The implementation of selt and peer assesssment in an academic writing course at the faculty of english linguistics and literature, the university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national uni

ABSTRACT The present study is a qualitative case study with the aim of exploring the self and peer assessment practices implemented in an Academic Writing Course at the Faculty of Englis

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES – HO CHI MINH CITY

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

- 000 -

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SELF AND PEER ASSESSSMENT IN AN ACADEMIC WRITING COURSE AT THE FACULTY OF

ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE,

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HO CHI MINH CITY

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s Degree in TESOL

By

PHAM NGOC KIM TUYEN

Supervised by

NGUYEN THI HONG THAM, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SELF AND PEER ASSESSMENT

IN AN ACADEMIC WRITING COURSE AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE, THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL

SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,

HO CHI MINH CITY

In terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degrees or diplomas in any other situations

Ho Chi Minh City, September 11, 2017

Phạm Ngọc Kim Tuyến

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Phạm Ngọc Kim Tuyến, being the candidate for the degree of Master

in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis

Ho Chi Minh City, September 11, 2017

Phạm Ngọc Kim Tuyến

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Nguyen Thi Hong Tham,

my supervisor for her kind support and useful advice, without which I could not have finished this thesis

Second, I am greatly thankful to the teacher in charge of the Academic Writing Class for her consent to implement self and peer assessment as her class activities I also gratefully thank her 24 students for their active participation in the self and peer assessment activities, and their responses to the questionnaires and interviews Without all their help and support,

I could not have completed my research

My most sincere thanks also go to my colleagues, friends, and students who continuously encouraged me and gave me a great deal of mental support Thanks to them, I felt more motivated and resilient to move forward to the last minute of the thesis writing

Finally, I could not have finished my thesis without the priceless support from my husband and the other family members They helped to take care of my kids and housework, offering me more chance and time to work on the thesis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS .ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS .iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF FIGURES .ix

ABTRACT .x

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .1

1.1 Background to the study .1

1.2 Aims of the study .4

1.3 Research questions .4

1.4 Significance of the study .4

1.5 The organization of the thesis .5

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .6

2.1 SAPA in ELT .6

2.1.1 Definitions and characteristics of SAPA in ELT .6

2.1.2 Theoretical issues on SAPA .9

2.1.2.1 SAPA in formative assessment and assessment for learning 9

2.1.2.2 SAPA in alternatives in assessment .13

2.1.2.3 SA and learner autonomy and self-regulated learning 15

2.2 Academic writing 20

2.3 Benefits and challenges of SAPA in AW or EFL/ESL writing and in ELT .23

2.4 Conceptual framework .33

2.5 Chapter summary .34

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .35

3.1 Research questions .35

3.2 Research design .35

3.2.1 Qualitative research .36

3.2.2 Case study .37

3.2.3 Sampling method: purposive sampling .37

3.2.4 Research instrument: the researcher .38

3.3 Qualitative data collection methods .39

3.3.1 Qualitative questionnaire .39

3.3.2 Semi-structured interviews .40

3.3.3 Document analysis .41

3.4 Research setting and participants .41

3.5 Data collection and analysis .42

3.5.1 Data collection and analysis procedure 42

3.5.2 Data analysis method: Thematic analysis and thematic network .43

3.6 Chapter summary .46

CHAPTER 4 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS .47

4.1 Student questionnaire and interviews 47

4.1.1 Students’ reasons for their attitudes towards SAPA .48

4.1.2 Students’ perceived benefits of SAPA for AW .52

4.1.3 Students’ difficulties in SAPA and their solutions .66

4.1.4 Students’ perspectives on the relationship between SAPA .73

4.2 Teacher interview .77

4.2.1 Teacher’s attitude towards SAPA .77

4.2.2 Teacher’s perceived benefits of SAPA for AW .78

4.2.3 Teacher’s perception of the students’ difficulties in SAPA 79

4.2.4 Teacher’s perspectives on the relationship between SAPA .80

4.3 Rating scale .81

4.3.1 The quantity of comments .81

4.3.2 The focus of comments .82

4.4 Student sample essays .83

4.4.1 Student 26’s writing 1 (Cause and effect essay) 84

4.4.2 Student 31’s writing 2 (Argumentative essay) .84

4.5 Chapter summary .85

CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS .86

5.1 Responses to research questions .86

5.1.1 Benefits of SAPA for AW abilities .86

5.1.2 Difficulties in SAPA 93

5.1.3 Ways to develop SAPA abilities .96

5.2 Chapter summary .98

CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .99

6.1 Conclusions .99

6.2 Recommendations 101

6.2.1 Recommendations to teachers 101

6.2.1 Recommendations to students 102

6.2.3 To the administrators of the EF, the USSH, VNU-HCMC 103

6.2.4 To other researchers 103

REFERENCES 104

APPENDIX 1 114

APPENDIX 2 119

APPENDIX 3 120

APPENDIX 4 121

APPENDIX 5 123

APPENDIX 6 126

APPENDIX 7 129

APPENDIX 8 131

APPENDIX 9 133

The EF, the USSH, VNU-HCMC The Faculty of English Linguistics and

Literature, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Summary of definitions of SAPA 7

Table 2.2 Aspects of formative assessment .11

Table 2.3 Models for learner autonomy regarding areas of control 15

Table 2.4 Self-regulated learning strategies .17

Table 2.5 Characterizing features of SAPA practices in the current study .18

Table 2.6 Summary of AW characteristics and abilities .22

Table 2.7 Summary of SAPA benefits for AW or EFL/ESL writing .28

Table 2.8 Summary of difficulties in SAPA .31

Table 3.1 Summary of the research design of the study .46

Table 4.1 Quantity of SAPA comments 82

Table 4.2 Focuses of self and peer comments .83

Table 4.3 Summary of comments (3 SA, 21 PA by P35) on Student 26’s Writing 1 (Cause and Effect Essay) 129

Table 4.4 Summary of comments (10 SA, 18 PA by P30) on Student 31’s Writing 2 (Argumentative Essay) 133

Table 5.1 Summary of newly found and reviewed benefits of SAPA 87

Table 5.2 Summary of newly found and reviewed difficulties in SAPA .94

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework for the study .33

Figure 3.1 Steps in conducting thematic networks analysis 45

Figure 4.1 Global theme: Nearly all students like PA for two main reasons .48

Figure 4.2 Global theme: The students have opposite attitudes towards SA .50

Figure 4.3 Global theme: The students perceive benefits from PA in three main ways .53

Figure 4.4 Global theme: The students perceive benefits from SA in three main ways .61

Figure 4.5 Global theme: The students have two difficulties in PA, and find two solutions .66

Figure 4.6 Global theme: The students have three difficulties in SA, and find two solutions 69

