Teacher feedback and student revisions

Silver, R., & Lee, S. (2007). What does it take to make a change. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 6(1), 25-49. Retrieved from http://education.waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/2007v6n1art.pdf

Background

Prior research has shown that students seemed to like praise and that some reacted negatively to criticism. The authors indicated that students did not appreciate feedback that only focused on negative aspects.

Aims

The aim of thisarticle was to examine the effects of teachers’ written feedback on students’ revision of their writing, and which characteristics of feedback encouraged student revision.

Sample

The participants were 33 10-year-old Primary 4 students in a Singapore school and an English Language teacher. The students’ dominant spoken home language was not English. They were from lower or middle-class backgrounds.

Method

The authors collected three sets of data: a questionnaire, two written compositions with teacher written feedback, and two revised compositions. They used the questionnaire to collect data on students’ language and socio-economic background, attitudes, feelings, and reactions towards writing and teacher feedback. Each student was asked to write 120-word narratives in class. The teacher gave written feedback on each draft. Three types of feedback were given: praise, advice, and criticism. The drafts returned to the students were revised according to the feedback given. Another set of compositions were collected in the same way for a different topic.

The revisions made by the students were analysed using a six-point scale. Three teachers rated the same five compositions to ensure consistency in the rating of revisions at the beginning of the moderation session. Subsequently, each second draft was rated by two teachers and all differences were resolved through discussion. The number of revisions per feedback type was calculated to determine which type of teacher feedback encouraged revision.

Findings

The students preferred to receive praise and advice. They were most likely to revise their work based on the feedback which was advice. Substantive revision was more likely when advice was given. The students found that feedback showing them how to revise their work was most useful. They did not like to receive criticism. However, criticism still encouraged some revision. Although they appreciated praise, the feedback needed to be sincere and specific. Criticism was best used along with other feedback types. The results also indicated that although criticism and advice encouraged revision, the revisions were mostly unsuccessful.

Implications

The authors recommended that students be trained on understanding the intent of teacher feedback so that they could respond to the feedback appropriately. They recommended that teachers use a combination of types of feedback to encourage revisions.

Original article retrieved from Google Scholar.