Effective feedback for student revision

Lee, S. Y. S. (2003). Characteristics of teacher written feedback on student revision (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from http://libris.nie.edu.sg/

Background

The author argued that feedback given to primary school students on composition writing was seldom helpful and little research had been done to identify effective feedback.

Aims

This study examined the types of feedback which encouraged student revision and whether the revisions led to substantive and effective changes in student performance.

Sample

Thirty-three ten-year-old students from a neighbourhood primary school participated in the study. They demonstrated low proficiency in English.

Method

The students wrote two narrative picture compositions for which one piece of advice, one criticism, and one piece of praise were given as feedback, after which the students revised both compositions in class and submitted these second drafts. Three teachers rated how successful the students’ revisions were. A questionnaire was used to gather information on the students’ backgrounds and attitudes towards writing and their teachers’ feedback.

Findings

The findings showed that most revisions were made based first on advice followed by criticism and finally praise. Students preferred and responded to more specific advice. An overwhelming number of students preferred feedback framed as advice and praise. The author found that feedback framed as praise helped the students’ self-esteem and encouraged them to do better in their revisions.

The author found that the most successful and substantive revisions were based on advice. Advice framed as questions was particularly well received by the students. Unlike previous research on content and/ or form, which stated that both students and teachers put a lot of emphasis on form in revisions, this study showed clearly that the students responded to content more than form regardless of the type of feedback given. The author suggested that this could be because the teacher gave a lot more feedback on content than on form and the students were able to perceive this and made the necessary changes accordingly.

Implications

The author recommends that teachers should, in their feedback, show that they are genuinely interested as readers, give more advice, and use criticism with care.

Original article retrieved from NIE Digital Repository.