Figure 4.7 Global theme: SAPA support each other .73

ABSTRACT

The present study is a qualitative case study with the aim of exploring the self and peer assessment practices implemented in an Academic Writing Course at the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City The research is aimed at answering the questions about how the self and peer assessment practices help the students develop their academic writing abilities, what difficulties facing them and their teacher and how they overcome them, and finally what they can do to develop their self and peer assessment abilities The data collection methods included a qualitative questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis including the rating scales as the key assessment tool for self and peer assessment practices, and the student sample essays

Based on the data analysis and discussion, four key findings-cum-conclusions were found First, self and peer assessment help develop the students’ academic writing abilities in three main ways: (1) they help faciliate the students’ learning of academic writing, (2) they help improve the students’ both current and possible future written product through their own or their peers’ feedback, and (3) they help promote skills or abilities related to academic writing such as critical reading skills, higher-order thinking skills, or academic conventions such as academic vocabulary and formal writing style

Second, the students faced four main difficulties during the practices of self and peer assessment They were (1) their lack of knowledge and experience about the writing topic, and sharp critical thinking skills, (2) their problem with error detection and correction, (3) the assessor’s unfavorable assumptions, unwillingness, and unfamiliarity with the assessment process, and (4) the assessor’s carelessness and a concern of fairness for the top versus weaker students Solutions were given by both the teacher and student participants to overcome those problems as well as to develop assessment abilities in general The study then put forward major recommendations to teachers and students,

especially of academic writing, the administrators of the research setting, and other researchers

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Academic writing (AW) is considered as the most important language skill at tertiary level, especially to English majors because most of the time students are assessed based on their written work including on-going assignments, tests and examinations, and graduation theses (Leki & Carson, 1996) That highlights the necessity for helping English students to improve their AW abilities Nevertheless, no one can help the students better than themselves because AW is a skill requiring the students to produce the language by themselves despite all knowledge they can learn from their teacher In other words, the students need to involve more in the learning process to improve their own learning, in particular their AW abilities

High student involvement in the learning process is the emphasis of self and peer assessment (SAPA) practices that are proved to be beneficial across disciplines, especially

in language teaching Therefore, this study hopes to explore how SAPA help to develop English students’ AW abilities The very first chapter of the thesis covers five main sections namely (1) the background to the study, (2) the aims of the study, (3) the research questions, (4) the significance of the study, and (5) the organization of the thesis

1.1 Background to the study

To most students, AW in English has become a requisite for several purposes such as writing academic essays to earn the required credits to complete the study programs at colleges and universities, to obtain an international certificate in TOEFL, IELTS or TOEIC,

to apply for a scholarship for overseas study, among many others What’s more, after graduation, students may want to study further or work in the educational settings If that

is the case, they will continue to apply their AW abilities in their future work and learning However, a large number of students have to struggle with this genre of writing due to its nature of complex conventions and students’ culture-specific nature of schemata (Myles,

2002) Therefore, the urgent need to develop writing academic English has emerged among students, and Vietnamese students of English are not an exception

Yet, no one can help but the students themselves, for the development of writing is a process requiring high individual involvement (Cooper & Odell, 1977) This long-standing premise still seems to hold true and underpins the notion of SAPA in English language teaching (ELT) This is also aligned with the current trends in ELT and in assessment These trends and the situation of teaching English at the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City (the EF, the USSH, VNU-HCMC) together with the researcher’s observation and experience as an English lecturer act as the rationale for the study

First of all, in tertiary or higher education, there has been a shift of emphasis from teaching

to learning, and from teacher management to student self-direction (Hanrahan & Isaacs, 2001) In other words, the teacher is no longer the sole controller and knowledge transmitter of the teaching and learning process Instead, students have received more power in class, with more responsibility for their own learning Because the students themselves and their learning have become the center of the teaching and learning process,

a number of innovations in assessment have also emerged to promote the student learning

In fact, the era of testing, or traditional assessment, has been replaced by the era of assessment (Dochy, Segers & Sluijsmans, 2006) The drawbacks of the existing assessment system may account for such a replacement To be specific, in the existing assessment, students tend to get feedbacks and grades from the teacher for their recalled knowledge without much attention to the learning process In other words, the students have to experience the assessment in a passive way, resulting in their inability to learn without the teacher’s assistance and support Moreover, it must be a waste of time and energy devoted

to testing and other assessment activities whose results come too late to influence students’ learning

In addition, assessment is believed to have a major impact on students’ learning, acting as

an incentive for their study, and all assessment is secondary to students’ self assessment through which they can promote learning (Boud & Falchikov, 2007) This argument is aligned with one of the focuses of formative assessment put forward by Black and Wiliam (Boud & Falchikov, 2007), which places more emphasis on students’ performance of assessment or self assessment Brown (2004, p 281) also shared the same view when posing a rhetorical question ‘What successful learner has not developed the ability to monitor his or her own performance and to use the data gathered for adjustments and corrections?’ That is to say, successful language learners employ self assessment to inform themselves about their learning for better improvements in language acquisition

Moreover, a large number of studies concentrate on the importance of self assessment and emphasize its role as a focal point in tertiary education and as an effective learning tool beyond educational contexts (Boud & Falchikov, 2007) Besides self assessment, students are also involved in more ways of assessment, another influential way of which is peer assessment Both SAPA are generating the motivation for learning and playing more important roles in language teaching

However, not all teaching and learning contexts apply SAPA in ELT Maybe the Vietnamese context is such a case, and the EF, the USSH, VNU-HCMC is not an exception Through the observation of the researcher, also a lecturer at the EF, the assessment system

is still based on the traditional one characterized by summative or achievement tests Student involvement in assessment tends to be overlooked maybe due to the class size, lack

of time for training and its implementation in the classroom, too much workload for both the teacher and students, among many other reasons Therefore, SAPA should draw more

attention, especially from the teacher to help promote students’ learning, especially in AW

to meet the requirements of the study programs, of the students and of the society

1.2 Aims of the study

The study is carried out to achieve three main aims First, it is designed to explore how SAPA help develop students’ AW abilities & SAPA abilities Second, it investigates what difficulties both the teacher and students face during the SAPA practices, and what solutions they employ to overcome those difficulties Finally, it looks into what the teacher and students can do, in general, to develop the students’ SAPA abilities, through which they can improve their abilities in AW

1.3 Research questions

To achieve the aims of the study, three main research questions are posed as follows:

1 How do self and peer assessment practices help the students of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, develop their academic writing abilities?

2 What difficulties do the teacher and students have during their practice process? How

do they overcome those difficulties?

