Quantifying Incorporation of Feedback on Written Essays

Abstract

This small-scale study is an initial examination of both peer and teacher feedback and its incorporation into revisions on short essays produced by undergraduate EFL students as part of the requirements of an essay writing course. This exploratory investigation is part of ongoing research into the order and incorporation of both global peer comments and local teacher corrections on a series of essays in an introductory undergraduate writing course at a public university in Japan. The current study examined, globally from peer review and locally from teacher correction, both the amount of feedback given on and the extent to which students incorporated said feedback into future versions of essays, and whether they did so successfully. By quantifying peer and teacher feedback, the current study was able to examine the change exhibited by a small group of students over the course of five essays. Results indicate that students do not regularly incorporate every instance of feedback into their writing, and that they frequently do not incorporate feedback correctly. However, the extent of each type of feedback’s incorporation and accuracy varied across writing assignments and time.