finding out students’ attitudes towards the use of peer feedback activities in English writing classes and the extent peer feedback affects their writing performances An action research project, realized by means of survey questionnaire and student writing analysis, was conducted in this study to achieve the desired aims

The results indicate that the students hold positive attitudes towards peer feedback activities in learning English writing and a large number of them will continue to use peer feedback in the future The analysis of the students’ writing papers show that the students made considerable improvement in writing English under the application of peer feedback in learning process In addition, the number

of writing mistakes in the students’ writing papers sharply fell after the action research

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 3

2.1 Aims of the study 3

2.2 Objectives of the study 3

3 Research questions 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 4

7 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 Theoretical background to the teaching of writing 6

1.1.1 Definition of writing 6

v

1.1.2 Approaches to the teaching of writing: product versus process approaches

7

1.2 Peer feedback in writing teaching 8

1.2.1 Definition of feedback 8

1.2.2 The importance of corrective feedback 9

1.2.3 Types of feedback 10

1.2.4 Definition and types of errors 12

1.2.5 The training section 13

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 Research method 17

2.2 Data collection instruments 19

2.2.1 Questionnaire 19

2.2.2 Students’ writing analysis 21

2.3 Participants of the study 21

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 23

3.1 Answer to the first research question: What are the students’ attitudes towards peer feedback in English writing skills learning? 23

3.1.1 Data collected from questionnaires 23

3.2 Answer to the second research question: To what extent does the use of peer feedback affect the students’ writing performance? 36

3.2.1 Data collected from first drafts and revised drafts of the writings 36

3.3 Summary 40

PART C: CONCLUSION 41

1 Summary of the major findings 41

vi

3 Limitations of the study 43

4 Recommendations for further studies 43

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

HLU: Hanoi Law University

L1: First Language

L2: Second Language

viii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Error codes 14

Figure 1: The students’ involvement in peer feedback

before its application in class 23

Figure 2: The students’ involvement in peer feedback

after its application in class 24

Figure 3: The focuses of peer feedback per different aspects before its application in class 25

Figure 4: The focuses of peer feedback per different aspects after its application in class 25

Figure 5: Reasons why students do not understand their peer feedback 27

Figure 6: Students’ reactions when they do not understand peer feedback 28

Figure 7: The students’ attitudes towards the effect of peer feedback before its application in class 29

Figure 8: The students’ attitudes towards the effect of peer feedback after its application in class 29

Table 2: The reasons why the students found peer feedback useful before and after the application (data from the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire) 30 Table 3: The reasons why the students found peer feedback not useful before and after its application (data from the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire) 34

Figure 9: The students’ opinions on their future use of peer feedback 35

ix

Table 4: The scores for first drafts of the writing……… 35 Figure 10: The scores for first drafts of the writings 37 Table 5: The scores for revised drafts of the writings 37 Table 6: The results from the first drafts and revised drafts of the students’ writings 38 Figure 11: Number of errors in different aspects in the students’ first drafts and revised drafts 39

& Corder, 1974, p.23), (cited in Abisamra, 2003)

The reality of teaching English writing at Hanoi Law University (HLU) has shown that the students face many problems with their academic writing After some discussions with other English teachers of English Division at HLU, I found out that students’ writing performances in English classes were very poor and the results of their writing tests were fairly low The teachers of English at HLU highlighted that the students frequently made basic errors in their writing They also stated that the students made little and slow improvement in writing even after lectures and tutorials in class Although their writing papers were often carefully corrected by the teachers, they still repeated common mistakes Therefore, the students were afraid of learning writing

On carefully considering the students’ problems of English writing and the potential causes, I made an assumption that the traditional academic writing classes deter the students from performing excellently in their English writing classes Thus, the teachers need to motivate their students and create interest in English writing To do that, the teachers should offer the students chances to communicate

in fulfilling writing tasks and make a friendly and comfortable learning atmosphere Furthermore, in order to enhance the students’ writing quality, the teachers are

2

likely to assign more writing practice tasks, which allow the students to do revision and exchange their writing papers with their partners in class

It is important for both teachers and students to accept the fact that errors are

an inevitable part of the learning process (Davies and Pearse, 2002) That is why errors are often a sign of learning in language acquisition process In reality, feedback plays an integral part in students’ writing ability As a teacher of English, I have been constantly searching for appropriate methods to help the students become more confident in writing I share a view with Hedge (2000) that “learners progress faster with meaningful language practice in a rich linguistic environment and with

an informed policy of error correction on the part of the teacher” (p.15)