3 What can the teacher and students do to develop the students’ abilities to carry out self and peer assessment?

1.4 Significance of the study

What is new about this research is it bridges the gap of research on the effects of SAPA on

AW Because most of the previous studies adopt a quantitative design, they provide inferential statistics rather than a thorough exploration of the effects of SAPA on English students’ learning of AW Therefore, as a qualitative research, this study hopes to give a deeper insight into how SAPA help develop the student participants in their learning of

AW as well as how those practices help to enhance the their SAPA abilities

1.5 The organization of the thesis

The study consists of six chapters Chapter 1 deals with an overview of the study including the background, the aims, the research questions, the significance, and the organization of the study Chapter 2 displays the literature review encompassing working definitions of the key terms and the conceptual framework Chapter 3 presents the methodology of the study including the description of the research methods, the participants of the study, and the data collection procedure Chapter 4 covers the data collection and analysis Chapter 5 gives the data discussion and findings, and finally Chapter 6 provides the conclusions and the recommendations related to the research topic

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents key issues related to SAPA and AW Specifically, it covers relevant aspects of SAPA such as their definitions, characteristics, theoretical backgrounds and their existing implementation in ELT, especially in AW teaching and learning The chapter also gives an overview of AW including its definitions, characteristics, and related abilities The chapter ends with the development of the conceptual framework, the foundation for the research data collection and analysis, which shows the interrelationship between SAPA and AW abilities

2.1 SAPA in ELT

As mentioned above, in this section, different definitions and characteristics of SAPA in ELT are explored Next, as the names suggest, SAPA entail students’ involvement in the assessment practices, closely related to four key theoretical areas namely (1) formative assessment, (2) assessment for learning, (3) alternatives in language assessment, and (4) Second Language Acquisition Therefore, a connection between SAPA and those areas are investigated An examination of self assessment (SA) in relation to learner autonomy and self-regulated learning is given subsequently Following the theoretical background of SAPA is their operational definition adopted in this current study

2.1.1 Definitions and characteristics of SAPA in ELT

Given the fact that SAPA have been used across disciplines at varying levels of education, the definitions of SAPA in ELT, to some extent, may overlap those in other areas, especially in higher education However, any defining characteristics of SAPA pertaining

to the aims of the present research are synthesized into their operational definition Various definitions of SAPA can be found throughout the literature, mostly in higher education, and are presented in Table 2.1

Table 2.1 Summary of definitions of SAPA

Peer assessment (PA) was defined as

Topping (1998) an arrangement in which individuals consider the amount, level, value, worth, quality of

success of the products or outcomes of learning of peers of similar status Topping (2003) an arrangement for learners and/or workers to consider and specify the level, value or

quality of a product or performance of other equal-status learners and/or workers Boud and Falchikov

(2007)

requiring students to provide either feedback or grades (or both) to their peers on a product or a performance, based on the criteria of excellence for that product or event which students may have been involved in determining

Self assessment (SA) was defined as

Boekarts (1991) a form of appraisal that involves a comparison between one’s behavioral outcomes and

internal and external standard Harris and McCann

(1994)

useful information about students’ expectations and needs, their problems and worries, how they feel about their own (learning) process, their reactions to the materials and methods being used, and what they think about the course in general

Boud (1995) consisting of two key elements namely making decisions about the standards of

performance expected and making judgments about the quality of the performance in relation to these standards

Klenowski (1995) the evaluation or judgment of the worth of one’s performance and the identification of

one’s strengths and weaknesses with a view to improve one’s learning outcomes Bailey (1998) procedures by which the learners themselves evaluate their language skills and

knowledge Mousavi (1999) students’ own evaluation of their language ability, according to their capability to use

the language in different situations Richard and Schmidt

(2002)

checking one’s own performance on a language learning task after it has been completed and it was considered as an example of metacognitive strategy in language learning Topping (2003) an arrangement for learners and/or workers to consider and specify the level, value or

quality of their own products or performances Brown (2004) any assessment that requires students to judge their own abilities or performance Andrade and Du (2007) a process of formative assessment during which students reflect on and evaluate the

quality of their work and their learning, judge the degree to which they reflect explicitly stated goals or criteria, identify strengths and weaknesses in their work, and revise accordingly

Though most definitions above examine various aspects of SAPA, three main features can

be discerned They are (1) what students specifically do in SAPA practices, (2) what they assess, and (3) how they assess For example, in the definitions of PA by Boud and Falchikov (2007) and Topping (1998, 2003), with the former more specific than the latter,

PA can be characterized by an arrangement in which students provide feedback or grades (or both) on their peers’ product or performance based on a set of criteria with the students’ possible involvement in the development of those criteria Besides those key features, Topping (2003) also identified a number of aspects that need to be taken into consideration when PA is to be carried out such as (1) the product or output to be assessed, (2) the type

of assessment (summative or formative), (3) the participant constellation (individuals or pairs or groups), (4) directionality (one way or reciprocal), (4) place and time, and (5) the objectives of the practices

Similarly, what students do in SA practices, among those ten mentioned definitions, mostly involves their evaluation or judgement of the quality or worth of their product or performance of a learning task, or of their language knowledge or skill/ability Besides, Topping (2003) emphasized the nature of SA, as well as of PA, as cognitively demanding tasks involving students’ self-questioning, reflection, and the management of their learning processes Richard and Schmidt (2002) had a similar view on SA as a metacognitive strategy in language learning

Another way of viewing SA, often synonymously used with self-evaluation, self-analysis, reflection/reflective study, is the ‘general practice of looking reflectively at one’s own writing in order to revise or improve its quality and can incorporate a whole host of different activities from use of specific checklists, rubrics and question cards to open-ended holistic questions’ (Nielsen, 2012, p 6) Besides, Nielsen (2012) summarized three main categories of SA activities in writing The first type of activity refers to evaluation and rating in which students are asked to rate by assigning a specific number or letter to different components of writing such as appropriateness of topic and tone, strength of arguments, among others

The second type is prompting revision involving self-monitoring, or responding to drafts (students’ continual checking and improvement of their work by following given cues or prompts), and self-correcting (students’ editing of grammar, punctuation and mechanics based on a checklist or a guide) The last one refers to holistic exercises, usually under the names of reflection/self-reflection or personal response to one’s own writing, in which students are required to respond, in journals, memos or peer discussions, to the content of

their written products as though reading it from an outsider’s perspectives to raise questions and provide further explanations

Likewise, PA possesses such synonymous terms as peer review, peer feedback, peer rating, peer response, peer evaluation, peer editing, peer tutoring, or peer critiquing (Paulus, 1999;

Hu, 2005; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009) They can be characterized as a collaborative activity involving students reading, critiquing and providing feedback on each other’s writing, both

to secure immediate textual improvement and to develop, over time, stronger writing competence via mutual scaffolding (Tsui & Ng, 2000)

All of the aforementioned definitions and characteristics of SAPA are worth considering

to develop an operational definition of SAPA for the current study, which is presented after the review of related theoretical issues including formative assessment and assessment for learning (Section 2.1.2.1.), alternatives in assessment (Section 2.1.2.2.), and learner autonomy and self-regulated learning (Section 2.1.2.3.) to gain a better understanding of the two concepts of SAPA in terms of their nature and roles not only in ELT but also in higher education

