Toward a better understanding of student engagement with peer feedback: a longitudinal study
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Jinghua Qian
and
Danli Li
Abstract
While the past two decades have witnessed enormous growth in research on student engagement with feedback on second language (L2) writing, little attention has been paid to student engagement with peer feedback longitudinally through peer feedback interaction. This study explored how 12 students engaged with peer feedback cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively over a semester of L2 writing and learning, and what factors influenced student engagement. Data were collected from peer feedback dialogue, multiple drafts of compositions, retrospective verbal reports, feedback notes, self-reflection, and focus groups. Data were analyzed through text analysis, content analysis, and thematic analysis. The findings revealed that student engagement with peer feedback varied over four writing tutorials. Face-to-face peer feedback contributed to maintaining sustainable student engagement with peer feedback. Other learner-related factors such as learner beliefs, language proficiency, product-oriented mindset, and context-related factors such as task requirements, feedback-related issues, and interaction patterns jointly influenced student engagement.
Funding source: The Humanities and Social Science Research Foundation of Chinese Ministry of Education
Award Identifier / Grant number: 19YJA740025
Funding source: The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China
Award Identifier / Grant number: 1103-413000094
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Research funding: This work was supported by The Humanities and Social Science Research Foundation of Chinese Ministry of Education (19YJA740025) and The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (1103-413000094).
Appendix A: Timeline of tutorials and writing tasks
| Timeline | Tutorials | Rhetorical modes | Writing topics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 6 | Tutorial 1 | Process and procedure | Making food |
| Week 8 | Tutorial 2 | Illustration | Tutoring |
| Week 9 | Tutorial 3 | Comparison and contrast | Digital payment versus Traditional payment |
| Week 13 | Tutorial 4 | Argumentation | The legalization of euthanasia/Jury system/Interracial marriage |
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The sequence of four writing tasks was accordance with the units of the textbook.
Appendix B: Coding scheme of student engagement with peer feedback (adapted from Fan and Xu 2020)
| Categories | Sub-categories | Codes (sub-codes) |
|---|---|---|
| Cognitive engagement | Noticing and understanding feedback | Noticing, understanding |
| Meta-cognitive operations | Monitoring, planning | |
| Cognitive operations | Arguing with peers, reflecting writing process, directly accepting feedback, rejecting feedback, making judgements, taking initiatives to address uncertainties | |
| Behavioral engagement | Revision operations | Correct revision, incorrect revision, content revision, substitution, deletion, no revision |
| Revision strategies | Reviewing feedback notes, consulting external resources, asking tutor, reading through text, learning from peers | |
| Affective engagement | Affect | Confusion, frustration, resistance, confidence, joy, self-blaming, inspiration, gratitude |
| Interest | Positive, negative | |
| Value |
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© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Broadening the appliability of systemic functional linguistics
- Research Articles
- Functional linguistics in life: an embodied approach in teacher education
- Teaching citation to university students
- Patterns of interaction between experiential and interpersonal meanings in student texts in Spanish: grounds for system-based applications in an academic writing context
- System networks as a resource in L2 writing education
- Teaching Chinese grammar through International Chinese Language Education micro-lectures: negotiating mass and presence through multimodal pedagogic discourse
- Meaning-making in English-medium instruction science classroom interaction: from the systemic functional linguistics perspective
- Scaffolding instruction in an EFL drama lesson: a systemic functional analysis
- Teaching mental processes to EFL learners: a blended-learning proposal
- SFL as a socially accountable praxis: who and what are we working for?
- Regular Articles
- The influence of task complexity and task modality on learners’ topic and turn management
- Explicit grammar instruction in the EFL classroom: studying the impact of age and gender
- Language pedagogies and late-life language learning proficiency
- The relative effects of corrective feedback and language proficiency on the development of L2 pragmalinguistic competence: the case of request downgraders
- Unraveling the dynamics of English communicative motivation and self-efficacy through task-supported language teaching: a latent growth modeling perspective
- Effects of random selection tests on second language vocabulary learning: a comparison with cumulative tests
- Determining the L2 academic writing development stage: a corpus-based research on doctoral dissertations
- Dynamic development of cohesive devices in English as a second language writing
- What pronunciation specialists believe CELTA tutors need to know to prepare student teachers to teach pronunciation
- The effect of collaborative prewriting on L2 collaborative writing production and individual L2 writing development
- Beyond learning opportunities: focused encounters in a sociocognitive approach to second language acquisition and teaching
- Funds of knowledge for synchronous online language teaching: a translanguaging view on an ESL teacher’s pedagogical practices
- A frequency, coverage, and dispersion analysis of the academic collocation list in university student writing
- Fostering well-being in the university L2 classroom: the “I am an author” project
- How teaching modality affects Foreign Language Enjoyment: a comparison of in-person and online English as a Foreign Language classes
- Toward a better understanding of student engagement with peer feedback: a longitudinal study
- Chinese EFL learners’ basic psychological needs satisfaction and foreign language emotions: a person-centered approach
- Are foreign language teaching enjoyment and motivation two sides of the same coin?
- Orchestrating listening in EMI university lectures: how listening proficiency and motivation shape students’ use of metacognitive listening strategies
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Broadening the appliability of systemic functional linguistics
- Research Articles
- Functional linguistics in life: an embodied approach in teacher education
- Teaching citation to university students
- Patterns of interaction between experiential and interpersonal meanings in student texts in Spanish: grounds for system-based applications in an academic writing context
- System networks as a resource in L2 writing education
- Teaching Chinese grammar through International Chinese Language Education micro-lectures: negotiating mass and presence through multimodal pedagogic discourse
- Meaning-making in English-medium instruction science classroom interaction: from the systemic functional linguistics perspective
- Scaffolding instruction in an EFL drama lesson: a systemic functional analysis
- Teaching mental processes to EFL learners: a blended-learning proposal
- SFL as a socially accountable praxis: who and what are we working for?
- Regular Articles
- The influence of task complexity and task modality on learners’ topic and turn management
- Explicit grammar instruction in the EFL classroom: studying the impact of age and gender
- Language pedagogies and late-life language learning proficiency
- The relative effects of corrective feedback and language proficiency on the development of L2 pragmalinguistic competence: the case of request downgraders
- Unraveling the dynamics of English communicative motivation and self-efficacy through task-supported language teaching: a latent growth modeling perspective
- Effects of random selection tests on second language vocabulary learning: a comparison with cumulative tests
- Determining the L2 academic writing development stage: a corpus-based research on doctoral dissertations
- Dynamic development of cohesive devices in English as a second language writing
- What pronunciation specialists believe CELTA tutors need to know to prepare student teachers to teach pronunciation
- The effect of collaborative prewriting on L2 collaborative writing production and individual L2 writing development
- Beyond learning opportunities: focused encounters in a sociocognitive approach to second language acquisition and teaching
- Funds of knowledge for synchronous online language teaching: a translanguaging view on an ESL teacher’s pedagogical practices
- A frequency, coverage, and dispersion analysis of the academic collocation list in university student writing
- Fostering well-being in the university L2 classroom: the “I am an author” project
- How teaching modality affects Foreign Language Enjoyment: a comparison of in-person and online English as a Foreign Language classes
- Toward a better understanding of student engagement with peer feedback: a longitudinal study
- Chinese EFL learners’ basic psychological needs satisfaction and foreign language emotions: a person-centered approach
- Are foreign language teaching enjoyment and motivation two sides of the same coin?
- Orchestrating listening in EMI university lectures: how listening proficiency and motivation shape students’ use of metacognitive listening strategies
