Students’ Perceptions about Peer Feedback for Writing: Their Effect on Revised Texts

Abstract

In EFL writing classes, peer feedback has attracted much attention from researchers. The collaborative learning theory shows that peer feedback promotes learning and improves writing skills (Hu & Lam, 2010). The present study aims to investigate Turkish EFL students’ perceptions of peer feedback in their writing classes and the effect of peer-feedback in their writing development. The data in this study was conducted from students who study at an English language teaching department in a private university in Turkey. The first part of the data was collected through pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire to delve into any change in students’ perceptions about peer-feedback. As for the second part, students’ essays written before and after the treatment was scored by the researcher and a second rater to see the impact of peer-feedback. The results showed improvement in students’ second drafts after receiving peer feedback, provided evidence for importance of collaborative learning theory. The questionnaire could not investigate a significant change in pre and post questionnaire. Nevertheless, this can be an important implication for the field underlying that EFL students may not be aware of the importance of peer feedback even feedbacks effect their scores positively.

Keywords

• Peer Feedback
• Student Perceptions
• Writing Development

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