4.2.2 Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of peer feedback in tertiary English
4.2.2.2 Students’ perceptions towards the advantages of peer feedback
Table 4.7
Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions towards students’ self-reflection promotion
No Items N Mean St.D
A. Students’ self-reflection promotion
1 Peer feedback helps increase my self-correction ability. 97 3.98 .645 2 Peer feedback helps me identify my own strengths in my
writing.
97 3.93 .711 3 Peer feedback helps me identify my own weaknesses in
my writing.
97 4.00 .722 4 Peer feedback helps me avoid mistakes for future
composition.
97 4.14 .692 5 Peer feedback helps me correct my own spelling mistakes 97 4.02 .677 6 Peer feedback helps me correct my own grammar
mistakes
97 3.90 .684 7 Peer feedback helps me generate better ideas. 97 3.97 .742
Data presented in Table 4.7 show the level of agreement of students towards the benefits of peer feedback on students’ self-reflection promotion. Data presented above clearly indicate how much student agreed with one single items exploring benefits of peer feedback in terms of promoting students’ self-reflection in learning writing with high mean scores. As can be seen, most of students agreed that peer feedback helps increase their self-correction ability (item 1) with M= 3.98 and St.
D= .645, helped students identify their own strengths (item 2) and helped identify their own weaknesses (item 3) in their writing with M=3.93 & 4.00 and St. D=.711
& .722 respectively. Regarding qualitative data collected from teacher and student interviews, it can be seen that the data are consistent with those collected from the questionnaire. They shared the common ideas that peer feedback had a positive influence on students’ self-reflection in learning writing.
One student said:
“When doing peer feedback with my friends, identifying the errors in my peer’s draft, I suddenly remembered that I had
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made the same errors like him. At that time, I knew what changes I had to make to improve my essay” (S3)
Another student added:
“I was surprised that peer comments helped me develop my own awareness of the place where mistakes were in my writing because it reminded me a lot.” (S7)
One teacher expressed:
“There was no doubt that students gained benefits from peer feedback in terms of self-reflection promotion. This was because when they recognized their peers’ mistakes, they also identify the equivalent ones in their own writing work. (T2)
Additionally, data above also indicate that most of the students agreed that peer feedback helped them avoid mistakes for future composition with the highest M= 4.14 and St. D= .692. It means that they all agreed that thanks to peer comments, they remembered their errors longer and the possibility to make the same ones in the coming composition is definitely lower. They were also sure that the same mistakes would hardly be repeated. This finding is aligned with data recorded from the interview when most of students believed that they could avoid the same errors in future writing work.
One student replied:
“I would absolutely be stupid if I made such mistakes in my coming essays. I thought I could avoid repeating it easily” (S9) Another response was:
“My peer helped me point out what was wrong in my drafts.
Based on my knowledge, I understood that her correction was right. Of course, I could not ensure that I would not make the same errors in my future texts, but I was quite sure that I could avoid them as much as possible” (S5)
Likewise, data also show that most of the students agreed that peer feedback helped them correct their own mistakes in terms of spelling (item 5) and grammar (item 6)
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with M=4.02 &3.90 and St. D= .684 &.742 severally. This finding is consistent with data acquired from the interview when the majority of students and teachers show their positive viewpoints on such benefits.
One teacher said:
“Personally, it seemed to me that peer feedback particularly assisted students to self-correct easy grammar mistakes such as tenses, subject-verb agreement and so on. The more they noticed their peer mistakes, the more they knew where their mistake are.
As a results, they would be able to correct their own ones accurately” (T4)
Another response was:
“Spelling mistakes were very common in students’ texts. By doing peer feedback activities, they had the ability to recognize and correct them more quickly” (T3)
One student approved:
“Peer’s mistakes surely reflected my own ones, so I could myself correct them in my texts” (S6)
“I think when correcting my peer’s work, I also know what grammar or spelling mistakes I made in my own essay because sometimes it easier to see other’s mistakes rather than our own ones” (S2)
Data displayed also revealed that nearly all of the students agreed that they could generate better ideas thanks to peer feedback (item 7) with M= 3.97 and St.