In the writing instruction in the EFL/ESL context, teachers meet some difficulties in correcting the students’ errors in writing papers The teachers have to endure huge workload of correcting writing mistakes of all sorts due to the large number of students Furthermore, the students normally pay attention to the marks they receive rather than the mistakes corrected by teachers Worst of all, if a student’s writing paper is full of red ink, he may be frustrated and his interest and confidence in learning may be destroyed (Harmer, 2007, p 120) Therefore, teachers should find out more effective ways to enhance their writing teaching and improve the students’ writing ability

Besides the traditional teacher feedback, peer response has been proved to be

an effective type of feedback because it gives opportunities for students to write for

an immediate audience apart from the teacher, familiarize themselves with actual readers who critically respond to their work, boost their confidence, and work collaboratively (Hairston & Keene, 2003) Because of the tendency of communicative language teaching and learner-centered teaching, students are strongly encouraged to actively participate in language teaching As a result, peer feedback has become increasingly popular among the practitioners Peer feedback is also regarded as a method to improve writing skill for the students at HLU This

3

study is an attempt to examine the effects of peer feedback on the students’ writing performance at this university

2 Aims and objectives of the study

2.1 Aims of the study

As the title suggests, the overarching aim of this thesis is to investigate the effects of peer feedback on the students’ writing performance at HLU

2.2 Objectives of the study

To achieve the above aim, the following objectives are set for exploration:

a to investigate the students’ attitudes towards peer feedback

b to examine the extent the use of peer feedback affects the students’ writing performance

c to suggest some recommendations to enhance the quality of peer feedback at HLU

4 Scope of the study

The researcher will deal with peer feedback on the first year students at HLU Moreover, within the framework of this minor thesis, the study examines only peer written feedback but not other types of feedback such as oral feedback

5 Methods of the study

4

The study adopts qualitative and quantitative method for data collection and data analysis Document analysis of students’ peer feedback drafts with peer feedback is done to find out how the students provide peer feedback to their peers’ writing Then, the students’ first drafts are compared with their second drafts to see

if peer feedback helps them improve their writing Furthermore, a survey questionnaire was administered on the students to examine their attitudes towards peer feedback in writing lessons

6 Significance of the study

The findings of the present study are hoped to contribute a new implication

to teaching EFL writing, particularly to the area of error treatment If peer feedback

is proven to be useful, it will be practiced as an alternative method to treat errors in the students’ writing, and thus to improve the students’ writing performance

7 Design of the study

The thesis consists of three parts, namely Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Chapter 1: Literature Review provides an overview of the writing teaching, errors

in general and peer feedback in particular

5

Chapter 2: Methodology presents the participants of the study, the research

instruments, the data collection procedure and the data analysis procedure from which answers to the research questions could be found

Chapter 3: Data Analysis and Discussion analyze the data collected from the survey

questionnaire and document analysis and present discussions with regards to the findings presented

Part C: Conclusion

In this part, the major findings, some recommendations, limitations of the

research as well as suggestions for further study are presented

The appendices are the last part of the study following the reference

in a particular order and linked together in certain ways Writing is a process of discovery when the writers try to find their way by managing to think, compose and put their ideas together

In their study to examine the cognitive effort of students while writing, Olive, Favart and Beauvais (2009) found that the cognitive effort interacted with genres They showed that students’ cognitive writing effort decreased or increased when writing certain types of texts such as argumentative and narrative texts The writers are likely to discover an idea which is new to him and he has never thought

of before during the process of writing Zamel (1983) argued that writers discover and formulate ideas as they go through the process of writing For that reason, writers should be placed in writing situations that require authentic use of language

to communicate

In short, writing is a complex process which involves a number of separate skills from the basics of handwriting and spelling to the nuances of tone and organization (Veit, Gould & Clifford, 2001) Thus, to produce a piece of writing,