2.1.2 Theoretical issues on SAPA

2.1.2.1 SAPA in formative assessment and assessment for learning

Formative assessment seems to be the most relevant to the concept of SAPA in the study

in a way that its intended goal and use of assessment to promote learning are aligned with one of the major aims of the current study - that is to explore how the implementation of SAPA helps promote students’ learning of AW

According to Greenstein (2010), the term formative assessment is often attributed to

Michael Scriven, a British-born Australian academic philosopher, in the 1960s Scriven

used the notion in contrast to the traditional summative assessment as regards the goals of

accumulating evaluation information Formative assessment is intended to help make

changes, or improvements, throughout a study program while summative assessment is aimed at measuring the students’ achievement after the program However, in the 1970s, it became widespread in educational assessment thanks to Benjamin Bloom, an American educational psychologist and one of the first to apply the concepts of formative versus summative assessment in education In the following decades, formative assessment continued to be more widely explored, and the year 1998 saw the biggest milestone when Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam completed their meta-analysis of more than 250 studies on

formative assessment, published their results in the book Inside the Black Box laying the

foundation for worldwide leading educators to research and implement formative assessment in their classrooms (Greenstein, 2010)

To identify where SAPA are located and what roles they play in formative assessment, a brief look at the definition and aspects of formative assessment is taken In their work titled

Developing the theory of Formative Assessment, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (2009)

provided a comprehensive definition of formative assessment, drawing on their earlier definition and that of the Assessment Reform Group, a voluntary group of researchers brought together as the Policy Task Group on assessment by the British Educational Research Association (BERA) in 1989:

Practice in a classroom is formative to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions they would have taken in the absence of the evidence that was elicited (p 9)

Four key features of the above definition are taken into consideration First, ‘instruction’ refers to any intended activity to create learning Second, ‘decisions’ may imply two things about collecting ‘evidence’ namely intentions and actions In other words, for assessment

to be formative, evidence about student learning and achievement needs to be not only intentionally collected but also used to improve learning Third, “agents” involve teachers, learners themselves and their peers Last is the requirement that the decisions made are

‘likely to be better, or better founded’ That is to say, with the unpredictability of the

learning process, even the best instructional adjustments do not necessarily result in better learning for all students Consequently, formative assessment might provide teachers with more grounded evidence about their best course of instructional action intended and taken before the evidence collection (Black & Wiliam, 2009)

Black and Wiliam (2009) also specified SAPA as one of the five main types of activities

in formative assessment Those activities are believed to be able to enact the five key strategies conceptualizing formative assessment put forward by Wiliam and Thompson (2007, as cited in Black & Wiliam, 2009) in relation to three key learning and teaching processes adopted from Ramaprasad (1983, as cited in Black & Wiliam, 2009) All of those aspects of formative assessment, with three different agents of teacher, peer, and learner,

are displayed in Table 2.2

Table 2.2 Aspects of formative assessment

(Adopted from Black & Wiliam, 2009)

Learning and teaching processes

Agent Where the learner is going Where the learner is right now How to get there

Teacher 1 Clarifying learning

intentions and criteria for

success

2 Engineering effective classroom discussions and other learning tasks that elicit evidence of student learning

(Activity 2 Classroom questioning)

3 Providing feedback that moves learners forward

(Activity 3 Comment-only marking)

(Activity 5 Formative use of summative tests)

Peer 1 Understanding and sharing

learning intentions and criteria

for success

4 Activating students as instructional resources for one another

(Activity 4 SAPA)

(Activity 5 Formative use of summative tests)

Learner 1 Understanding learning

intentions and criteria for

success

(Activity 1 Sharing success

criteria with learners)

(Activity 5 Formative use of

summative tests)

5 Activating students as the owners of their own learning

(Activity 4 SAPA)

(Activity 5 Formative use of summative tests)

As can be seen in Table 2.2., SAPA are one of the five main types in formative assessment, and they can be employed to realize the fifth and the fourth strategies to formative assessment In other words, assessment is to be formative when SA can help activate students to be the owners of their own learning and PA helps activate students as

instructional resources for one another Although how SAPA can be employed to perform their functions in the above framework was not investigated, Black and Wiliam (1998) identified two core actions in formative assessment pertinent to SAPA They are the learners’ perception of their gap between a desired goal and their level of knowledge, skill

or understanding, and their actions taken to bridge such a gap Accordingly, SAPA can help facilitate the initial generation of information about the gap and the way in which learners may work to close it

Assessment for learning, a term mostly used interchangeably with formative assessment,

is also worth reviewing in relation to SAPA Coming into use in the late 1980s and early 1990s, assessment for learning was defined as ‘the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there’ (Broadfoot, Daugherty, Gardner, Harlen, James & Stobart, 2002, pp 2-3) Another definition was given by Klenowski (2009, p 264) as ‘part of everyday practice by students, teachers and peers that seeks, reflects upon and responds to information from dialogue, demonstration and observation

in ways that enhance ongoing learning.’

Through these two definitions emerge two important features in designing assessment that promotes learning First, the generated evidence about student’s learning provides not only the information about a gap between their current and desired performance but also the information about what types of instructional activities that can result in learning improvement Second, the learner gets involved in actions to improve learning Similarly, student involvement in assessment was one of the six principles of effective use of assessment for learning in EFL/ESL (i.e English as a foreign language / English as a second language) writing classrooms, provided by Lee (2007), drawing upon the key principles by the Assessment Reform Group It is notable that while formative assessment seems to focus on SAPA as a means of helping students to receive and perceive evidence about their current knowledge or performance level compared to the targeted one,

assessment for learning appears to place its emphasis on student involvement in taking actions, together with the teacher, to improve their learning This shows that assessment for learning is even more closely related to SAPA

2.1.2.2 SAPA in alternatives in assessment

In the realm of language assessment, Brown and Hudson (1998), based on the students’ response types, categorized SAPA into personal-response assessments in which students are required to produce language, or to ‘communicate what they want to communicate’ to provide the evidence about their language learning (p 90) In such a way, Brown and Hudson equated PA with SA, and the only difference is that in PA, the students evaluate their peers’ language Personal-response assessment is one of the alternatives in assessment emerging in the early 1990s as a rebellion against traditional tests SAPA, therefore, can

be characterized by the following twelve defining features of alternatives in assessment synthesized by Brown and Hudson (1998, p 80) as follows:

1 Require students to perform, create, produce, or do something

2 Use real-world contexts or simulations

3 Are non-intrusive in that they extend the day-to-day classroom activities

4 Allow students to be assessed on what they normally do in class every day

5 Use tasks that represent meaningful instructional activities

6 Focus on processes as well as products

7 Tap into higher-level thinking and problem-solving skills

8 Provide information about both the strengths and weaknesses of students

9 Are multiculturally sensitive when properly administered

10 Insure that people, not machines, do the scoring, using human judgment

11 Encourage public disclosure of standards and criteria

12 Call upon teachers to perform new instructional and assessment roles

Those features are further examined regarding the results of the present study in Chapter

