Engaging with multiple sources of feedback in academic writing: postgraduate students’ perspectives

Abstract

Despite a surge of research interest in feedback engagement in higher education, postgraduate students’ engagement with multiple sources of feedback in the context of academic writing is understudied. Informed by the notion of feedback literacy, we explore how Chinese postgraduate students perceive and engage with automated, peer and teacher feedback, as well as the feedback process as a whole, in academic writing. The analysis of 120 students’ diaries and ten students’ interviews shows that multiple sources of feedback and related activities complement each other in feedback areas (e.g. grammar, content, structure), perspectives (e.g. reader, expert) and depth of improvement to the writing (e.g. from correction to polishing or refinement). We conclude that engaging with multiple sources of feedback supports students’ writing and learning. This study adds to the literature by revealing the social, co-constructed, complementary and enabling nature of feedback engagement. The students engage with multiple sources of feedback and related activities internally, externally, proactively, critically and collaboratively in the intrapersonal, interpersonal and human-material spheres.

Keywords:

• Feedback engagement
• feedback literacy
• postgraduate students
• multiple sources of feedback

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Linlin Xu is an Associate Professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and Honorary Academic at the University of Auckland. She researches academic writing, feedback, academic identity and intercultural supervision and has published on these research topics in journals such as Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Higher Education Research and Development.

Tiefu Zhang is a lecturer of applied linguistics in the School of Foreign Languages at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. His recent publications on second language acquisition, second language writing, and EMI in higher education have appeared in journals like System, Journal of Second Language Writing, and Language and Education.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Science Fund of China (Grant Number: 21BYY126).