D= .742. It may be because that when reading and evaluating their peer works, students could learn and refer them to write their own content in their paper. As a results, they could enrich quality of content in students’ texts. The findings collected from the interview also support the results from the questionnaire at this point.
71 One student affirmed:
“Peer’s writing work could be a useful reference for me to adapt in my own draft. I could make use of ideas from my peer’s texts”
(S4) Another one added:
“It was undeniable that what my peer wrote could be beneficial for me regarding ideas. Bases on that, I could develop my own work better” (S8)
Students’ confidence and motivation development Table 4.8
Descriptive Statistics of Students’ perceptions towards Students’ confidence and motivation development
No Items N Mean St.D
A. Students’ confidence and motivation development 8 Peer feedback helps me increase confidence in writing
assignments.
97 3.59 .826 9 Using peer feedback makes me feel comfortable discussing
with my peers.
97 3.90 .699 10 Using peer feedback makes me feel comfortable sharing
ideas to write
97 3.75 .662 11 Using peer feedback makes me more active in writing
activities.
97 3.58 .705 12 Using peer feedback encourages me to positively
participate in the writing activities.
97 3.53 .737 13 Positive peer feedback makes me want to produce my best
work.
97 3.69 .795 14 Positive peer feedback makes me want to write more
paragraph/essay.
97 3.27 .810
Data presented in Table 4.8 revealed that students perceived that peer feedback helped develop their confidence and motivation in learning writing. All the items had mean scores nearly 4, which means that they generally agreed that peer feedback has positive influence on their confidence and motivation. The highest mean score belongs to item 9 which indicates that using peer feedback made students feel comfortable discussing with their peers, with M=3.90 and St. D=.699. Students realized that they felt relaxed. Moreover, more than half of the students
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thought that they felt comfortable sharing ideas to write in writing activities (item 10) with M= 3.75 and St. D= .662. It may be because during peer feedback session, they felt less stressed due to the fact that they worked in a learning environment in which everyone was at the same level of proficiency in writing. It means that they were equal to one another. Besides, compared to teachers’ comments, feedback from peers seems to be easy to understand and remember. Therefore, students became confident in what they were writing. Information obtained from the interview is also in a line with this finding regarding this kind of benefit when most of the participants agreed that pee feedback helped them foster confidence as well as comfort in writing activities.
One student said:
“Through working with my peer on our papers, I could learn new grammatical structures and widen my range of vocabulary.
My writing works became more coherent. I also obtained new ideas relating to the writing topic and learnt how my peers developed the main ideas. I knew how to arrange ideas logically. Hence, I felt more confident than before” (S6)
Another added:
“With peer’s help, I feel more comfortable and relaxed. I do not feel scared thanks to the fact that my friends replace teacher’s role. Therefore, I am interested in interacting with my peers”
(S10)
In addition, data revealed that more than half of the students approved that using peer feedback made them more active in writing activities (item 11) and encouraged them to participate in the writing activities positively (item 12) with M=
3.58 & 3.53 and St. D= .705&.737 respectively. Activeness and willing to take part in any situations play important roles in acquiring language skills, especially writing skills. It is considered the most difficult among the four language skills. Therefore, students who are active in writing activities take more advantage than those who are not. When students are willing to complete the tasks, then they naturally desire to
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contribute to the lessons. Data collected from the interview also support the finding from the questionnaire. Most teachers expressed their agreement on the fact that their students became active and motivated thanks to peer correction. Similarly, students show their approval to this point as well.
One student clarified:
“Up to now, I have become more active when I learn to write because I could realized that working with peers was so exciting.
