Assessing peer and instructor response to writing: A corpus analysis from an expert survey

Peer review in academic writing: Different perspectives from instructors and students

“…Peer review is one of the most common activities that teachers use to evaluate students’ work (Anson & Anson, 2017; Brammer & Rees, 2007; Hu, 2005; Yu & Hu, 2017). It is founded on the concept of learning as a social activity that is shared by several theoretical frameworks, including Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and sociocultural theory, activity theory, and collaborative learning theory.…”

Introduction

“…Wei Zhu (1995) reviews research that documents the difficulties students experience with peer response arising from a lack of knowledge about writing and how to provide effective response. What teachers do to orient students, therefore, can exert an important influence on how students behave when engaged in the process, a finding reported in Anson and Anson (2017) in the context of a digital peer-review system. Additionally, what students focus on and how they focus on it are shaped by their interpretations of the teachers' instructional ideology, conveyed through stated preferences and course materials.…”

Linguistic Features of Formative Feedback on ESL Argumentative Writing: Comparing Pre-service and Experienced Teachers

“…Overall, the literature suggests that it is important for ESL teachers to acknowledge the range of needs, as well as strengths, in their students' writing and present them in a structured way (Ferris et al, 2011). Such high-quality feedback, however, is often unrealistic due to large class sizes, workloads, and formal requirements by institutions (Anson & Anson, 2017). Teachers report difficulties in finding a balance between positive and negative comments as well as a balance between content and form related aspects (Anson & Anson, 2017;Junqueira & Payant, 2015;Montgomery & Baker, 2007;Stern & Solomon, 2006).…”

“…Such high-quality feedback, however, is often unrealistic due to large class sizes, workloads, and formal requirements by institutions (Anson & Anson, 2017). Teachers report difficulties in finding a balance between positive and negative comments as well as a balance between content and form related aspects (Anson & Anson, 2017;Junqueira & Payant, 2015;Montgomery & Baker, 2007;Stern & Solomon, 2006). Many empirical studies have shown that teachers' comments are predominantly negative (Connors & Lunsford, 1993;Read, Francis, & Robson, 2005;Stern & Solomon, 2006;Vögelin et al, 2018) and often focus on lower-order aspects, such as word choice, grammar or spelling, instead of higher-order concerns, such as content and discoursal issues (Anson & Anson, 2017;Lee et al, 2018;Montgomery & Baker, 2007).…”