Process approach is concerned with the processes of writing that enable the product to be achieved In this approach, writing is no longer regarded as a “linear and fragmented procedure” (Hairston, 1982, p 78) with the mere target at an error free product The aim of writing, as stated by Stewart (1988, as cited in Joe, 2006, p.48), is a written communication with the writer himself, with his fellow leaners, with his teacher and with his intended readers Thus, the key role of writing is the idea/the meaning rather than the form Students are given instructions on how to generate ideas for writing, identify the purpose and audience and write a series of drafts so as to present written products that communicate their own ideas In this way, students can gradually discover how to express their ideas efficiently In

on peer feedback of students’ writing

1.2 Peer feedback in writing teaching

1.2.1 Definition of feedback

Keh (1990) defined feedback as “any input from a reader to a writer that provides information to the writer for revision” (p 294) In other words, it is the comments, questions, and suggestions a reader gives a writer in order to produce reader-based prose as opposed to writer prose

Hyland and Hyland (2001) considered feedback as “a formative development process that gives writers the opportunities to discuss their texts and discover others’ interpretations of them” (p 6) According to Ur (1996, p 242), feedback is the process of giving information to the learner about his or her performance of a learning activity in order to improve this performance

The definition given by Liu and Hansen (2002) is seen as the most comprehensive one According to them, feedback is the use of learners as information sources and communications with each other In this way, learners are

in charge of roles normally taken on by teachers in giving comments on and criticizing each other’s drafts in both written and oral formats in the process of writing” (p.75)

9

1.2.2 The importance of corrective feedback

The aim of giving corrective feedback is to help the students find out a problem with their production, thereby using the correct form following feedback According to Hyland (2004), students can enhance particular grammatical features through corrective feedback within communicative second language programs

Peer feedback is often considered as the process of giving students a chance

to “read and constructively criticize each other’s writing.” (Jacobs, 1987, p.325) Students can identify their own strengths and weaknesses through the comments, and later on will make students realize how to improve themselves Tsui and Ng’s (2000) also affirmed that students are likely to get a genuine sense of audience, a sense of ownership of the text, and awareness of the weaknesses of their own writing The significance of corrective feedback is also stressed by Cole and Chan (1994) They said that feedback can be either positive or negative and may function

as not only letting learners know how well they have performed but also increasing encouragement and creating a supportive classroom atmosphere The objective of corrective feedback is to help the learners identify problems with their production and they can use the correct form after feedback Hyland (2004) claimed that students can improve particular grammatical features through corrective feedback within communicative second language programs With regard to the teachers’ benefit, corrective feedback can save teachers’ time, especially in large classes

Many researchers have given different definitions of feedback in language learning In fact, almost all of these definitions state that “feedback is what learners get about the quality of their production on a given task, knowledge of results, comments on skill performance, notes on writing assignments, approving nod and forms of feedback that teachers often used with learners” Wlodkowski & Jaynes (1990, p.93) In summary, providing feedback helps students develop their sensitivity and their writing style In other words, feedback is a significant factor of

10

a writing approach when it motivates the learners through the writing process on to the final product

1.2.3 Types of feedback

1.2.3.1 Direct and Indirect feedback

Ferris (2002) suggest that several options are often used in teachers’ corrective feedback, such as direct versus indirect, error location versus error identification, larger versus smaller categories of errors, codes versus symbols versus verbal comments, textual corrections versus end notes and so on Direct feedback is explicit correction in response to errors when the teacher finds out an error and provides the correct form, while indirect feedback might take various forms like omitting a redundant word or phrase; inserting a missing word or adding the correct form near the wrong one With indirect feedback, the teacher points out that an error has been made but does not provide a correction For direct feedback, what students need to do is to transcribe their peers’ corrections into the texts On the other hand, indirect feedback give students the opportunity to fix errors themselves (Ferris, 2002)

According to Lalande (1982), indirect feedback is greatly effective in students’ writing than direct feedback Indirect feedback often leads to better cognitive engagement, reflection, guided learning and problem-solving It provides feedback on errors, advising students about the location of errors but forcing them

to figure out the way to correct the mistakes on their own In the long run, it helps encourage students’ critical thinking and the ability to self-edit their writing products Besides, students will remember the mistakes better if they have to correct these errors by themselves As a result, the students are likely to avoid them in the future

However, some researchers have stated that students did not perceive recasts

as corrective feedback; instead, they regarded direct feedback as simple repetitions

11

of their utterances due to their implicitness and ambiguity (Lyster & Ranta, 1997) Inspite of that limitation, many teachers prefer recasts as corrective feedback in the L2 classroom because of the benefits of providing recasts The direct feedback should be provided for complicated mistakes so that learners of low level of language proficiency find it easier Furthermore, recasts can provide correct forms without risking embarrassing the learners (Ellis & Sheen, 2006; Lyster, 2004) 1.2.3.2 Text-specific feedback versus general feedback

