Written Corrective Feedback: Preferences and Justifications of Teachers and Students in a Thai Context

Abstract

This study investigates the preferences and justifications of teachers and students on written corrective feedback (WCF) at a tertiary institution in Thailand and is aimed at expanding on prior similar studies conducted with smaller data sets in different contexts. Quantitative and qualitative questionnaire data were collected from 262 intermediate students and 21 teachers in order to test two hypotheses: (1) teachers' and students' WCF preferences would differ significantly, and (2) their justifications for their preferences would differ significantly. The hypotheses were confirmed: teachers rated indirect feedback with metalinguistic comment as being most useful while students most preferred direct feedback with metalinguistic comment. This trend extended to all types of direct feedback being preferred by students while teachers preferred all types of indirect feedback. The most common explanation for the teachers' preferences was the development of metacognitive skills, while accuracy was the greatest concern for students. The pedagogical implications of the results regarding expectations, student agency, and self-efficacy are discussed.

To feed back or to feed forward?

“…Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990;Lee, 2008), or because of the possible discrepancy between what kind of feedback teachers provide and what students would like to get (e.g. Black & Nanni, 2016;Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990)? There also appears to be a gap between what feedback teachers report giving and what students report getting (Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990).…”

“…Quite recently, however, there have been some such studies. For instance, the studies by Amrhein and Nassaji (2010) as well as Black and Nanni (2016) compared teachers' and students' perceptions and preferences over different methods of written CF. The results of both these studies indicated that students' and teachers' preferences as well as their justifications differed somewhat (Amrhein & Nassaji, 2010;Black & Nanni, 2016).…”

A Case Study of Teacher Feedback on Thai University Students’ Essay Writing

“…Furthermore, students' preferences for certain types and amounts of WCF were reported to partly account for the effectiveness of WCF because their preferences affect their use of it for learning (Ferris, 1995;Lee, 2005). For the effectiveness of WCF, the incongruity between students' and teachers' perceptions regarding WCF should therefore be avoided (Black & Nanni, 2016). Moreover, Ellis (2009), Guénette (2007) and Hyland and Hyland (2006) also emphasized that there is no best way to do WCF because its success or failure depends on the classroom setting, students' previous learning experiences, types of errors, writing tasks and a collection of other unknown variables.…”

“…With the multifaceted nature of WCF and in the reported culturally-based English learning and teaching context in Thailand (Black & Nanni, 2016;Root, 2016), how teachers practice this teaching technique with their students has not been documented in the literature. This study is expected to shed more light on how WCF is applied and its effectiveness in Thailand where English has been taught as a foreign language and a separate subject for decades.…”

“…This study is expected to shed more light on how WCF is applied and its effectiveness in Thailand where English has been taught as a foreign language and a separate subject for decades. Furthermore, Thai students' English writing is of particular concern as most writing programs in Thailand are still taught using the traditional model, emphasizing the accuracy of grammatical structures and vocabulary (Black & Nanni, 2016;Chamcharatsri, 2010;Puengpipattrakul, 2013). However, insufficient research has been conducted to help Thai students improve their writing in English.…”