Therefore, I also felt more motivated to rewrite the drafts.” (S9) One teacher affirmed:
“To some extents, I found out that my students feel comfortable and become more active because they had more chances to interact with each other in peer feedback activities rather than in traditional writing activities in which teachers played a more important role in correcting student’s mistakes” (T3);
Another opinion was:
“When be conducted seriously, peer feedback developed not only student confidence in writing but also their desire to take part in in-class writing activities” (T4)
Again, based on the data above, it can be seen that more than half of the students concurred that positive peer feedback made them want to produce their best work (item 13) and made them want to write more essays in the coming lessons (item 14) with M=3.69&3.27 and St. D= .795&.810 respectively. It is no doubt that when working with peers, students became enthusiastic and positive on their writing performance, so they would like to spend more time practicing writing more to develop themselves. When excitement rises, students automatically write more without any fearful moment. Data obtained from interview is also aligning with what were found from the questionnaire regarding these benefits with most of teachers’ and students’ affirmation.
74 One teacher said:
“I realized that students was no longer afraid of rewrite the drafts. Some of them write the drafts over and over until their peers had no more correction. I was so glad to see that student- centered approach was developed” (T1)
One students said:
“I myself considered writing the most challenging skills for me in academic learning, but workings with peers and peers’
comments did not scared me. Instead, I dared to spend time writing more until I thought my texts were good enough to hand in.” (S6)
Students’ writing competence improvement Table 4.9
Descriptive Statistics of Students’ perceptions towards Students’ writing competence improvement
No Items N Mean St.D
Students’ writing competence improvement
15 Peer feedback helps me develop content in my essays 97 3.85 .618 16 Peer feedback helps improve my writing skills. 97 3.88 .650 17 Peer feedback helps me use better vocabulary in my
writing.
97 3.81 .682 18 Peer feedback helps me reduce grammar mistakes. 97 3.77 .637 19 Peer feedback helps me improve my grammar in my
writing.
97 3.84 .640 20 Peer feedback helps me use better collocation in my essay. 97 3.91 .663 21 Peer feedback helps me avoid spellings errors in future
writing.
97 3.73 .715 22 Peer feedback helps me finish my work on time. 97 3.25 .866 23 Peer feedback helps me use better sentences in my writing. 97 3.56 .763
Data displayed in Table 4.9 indicate that peer feedback benefited students in terms of writing competence. It can be seen that 9 items above explored students’
agreement on the advantages of peer feedback on the improvement of students’
writing skills in general. More specifically, as can be seen in the table, nearly almost students concurred that peer feedback helped develop content in their essays (item 15) with M= 3.85 and St. D= .618. It means that in peer correction activities,
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students who played the role of feedback giver could learn from feedback receiver’s ideas which could be adaptably applied in their essays. In learning writing, content is one of the most important elements that determine if writing products are qualifying. If the writers fail to develop content in their composition, readers will find it difficult to understand what the writer would like to express. This situation makes readers become confused. Moreover, with failure of delivering content in an essay in writing exam, students can hardly gain good grades. In accordance with the results from the questionnaire survey, the findings from the interview reveal some similarities as well.
One student said:
“I was very lucky that I did peer feedback with a very serious peer who had given me comments in a very serious way. We helped each other develop ideas in more logical order.
Sometimes when my peer did not understand the ideas I put in the sentences, she suggested me to replace these by better ones. I also agreed with her suggestions because they were indeed better” (S5)
Another response was:
“Actually, despite thinking too much before I put a line in my essays, the ideas were sometimes clumsy at the end. At that time, I felt so confused and I did not know how to change them. But my peer did. She gave me many useful modification in the content of my essay” (S10)
Additionally, most of the students thought that peer feedback helped them use better vocabulary in their writing (item 17) and collocation in their essay (item 20) with M= 3.81&3.91 and St. D= .682&.663 respectively. In fact, it can be denied that a wide range of vocabulary enables writers to express their opinion more conveniently and professionally. Without rich source of words and collocation, students hardly produce qualifying writing products, thus fail to convince readers to believe in the topic that they are discussing. Data obtained from teacher and student
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interview provide more useful evidence to support what were found in the questionnaire survey. Some teacher showed their support to this finding.
One teacher expressed:
“I could not imagine the benefits of peer feedback regarding vocabulary range development. Students mutually helped each other use more synonyms as well as antonyms. Hence, the range of vocabulary became more diverse. The essays was then much more appreciated.” (T1)
Students also showed their approval of the fact that peer comments became a new source of vocabulary for them in writing more complicated topics such as society, globalization or health care.