5 Additionally, in terms of theoretical backgrounds, according to Brown (2004), both SAPA are underpinned by critical theories in second language acquisition (SLA) SA derives from the two principles of autonomy and intrinsic motivation as two fundamental foundations for successful language learning With autonomy, the learners are able to set

learning goals and take primary responsibility for their own learning The connection between SA and learner autonomy is further investigated in Section 2.1.2.3 Also, with intrinsic motivation, the learners will stand a high chance of acquiring the language successfully Similarly, PA is justified on the grounds of learner-centered principle and cooperative learning In PA, learners work together, assessing and learning from each other; therefore, the learning situation focuses more on the learners themselves, who take charge of their language acquisition through mutual support and collaboration These theoretical underpinnings are taken into consideration when it comes to the exploration of the implementation of SAPA in Chapter 5

Furthermore, Brown (2004) classified SAPA into five kinds First, direct assessment of

performance takes place when students evaluate their oral or written production

immediately or right after the performance by using checklists or journals Second, indirect

assessment of performance occurs when students evaluate their general ability or

competence over a period of time after instruction by using scaled ratings, questionnaires

and journals Third, metacognitive assessment happens when students assess their

goal-setting and goal-pursuit by utilizing journals, checklists, questionnaires, or cooperative pair

or group planning Fourth, assessment of socioaffective factors refers to one in which

students’ affective factors, such as their anxiety, motivation, or mental and emotional

barriers, are measured by means of checklists or questionnaires Finally, student

self-generated tests are those that engage students in the construction of tests In the current

research, the students were asked to evaluate their own and their peers’ papers using a

rating scale, meaning SAPA of the second type – direct assessment of performance

In terms of student involvement in assessment, Falchikov (2005) identified three main levels At the first level, students check their knowledge, performance or skill based on a model answer or a set of criteria in the forms of marking schemes or competency statements provided by the teacher At the second level, students can discuss and negotiate the criteria before using them to assess their own or their peers’ work At the third level, students are

required to pay meticulous attention to the criteria, questioning and critiquing the competencies embedded in the criteria These levels of student involvement were taken into consideration before and when SAPA practices were conducted in the current study

As one of the theoretical backgrounds of SA, deriving from SLA theories, learner autonomy and its related concept, self-regulated learning are worth examining, especially when it comes to the potential benefits of SA

2.1.2.3 SA and learner autonomy and self-regulated learning

Over the past 30 years, learner autonomy has been one of the focal points in the theory and practice of language teaching and learning Dang (2012) provided a very comprehensive and well-researched review of learner autonomy, which serves as the major foundation for the conception of learner autonomy in this section Learner autonomy was originally defined as the ‘ability to take charge of one’s own learning’ by Holec (1981, p 3, as cited

in Dang, 2012) in his report published in response to the Council of Europe’s Modern Languages Project in the early 1980s, which has been widely adopted across this discipline

A myriad of models for learner autonomy have been found throughout the literature They are divided into two main groups namely those regarding learner autonomy’s stages of development and those concerning its areas of control As the current study does not aim

to examine the developmental stages of learner autonomy, three models as regards control areas, with their specified features, drawn on Dang’s synthesis (2012), are adopted in the current study and presented in Table 2.3

Table 2.3 Models for learner autonomy regarding areas of control

(Adopted from Dang, 2012)

(3) autonomy as a person linked to personal development

Ability to communicate personal thoughts and personalize the learning environment

Macaro

(1997, 2008)

(1) autonomy of language competence Ability to communicate after mastering second

language rules at a certain level (2) autonomy of language learning

competence

Ability to reproduce the acquired language skills and transfer them to other similar situations (3) autonomy of choice and action Ability to develop learning options, to identify

personal learning strategies, and to perform higher-order thinking skills

As can be seen in Table 2.3., learner autonomy can be achieved if learners can take control

of such areas as (1) communication in different contexts, (2) learning strategies (inside/outside class) to manage learning processes including learning activities and content, and cognitive skills, and (3) ability to transfer acquired language skills to other similar situations Therefore, SA in the study, if believed to promote learner autonomy in language teaching and learning, especially in AW, needs to display their contributions to the achievement of one or more abilities in the models, which is explored in detail in Chapter 5

The other theoretical issue related to SA is self-regulated learning, sometimes equated with learner autonomy According to Zimmerman (1990), self-regulated learners are commonly conceptualized as ‘metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning’ (p 4) To elaborate more on such a conceptualization, Zimmerman (1990) characterized three key features of self-regulated learning including (1) students’ use of self-regulated learning strategies, (2) their responsiveness to self-oriented feedback about learning effectiveness, and (3) their interdependent motivational processes

The first feature (i.e self-regulated learning strategies) refers to ‘actions and processes directed at acquisition of information or skills’ (p 5) With a vast amount of research in various contexts in collaboration with other researchers, Zimmerman (1989) identified 14 self-regulated learning strategies, briefly summarized in Table 2.4

Table 2.4 Self-regulated learning strategies

(Adopted from Zimmerman, 1989)

1 Self-evaluating Student-initiated evaluations of the quality or progress of their work

2 Organizing and Transforming Student-initiated overt or covert rearrangement of instructional

materials to improve learning

3 Goal-setting and Planning Students’ setting of educational goals or subgoals and planning for

sequencing, timing, and completing activities related to those goals

4 Seeking information Student-initiated efforts to secure further task information when

undertaking an assignment

5 Keeping records and Monitoring Student-initiated efforts to record events or results

6 Environmental structuring Student-initiated efforts to select or arrange the physical setting to

make learning easier

7 Self-consequating Student arrangement or imagination of rewards or punishment for

success or failure

8 Rehearsing and Memorizing Student-initiated efforts to memorize materials by overt or covert

practices 9-11 Seeking social assistance Student-initiated efforts to solicit help from peers (9), teachers (10),

and other adults (11) 12-14 Reviewing records Student-initiated efforts to reread notes (12), tests (13), or textbooks

(14) to prepare for future learning or testing

Those 14 self-regulated learning strategies serve as the basis for the analysis and discussion

of the data collected in the current study with the aim of examining whether SA, together with PA, helps enhance self-regulated learning, thus developing the student participants’