Text-specific feedback refers to the feedback which has close relation to the text at hand while general feedback adheres to any paper Regarding the issue of text-specific feedback or general feedback, most researchers agree that text-specific feedback is of greater benefits to students than general feedback According to Seow (2002), text-specific response will facilitate students reclaiming meanings and make the revision of initial drafts easier As text-specific feedback accurately states the kinds of mistakes students make, the causes of these mistakes and also makes some recommendations for improvement; it is more likely that the errors are corrected properly According to Reid (1993), the feedback should be “detailed enough to allow students to act, to commit to change their writings” (p 218) On the other hand, general feedback is also necessary in order for students to have a general view of their writing Therefore, text-specific and general feedback should

be combined together to enhance the quality of students’ writings

1.2.3.3 Feedback focus on form versus on content

The problem of how teachers should respond to students’ writings is controversial and there is little agreement among researchers about the type of feedback to help students improve their writing skill Much of the conflict over teacher response has been whether feedback should focus on form (e.g., grammar, mechanics) or on content (e.g., organization, amount of detail)

12

A few studies have concentrated on content alone Huntley (1992) affirmed that feedback on content should be provided to students while feedback on form should be limited and she suggests that peer feedback and student-teacher conferences need to be incorporated in teaching as two important feedback methods

to traditional error correction In other words, these views imply that there should be more content feedback than form feedback between first and final drafts of writing products

In contrast, some findings have found that the teacher should pay more attention to focus on form rather than focus on content Enginarlar (1993), after a survey of 47 EFL students’ attitudes towards the feedback procedure process in their class, found out that the students perceive attention to linguistic mistakes as effective teacher feedback Ferris (1995) conducted surveys of students’ attitudes towards feedback in an EFL context and also reached the same conclusion that students preferred feedback focusing on form

1.2.4 Definition and types of errors

A number of experts in linguistics have given various definitions of errors Norrish (1983) considers errors as a systematic deviation, when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong According to Norrish, errors can be categorized into three types, namely the error, the mistake and the lapse After a learner is taught the language form, he or she may be able to use it appropriately or not The inconsistent deviation is termed mistake The type of wrong usage which is neither an error nor a mistake is a lapse The reasons for a lapse might be lack of concentration, shortness of memory, fatigue and so on However, many teachers also name a similar type of mistake caused by the learner’s inattentiveness in class a careless slip

Chomsky (1965) categorized errors into two types, competence errors and performance errors Competence errors are systematic errors in the linguistic

13

system of the learner, while performance errors are just an imperfect reflection of the learner’s linguistic competence The occurrence of performance errors does not mean that the learner does not know the language In fact, errors occur due to such factors as tiredness, drunkenness or external distraction

Errors can also be classified into another two types in relation to comprehensibility (Burt and Kiparsky, 1972) The two types are “global” and

“local” errors, which are also known as communicative and non-communicative errors respectively (Hendrickson, 1978) The global or communicative errors are the mistakes affecting the interpretation of the whole sentence, while the local or non-communicative ones are just a part of it, a clause or a phrase Errors that cause irritation but do not prevent comprehension are recommended to receive a lower priority of treatment than those hindering comprehension or deceiving the listeners Therefore, the “global” errors, rather than the “local” ones deserve most attention and correction On the other hand, there remains a risk that when a foreign language learner could be well understood by well-meaning native speakers in spite of the errors, the errors will become an enduring component of the learner’s competence 1.2.5 The training section

Training the respondents on this technique is necessary so that they have a clear understanding of what peer feedback is and how to carry it out In the first lesson, there was a training stage for learners so that they have an idea of what peer correction is and how to do it According to Raimes (1983, p 147), training learners

on this technique is vital because it directs students’ attention to the elements which should be focused on Stanley (1992, p 230) also stated that it is unfair to require students to be able to carry out these challenging tasks without being offered organized practice with and discussion of the skills involved Thus, the theory and the results of this study strongly support the training to the students in the process of applying peer feedback in writing class One class-time period training was spent to equip students with the technique of peer correction and facilitate the action

14

research Common error correction codes were used for both teacher and students during the training as well as the treatment period The teacher always cares about clearly explaining and giving examples to make sure that they were all explicit to the students

First, the students were trained how to correct their peers’ writings using correction codes by a checklist which is demonstrated in the table below:

Table 1: Error codes

SV Subject – Verb agreement He do the job every morning

watching TV

Run-on Run-on sentence The ship was enormous, its mast was

almost 40 feet high

15

English

According to Bell (1991), some learners might find it very discouraging if they get a piece of written work back and it is covered in red ink, underlining and crossings-out Therefore, the use of codes for peer correction could help them avoid this unwanted feeling

Zhang (2008) suggested that teachers should help students to know what to

do and how to do in the peer correction activities He recommends to supply students with a passage or a paragraph as a model and instruct them how to give feedback It is vital at this stage to state that peer feedback is not only to correct grammar mistakes but also to think from several perspectives such as the content, the organization, vocabulary, mechanic and the grammar

After that, the teacher provided students with a model checklist in order to introduce what to comment on The teacher delivered copies of a writing test in which errors were corrected with correction codes by the teacher The students read all these copies carefully and discuss together to understand clearly how to give peer feedback appropriately Afterwards, all the participants taking part were provided with a short paragraph with errors on it They were to proofread the paragraph and correct all the mistakes using the correction codes provided in 15 minutes Then, the teacher collected all the papers to review and give comments to the students The sample paragraph and sample correction are presented below:

16

The improved version of this paragraph will be like this:

Jaime ^ been applying for full–time jobs for several months TheRlast week he

received a call from the Human Resources director at a computer software

companyRun-on the HR director asked Jaime ^ he could fly to Chicago for a job

interview The company offered to pay for Jaime’s plane ticket to Chicago, so that he will not have to pay for it himself Jamie agreed to come for the interview Since then,

Jaime has been busy collecting informatonSpabout the company He also went shopping for a new suiteSp.Jaime and his wife have been rehearsing answers to possible interview questions, so that Jaime will be good and ready his bestWC Jaime

is nervous about the interview, buthisWClooking forward to working at a new place

Jaime has been applying for full-time jobs for several months Last week, he received

a call from the Human Resources director at a computer software company The HR director asked Jaime if he could fly to Chicago for a job interview The company offered to pay for Jaime’s plane ticket to Chicago, so that he will not have to pay for it himself Jamie agreed to come for the interview Since then, Jaime has been busy collecting information about the company He also went shopping for a new suit Jaime and his wife have been rehearsing answers to possible interview questions, so that Jaime will be prepared Jaime is nervous about the interview, but he’s looking forward to working at a new place

17

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research method

In this study, action research was adopted to achieve the stated research aims Action research can be defined as “a process in which participants examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research” (Watts, 1985, p 118) Action research can be a worthwhile pursuit for educators for a number of reasons First, action research gives educators new opportunities to reflect on and assess their teaching Also, they can explore and test new ideas, methods and materials and assess how effective the new approaches were Moreover, action research helps educators share feedback with fellow team members and make decisions about which new approaches to include in the practice Through action research, teachers learn about themselves, their students, their colleagues and can determine ways to continually improve as action research projects influence thinking skills, sense of efficacy, willingness to share and communicate, and attitudes towards the process of change In addition, educators involved in action research become more flexible in their thinking and more open to new ideas (Pine, 1981)

Within all the definitions of action research, there are four basic themes: empowerment of participants, collaboration through participation, acquisition of knowledge and social change In order to conduct an action research project, we structure routines for continuous confrontation with data on the health of a school community These routines are loosely guided by movements through five phases of inquiry namely identification of problem area, collection and organization of data, interpretation of data, action based on data and reflection

The first phase is identifying a problem area It is necessary for teachers to limit the questions which they want to investigate to one that is meaningful and achievable in the confines of their daily work Careful planning is vital to avoid

in which the researcher uses the information from the data collection and review of current literature to design a plan of action, make a change and study that change It

is vital that only one variable be altered Finally, the results are evaluated by assessing the effects of the intervention to decide whether improvement has been made Furthermore, the researcher must determine if the data clearly provide the supporting evidence when improvement is made and what changes can be made to the actions to get better results

The action research was conducted during the period of 10 weeks The first stage of the action research is to deliver the pre-questionnaires to the students The students spent about twenty minutes completing the questionnaires The post-questionnaires were administered to the students after the use of peer feedback activities in their classes in order to identify the changes in their attitudes towards peer feedback method after its application in writing classes Another stage is to evaluate the students’ writing performance In the first week of the research, the researcher spent one class period training the respondents what peer feedback is and how they can use peer feedback The teacher also introduced useful correction codes and expressions that the students could use to review their peers’ writings