One student said:
“Working with a better partner helped me learn a lot from him.
He could think of words or phrases that I had never known. I would like to do peer practice with him more” (S7)
In addition to what has been stated, data in Table 4.9 indicate that peer feedback benefit students in terms of grammar improvement. The evidence is that more than half of the students’ approved that peer feedback helped them reduce grammar mistake (item 18) and then improve grammar (item 19) with M=
3.77&3.84 and St. D= .637&.640 respectively. It means that peers actually helped each other give accurate grammar correction on part of speech, verb tenses, subject - verb agreement and so on. It is always believed that grammar is the key factor that determine the success of a paper in writing. If someone’s goal is to be good at writing, being good at grammar is a must to reach that goal. Therefore, more grammatical structures were used in an appropriated way. Findings from teacher and student interview is also aligning with the results from the questionnaire. Below are some of their concerns.
77 One student believed:
“Peers gave my many correction on tenses that I used in my drafts. Sometimes my peer helped me identify run-on sentences.
Then we corrected them to make the essays grammatical.” (S6) One teacher concurred:
“I was glad to see that my students helped correct grammar mistakes in grammar. Although having low level of proficiency, they were still able to give correction on easy grammar features including tense, part of speech, etc. I realized that the more they worked with each other, the better grammatical structures they could produce later” (T4)
As can be seen in the table, moreover, more than half of the students agreed that peer feedback helped them avoid spelling errors in their future writing (item 21) with M= 3.73 and St. D= .715. Belonging to mechanics component, spelling should be much cared to ensure the value of writing work. Indeed, a composition with numerous spelling errors would not be appreciated. When working with peers, students’ writing would be corrected in terms of spelling so that the whole product could be fulfilled. As a result, the quality of their texts would much be enhanced gradually. The qualitative data from the interview are also in accordance with this finding when teachers and students expressed their approval. As for teachers, they thought that correction on spelling was an easy task and could be done quickly. After each time of correction, students could avoid such mistakes in upcoming texts. One teacher believed:
“My students could help each other correct spelling mistakes quickly and remind their peer of not repeating them in future essays.” (T2)
Similarly, it can be say in certainty that students can avoid spelling mistakes after doing peer correction. Some students thought it was great to have peers correct their spelling errors in their writing texts. One student said:
“I had my spelling errors corrected by my peer. Sometimes this type of mistake unexpectedly occurred due to rapid hand writing
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and carelessness, and my peer showed me where they were. At that time, I myself wondered not to repeat them again” (S4)
Based on the statistics above, it can be said that about half of students supposed peer feedback helped students finish work on time (item 22) with M=
3.25 and St. D= .866. Data obtained from the interview are also consistent with this finding. One student expressed:
“Peer comments helped me improve the quality of my essay a lot. I knew more good words to express my ideas as well as grammatical structures to upgrade my texts. Hence, I needn’t spend much time thinking about what words should I use.
Therefore, I was able to complete the task on time” (S10)
Additionally, item 23 regarding benefits in charge of helping students use better sentences in their writing takes the mean score M= 3.56 and St. D= .763. It is obvious that more than half of the students agreed with this item. When grammar is improved and ability to use suitable words in certain situation is enhanced, the fact that students can apply more qualifying sentences is evitable. Thus, they can make sentences become more diverse. Qualitative data collected are transcript as follows.
One students said:
“I found that I could use more complex sentence in my drafts thanks to peer’s suggestion. In the past, I used to write simple sentences, but now I could learn more how to paraphrase the content in different ways” (S7)
Vitally, the importance of peer feedback is emphasized when nearly most of the student acknowledged that peer feedback helped improve their writing skills (item 16) with M= 3.88 and St. D= .650. When teachers gave them time to work with each other during peer activities, their involvement increased. At that time, they got deeply into the activities of correction. They received more comments from peers and then rewrite another draft. Thus, it can be said that they had more chances to practice writing. Especially, when content, grammar, vocabulary and spelling are one by one fostered, there is a certainty that writing skills would be at a higher level. Data collected in interview are consistent with this finding when both teachers