AW abilities

The second feature of self-regulated learning as conceptualized by Zimmerman (1990) involves how and why students choose a particular strategy to respond to ‘self-oriented feedback loop’, ‘a cyclic process’ in which students ‘monitor the effectiveness’ of their learning or strategies so that they can make responding changes (p 5) The factors determining students’ choice of self-regulated learning strategies range from ‘contingent external rewards or punishment such as social approval, enhanced status, or material gains’,

a sense of ‘self-esteem or self-actualization (the realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities)’, to motives like ‘self-efficacy (perceptions about one’s capabilities to organize and implement actions necessary to attain designated performance of skill for specific tasks), achievement success and cognitive equilibrium [or balance]’ (Zimmerman,

1990, p 5)

The last feature of self-regulated learning is that student learning and motivation are

‘interdependent processes’ in which not only do students react to their learning outcomes and processes but they also ‘proactively seek out opportunities’ to ‘profit from [their] learning activities’ (Zimmerman, 1990, p 6) Overall, all the three features of self-regulated learning are taken into consideration as to how SAPA benefits the student participants in developing their AW abilities

In a nutshell, in the current study, the employed SAPA practices are similar in terms of what and how students do What makes a difference lies in the source of product for assessment Therefore, sharing the key features of those definitions reviewed earlier, SAPA

in the present study are defined as activities in which students make judgements, mainly in

the form of feedback, about the quality of their own or their peers’ product, respectively, based on an assessment tool consisting of a given set of criteria related to the product

Nine different aspects, primarily adopted from Topping (2003), characterizing SAPA practices in the current research, are summarized in Table 2.5

Table 2.5 Characterizing features of SAPA practices in the current study

1 Type of assessment Formative, direct assessment of performance, prompting revisions,

evaluation and rating, providing feedback

2 Level of student involvement Level 1 (students assess based on a given set of criteria)

3 Product to be assessed Students’ written work (academic essays)

4 Participant constellation Individuals (SA) & Pairs (PA)

5 Assessment tools Writing rating scale

6 Directionality Mutual (PA)

7 Place and time Formal activity in class during the course

8 Objectives To offer students opportunities to rate and provide feedback on the quality

of their own/peers’ written work for revision and to inform the teacher of the students’ learning of AW (i.e assessment for learning)

9 Mental processes Self-questioning, reflection, cognitive and metacognitive strategies

First, given that SAPA in the current study were implemented not as an official method of assessment to measure students’ achievement or to grade the students’ written work, but to elicit evidence about students’ learning of AW throughout the course in question, they are

of formative assessment type In addition, the students were supposed to evaluate their own and their peers’ written work by using a rating scale designed by the researcher with the

agreement of the teacher in charge of the researched class; therefore, SAPA belong to the category of direct assessment of performance in terms of language assessment (Brown, 2004) and level one of student involvement in assessment (Falchikov, 2005) The students did not get involved in designing the assessment tool for SAPA practices due to the researcher and the teacher’s time constraint and the students’ possible lack of experience

in SAPA Additionally, after the SAPA practices in classes, the students were asked to revise their essays at home before submission In other words, SAPA in this study have a feature of prompting revisions (Nielsen, 2012)

In addition, the product to be assessed in the SAPA practices was the students’ written work, or academic essays In the SA practices, the students assessed their own papers individually while in the PA ones, they evaluated their peers’ randomly chosen papers in the mutual direction (i.e they did not necessarily evaluate their assessors’ papers in return) Moreover, the SAPA practices took place in class as one of the instructional activities to offer students opportunities to rate and provide feedback on the quality of their own/peers’ written work for revision and to inform the teacher of the students’ learning of AW In other words, SAPA in the current research were employed as assessment for learning, rather than for measuring the students’ achievement in learning

The last aspect of mental processes was added as one component of SAPA, for SAPA were thought to be ‘cognitively demanding tasks’ (Topping, 2003), and ‘metacognitive strategies in language learning’ (Richard & Schmidt, 2002) According to Oxford (2003), cognitive strategies facilitate learners’ direct manipulation of language material through

‘reasoning, analysis, note-taking, summarizing, synthesizing, outlining, and reorganizing information’ while metacognitive strategies such as ‘monitoring mistakes, and evaluating the success of a learning task or learning strategy’ are applied to manage the learning processes (p 12)

To explore how the SAPA practices help the students to develop their AW abilities, there

is a need to develop an operational definition of AW and its characteristics as well as related abilities

2.2 Academic writing

Oshima and Hogue (1998) defined AW as the kind of writing that students are required to

do in colleges or universities Besides, what makes it different from other kinds of writing includes the audience, mainly professors and instructors, the tone, usually formal and serious, and the varied purposes It is obvious that this definition is put to the extent that it fits the purpose of the material for undergraduate students

A more comprehensive definition of AW was given by Hartley (2008) posted on the online

Research Guides run by the University of Southern California:

AW refers to a particular style of expression that researchers use to define the intellectual boundaries of their disciplines and their areas of expertise Characteristics of AW include a formal tone, use of the third- person rather than first-person perspective (usually), a clear focus on the research problem under investigation, and precise word choice Like specialist languages adopted in other professions, such as, law

or medicine, AW is designed to convey agreed meaning about complex ideas or concepts for a group of scholarly experts

Seven typical features of college-level AW were compiled by various authors (Hartley, 2008; Murray & Sarah, 2006; Nygaard, 2015; Silvia, 2007; Sword, 2012) The first three characteristics include (1) the formal and logical overall structure, (2) an appropriate narrative tone and an authoritative point of view, and (3) neutral and clear use of language The rest four features consist of (1) use of academic conventions, especially in citing sources to avoid plagiarism and for the readers to retrieve them if they want, (2) evidence-based arguments that are supported by scholarly sources to help convince the readers of the validity of your opinions about the topic, (3) thesis-driven writing, meaning the writing begins with a particular perspective or idea about the research problem or with research

questions, and (4) complexity and higher-order thinking skills including cognitive processes used to comprehend, solve problems, express concepts or describe abstract ideas

Nguyen (2009) also identified six main features of English AW, which capitalize on how academic English language is used in this genre of writing The first feature is the complexity related to the common language use in AW such as subordinate clauses, complement clauses, sequences of prepositional phrases, participles, passive verbs, lexical density, lexical complexity, nominalization, noun-based phrases, modification of noun

phrases, attributive adjectives The second is the formality with a focus on the avoidance

of colloquial words or expressions The third is the objectivity emphasizing the role of evidence-based or grounded information in AW rather than the writer’s merely personal ideas, resulting in the more favorable usage of nouns and adjectives rather than verbs and adverbs

The last three traits include (1) the explicitness in organizing ideas and in acknowledging the sources of ideas in the text, leading to the use of language for signposting and citations

in the text, (2) the use of hedging, a type of language use with an adequate amount of caution to identify the strength of a writer’s claims, and (3) the writer’s responsibility for justifications for any claims made by the writer Those six features of AW suggested by Nguyen (2009) can serve as practical guidelines for students learning AW, but may sound too specific for the current study purposes

