Students’ Perspectives as Providers and Receivers of Peer Formative Feedback on Writing

Abstract

The current study focused on exploring the benefits and challenges arising from engagement of 40 undergraduates in peer feedback in a writing course from the feedback providers’ and receivers’ perspectives. The data was collected from students through a survey and follow-up interviews at the end of two rounds of peer feedback: Round 1 (20 students acting as feedback providers while 20 as receivers) and Round 2 (reserving the roles of students). The findings revealed several benefits of peer feedback for both providers and receivers, which are synthesized under three major themes: being beneficial for students’ learning and writing, fostering students’ positive feelings and engaging students in reviewing and revising strategies. Despite its benefits, peer feedback is of several challenging concerns for providers and receivers. For providers, they are challenged by their lacking feeling of comfort and low self-confidence as well as lacking certainty about the quality of their feedback. For receivers, they are challenged by their doubts about the reliability of peer feedback and difficulty understanding some feedback as well as the poor quality of records of oral feedback. The study, therefore, provides important pedagogical implications for effective peer feedback practices in writing classrooms.