19

Then, they were provided with a short paragraph with errors on it They were to proofread the paragraph and correct all the mistakes using correction codes provided The researcher finally supplied a sample correction In the next weeks of the research, the respondents were administered to a test They were asked to finish the writing test in one class period for about 60 minutes and all of their first draft writings were collected The researcher marked all the writings and counted the number of mistakes on them Afterwards, the first drafts were delivered to another student in class for peer feedback and comments The students received their first draft writings back and made necessary changes into the revised versions of the writings After that, the revised versions were collected by the researcher to compare the results of the two versions to find out if the students made any improvement in their writing The researcher also marked the revised versions and counted the mistakes caused by the respondents after getting peer feedback for their writing papers

2.2 Data collection instruments

2.2.1 Questionnaire

In this study, the researcher used questionnaires as a data collection instrument because of many reasons First, questionnaires help researchers obtain a large amount of information from a wide range of individuals Then, questionnaires give researchers a chance to find the answers to the questions they want to know Furthermore, questionnaires are clearly one of the most objective means of collecting data because students are likely to express their own opinions without fear to be embarrassed or punished and they are not obliged to disclose their names when filling in the questionnaires The questionnaire consists of a variety of questions of different types such as multiple choice questions, ranking questions, yes/no questions and open ended questions

20

This present study used a pre-questionnaire and a post-questionnaire The pre-questionnaires and post-questionnaires were administered to the students in order to find out the students’ attitudes towards peer feedback in writing lessons

The pre-questionnaire investigates the extent of using peer feedback and the opinions of the students about that kind of feedback Furthermore, the students were asked to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of peer feedback in writing The post-questionnaire has the same format and content with the pre-questionnaire, which evaluates the change in the students’ attitudes towards peer feedback after peer feedback is applied The pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire include 10 questions

Question 1 examines the frequency of peer feedback in the students’ writing lessons

Question 2 aims to find out the aspects of writing that peer feedback usually focuses

2.2.2 Students’ writing analysis

The students were administered to a test The test was conducted in order to investigate the students’ writing ability Then, the writing papers of the students were delivered to their partners for peer feedback and the students would receive the writing products back to revise Their pieces of writing, including the first drafts as well as the second drafts were then collected by the researcher The copies of the test papers would be kept by the researcher as evidence for data analysis process

By analyzing the students’ writings with their peer feedback and the revised versions, the research is likely to obtain the information about the students’ attitudes towards peer feedback in writing and the extent peer feedback can improve the students’ writing performance

2.3 Participants of the study

The research was conducted on 60 first year students in class N01 and class N02 at Hanoi Law University Their ages are from 19 to 20 and their levels of English vary from pre-intermediate, intermediate to upper-intermediate They are from different areas of Vietnam and all of them learned English from seven to eight years at school There are 47 females and 13 males in class N01 and N02 and their

22

major at university is English Most of the respondents did not learn English writing skill at secondary and high school before starting their study at university All of them learned English grammar and reading in order to revise for the entrance exam

to the university Despite the fact that a great number of students had very good or excellent English grammar knowledge, they could not write an English paragraph or essay which is grammatically accurate Some of them were likely to write full sentences, but they did not know how to connect separate sentences into a whole passage logically It turned out that the respondents lacked necessary skills in writing such as brainstorming ideas, making an outline, organizing and structuring

an essay and editing the writing papers Therefore, they had a lot of troubles in learning writing skill and their writing products were often difficult for the readers

to understand

23

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Answer to the first research question: What are the students’ attitudes towards peer feedback in English writing skills learning?

3.1.1 Data collected from questionnaires

3.1.1.1 The students’ involvement in peer feedback before and after its application

in class

Figure 1: The students’ involvement in peer feedback

before its application in class

The first question was to find out how often students received peer feedback

in their writing paper As could be seen from Figure 1, a large percentage of 61.7%

of the respondents stated that they sometimes received peer feedback, while merely 8.3% and 6.7 % of them agreed they never and always got peer feedback from their partners respectively The remaining 23.3% of the students stated that they often received peer feedback It proves that peer feedback was not used widely by the students before its application in class

It is clear from Figure 2 that the proportion of the students’ participation in peer feedback activities witnessed considerable changes after its application The