Another set of four main defining characteristics of AW are provided by Monash University (2016) on its tutorial website, Language and Learning Online The features comprise (1) authority and credibility by establishing an academic voice and supporting the arguments with evidence from reliable resources, (2) appropriate style including precise use of formal language, impersonal style, clearly constructed sentences, care with abbreviations and acronyms, and logical and systematic development of ideas, (3) appropriate structure with an explicit organization, conformity to required formats and

conventions, and logical presentation of sections and paragraphs, and (4) attribution of references involving acknowledgements of and citing sources

The abilities related to AW are also presented such as ‘analyzing concepts and arguments, synthesizing ideas and evidence drawn from different sources, constructing consistent and well-supported arguments, discussing an issue in a balanced way, evaluating the ideas and arguments of others, making judgements and expressing informed opinions’ (Monash University, 2016) Most of those abilities, especially ‘analyzing, constructing, evaluating and making judgements’, belong to a group of higher-order thinking skills (Quellmalz, 1985)

Additionally, Irvin (2010) listed three main abilities in AW consisting of the abilities (1)

to research the relevant data and information for a piece of writing, (2) to read complex text and understand the key concepts if the topics for writing are unfamiliar to the writers, and (3) to synthesize, analyze, and respond critically to new information Furthermore, Karlen and Compagnoni (2017) pointed out the importance of metacognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating of the learning process in developing AW In other words, students need the ability to effectively apply metacognitive strategies during their learning processes to promote and improve their learning of AW All in all, the defining characteristics and abilities of AW in this study are summarized in Table 2.6

Table 2.6 Summary of AW characteristics and abilities

AW

1 Target audience College professors or instructors, experts, specialists, or those working in particular

disciplines or areas of expertise

3 Authority, credibility and

5 Structure Thesis-driven writing, and logical and systematic development of ideas

6 Language use a Neutral, clear and precise word choice

b Avoidance of colloquial words or expressions

c Language for signposting and citations

d Hedging language

e Subordinate clauses, complement clauses, sequences of prepositional phrases, participles, passive verbs, lexical density, lexical complexity, nominalization, noun-based phrases, modification of noun phrases, attributive adjectives

7 Related abilities a Reading

b Researching

c Higher-order thinking skills:

- Cognitive strategies e.g (1) comprehend, solve problems, (2) express concepts or (3) describe abstract ideas, (4) synthesize, analyze, and respond critically to new information, (5) understand the key concepts, (6) analyze concepts and arguments, (7) synthesize ideas and evidence drawn from different sources, (8) construct consistent and well- supported arguments, (9) discuss an issue in a balanced way, and (10) express informed opinions

- Metacognitive strategies e.g (1) evaluate the ideas and arguments of others, and (2) make judgements about informed opinions

2.3 Benefits and challenges of SAPA in AW or EFL/ESL writing and in ELT

Very little to no literature can be found on the how SAPA help develop students’ AW abilities Therefore, the scope of literature review is extended to research studies on how beneficial SAPA, or their related aspects, are to the promotion of students’ English writing abilities or performance A brief summary of previous related studies that meet the two main inclusion criteria for review is presented The criteria include (1) a focus on the implementation of either self or PA, or both, or their related aspects, in AW or EFL/ESL writing, and (2) the researched participants at the tertiary, more precisely university and college, level The main purpose of the review in this section is to explore the benefits and challenges of the implementation of SAPA practices in the teaching and learning of English

AW or English writing as well as to address a research gap that the current study is hoped

to bridge

Most of the 16 selected studies, which meet the inclusion criteria for review, mainly across Asia between 1999 and 2016, focus on measuring the positive effects of SAPA They were carried out in different ways, under different names, with different assessment tools, on the student participants’ writing performance or skills Therefore, they mostly adopted experimental, or quasi-experimental methods, with the pre-test and post-test, rather than exploring the topic primarily qualitatively, except for the one by Purwanti (2015) A brief

description of those studies, with more attention paid to those with more relevant focus, is given on a country-by-country basis in the following

The most relevant study, a case study, conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, by Purwanti (2015) aimed to explore 18 Indonesian EFL students’ attitudes towards the employment of a self-assessment checklist and how it helps them in the revision of their essays The students found the activity of SA helpful and showed that they could revise their essays at phrase, surface, content, and lexical levels, except for grammatical accuracy (adopted from the Coding Scheme for Revision by Sze, 2002, as cited in Purwanti, 2015) Some other findings show that SA could help them (1) identify their strengths and weaknesses in their essays, (2) reflect on what should be revised, and (3) be aware of the mistakes for them to avoid in the next writings However, the students also revealed their difficulties during the

SA practices such as identifying mistakes or uncertainty about their choice of grammar and vocabulary, thus their checking a grammar book or a computer

Purwanti (2015) drew three main conclusion First, the SA checklist, though not instantly effective, could help students revise their essays at some basic levels only such as surface, phrase and lexical Second, the students lacked an ability to reflect on how they could monitor their learning process Last, the SA checklist could not be a tool of autonomous learning over a short period of time Therefore, Purwanti (2015) suggested more students’ reflection on SA practices be explored and elicited to better deploy them, and that more training and SA practices be employed so that the students can develop their autonomous learning Another study in Indonesia, carried out by Manuputty (2000) examined the effect

of SA in a writing class The findings indicate that the students’ writing performance improved in terms of development and organization while the aspects of writing conventions also improved without prior instruction

In Iran, where researchers seem to have a great concern for SAPA, at least seven studies can be found The first study, done by Birjandi and Siyyari (2010) aimed to measure and

compare the effectiveness of SAPA on 196 Iranian students’ paragraph writing performance and rating accuracy The subjects were put in the control group and the treatment group split into SAPA sub-groups The students in the SA treatment group assessed their own paragraphs and those in the PA group assessed their peers’ The students’ writing performance was scored by three raters, and the difference between their self/peer ratings and the criterion ones (the average ratings by the three raters) were calculated The findings show SAPA help to improve the quality of the students’ writing, with the latter more effective than the former, and improve the students’ rating accuracy, with no big difference between the effects of SAPA Finally, the link between the students’ writing performance and assessment abilities could be addressed That is the better the students perform in their writing, the more cognizant the students are of what makes good writing, thus enhancing their rating or assessment abilities, albeit with no compelling evidence apart from the statistical one

The second one, conducted by Iraji, Enayat and Momeni (2016) was aimed at measuring the effect of SAPA, based on a scoring checklist marked on a five-point Likert scale, on 54

Iranian students’ argumentative writing performance The two key findings include (1) a

positive effect of SAPA on the students’ argumentative writing performance and (2) both SAPA can serve as a learning tool to promote students’ self-confidence and intrinsic motivation, the latter of which seems to be the author’s interpretation from the results

The third study, undertaken by Javaherbakhsh (2010) explored the impact of SA on 73 Iranian learners’ EFL writing skill The students were put into the control and experimental groups, after the writing pre-test to identify their writing ability The students in the experimental group assessed their own 150-word compositions with a writing checklist, and their writings were checked and corrected with feedback from three raters In the meanwhile, the students in the control group did not do SA practices or receive any feedback The results of the writing post-test suggest that SA helps improve the students’ writing skill/ability significantly Similar findings can be found in Naeni (2011),

Khodadady and Khodabakhshzade (2012), Hasani and Moghadam (2012), and Fahimi and Rahimi (2015) In addition, the findings in Naeni’s study (2011) suggest that SA motivated the students to be more aware of their problems while in Khodadady and Khodabakhshzade’s (2012), SA was shown to have a beneficial impact on the students’ sense of independence in writing activities Sharing the same light with the previous studies, Fung’s (2015), done in Malaysia, also indicates a positive effect of SA on the students’ argumentative group essay writing and suggests the use of SA in writing classes

to develop learner autonomy

In China and Hong Kong, similar empirical studies on the effects of SA on English writing were conducted by Zheng, Huang, and Chen (2012) and Lam (2010) respectively The former found a positive effect of SA on the students’ writing achievement and skills The latter explored the role of SA in writing portfolios and concluded that SA could help enhance the students’ motivation in their writing, but could help them to handle the surface writing errors only such as mechanics ones

The last four articles for review, examining the benefits of PA under the other names of peer review, peer feedback and peer rating, took place in India, Japan, Singapore, and the United States In India, the study by Paulus (1999) investigated how peer feedback and teacher feedback influenced the quality of the students’ revisions in their essays, thus developing the quality of their writing The study found more meaning-level revisions resulting from peer and teacher feedback and could result in the overall essay improvement over time of practicing In Japan, Saito and Fujita (2004) studied the relationship of self, peer, and teacher ratings of the EFL students’ writing, the students’ attitudes towards peer ratings, and the influence of peer feedback on those attitudes The findings showed that peer and teacher ratings had significant correlation, the students had favorable attitudes towards peer rating, and peer feedback did not influence those attitudes

Unlike those two authors, Hu (2005) and Lundstrom and Baker (2009) in Singapore and the United States respectively focused on the application of peer review, also known as peer response, peer feedback, peer evaluation, peer editing, peer tutoring, or peer critiquing, in English writing classes In his 3-year action research on peer review in three

AW classes executively, Hu (2005) found that the students from the last class had the most favorable attitudes towards peer review, and made efforts to take their peers’ suggestions

in their revisions On the other hand, Lundstrom and Baker (2009) aimed to explore which was more beneficial to improving student writing: giving or receiving peer feedback The key results revealed that the students taught to give peer feedback could better improve their own writing by transferring abilities they learned when reviewing their peer texts to the evaluation of their own texts than those taught to use peer feedback

Nearly all of the reviewed articles share a similar purpose, which is to show the effect of the implementation of either self or peer assessment, or in rare cases, both, on undergraduate students’ English writing quality or performance based on inferential statistics The other benefits of SAPA in the teaching and learning of English writing, concluded or suggested in the studies above are enumerated, together with the benefits gained from two comprehensive syntheses by Hu (2005) and Nielsen (2012), in their turn, gleaned from various researchers and authors in the field

The benefits of the application of SAPA practices in AW or EFL/ESL writing can be categorized into three major groups namely (1) helping to improve the current and future product, (2) helping to develop AW abilities, and (3) helping to facilitate AW or EFL/ESL learning The benefits of SAPA gleaned from various authors and researchers are summarized in Table 2.7

Table 2.7 Summary of SAPA benefits for AW or EFL/ESL writing

1 Improve

product

SA - Develops students’ awareness of strengths

and weaknesses (of the writing, e.g mistakes

to avoid, progress level)

- Prompts revisions from self-feedback

(phrase, surface, mechanics, content, and lexical levels, idea development, organization, and writing conventions)

Purwanti, 2015; Naeni, 2011; Oscarson, 1989; Blue, 1994

Black & Wiliam, 1998; Smith & Gorard, 2005; Zheng, Huang, & Chen, 2012; Purwanti, 2015; Manuputty,

2000

PA - Develops students’ awareness of strengths

and weaknesses (as a writer, of writing

structure, and of revision strategies)

- Prompts revisions from peer feedback (idea,

content, language, and viewpoints)

Tsui & Ng, 2000; Tuzi, 2004;

Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1992 Villamil & De Guerrero, 1996;

Lundstrom & Baker, 2009; Mendonca

& Johnson, 1994; Nelson & Murphy, 1993; Paulus, 1999; Berg, 1999; Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1992;

Lockhart & Ng, 1995; Nelson & Murphy, 1992; Stanley, 1992

2 Develop

AW

abilities

SA - Promotes higher-order thinking skills

(metacognition, critical thinking, reflection, working memory)

self-O’ Malley & Valdez, 1996 (as cited in Purwanti, 2015); Oscarson, 1989; Purwanti, 2015; Bardine & Fulton, 2008; Falchikov & Boud, 1989; Vickers & Ene, 2006; Bergsleithner, 2010; Hayes, 1996

PA - Develops cognitive processes (via revision)

- Provides a productive environment for effective learning (language skills practice,

critical reading and analysis skills, preparation for real-world writing tasks)

Villamil & De Guerrero, 1996 Liu & Sadler, 2003; Lockhart & Ng, 1995; Mangelsdorf & Schlumberger, 1992; Paulus, 1999; Chaudron, 1984; Keh, 1990; Berg, 1999

SA - Promotes learner autonomy or

self-regulated learning (reduced dependency on

teachers, increased independence in assessment, and enhanced ownership of learning, writing skill transfer)

- Stimulates classroom collaboration and

communication (improved error detection and

correction through teacher-student interaction)

- Develops a writing process (forcing

revision, and encouraging writing in a series

of steps)

- Develops a sense of self-efficacy (increased

confidence in writing ability, motivation and more efforts to write, more critical attitudes)

Fung, 2015; Butler & Lee, 2010; Oscarson, 1989; Khodadady &

Khodabakhshzade, 2012; Bardine & Fulton, 2008; Vicker & Ene, 2006; Chen, 2008; Boud, 1995; Belanoff, 2001; Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006; Orsmond, Merry & Callaghan, 2004 O’ Malley & Valdez, 1996 (as cited in Purwanti, 2015); Nicol & Macfarlane- Dick, 2006; Bardine & Fulton, 2008; Ross, Rolheiser & Hogaboam-Gray,

1999 Andrade & Boulay, 2003; Fitzgerald & Markham, 1987; Bloom, 1997;

Graziano-King, 2007; Warne, 2008 McCarthy, Meier, & Rinderer, 1985; Blue, 1994; Hanrahan & Isaacs, 2001; Longhurst & Norton, 1997; Luoma &