Investigating English language learners’ beliefs about oral corrective feedback at Chinese universities: a large-scale survey

Abstract

This article reports on a large-scale survey study investigating EFL learners’ beliefs about oral corrective feedback (CF). A 44-item questionnaire tapping into learners’ beliefs about corrective feedback was administered to 2670 Chinese EFL learners. These learners were from 15 Chinese universities in 14 provinces and municipalities across the country, which were stratified in accordance with per capita GDP values. An exploratory factor analysis generated seven factors: general attitude toward CF, CF timing, output-prompting CF, uptake, input-providing CF, peer CF, and gravity of errors. The results indicate that participants had an overall positive attitude toward CF, and they showed more preferences for immediate CF over delayed CF, and output-prompting CF over input-providing CF. Additionally, learners were slightly positive about the efficacy of uptake and peer correction. Findings also suggest some consistency between the Chinese learners’ CF beliefs and empirical SLA research about the effectiveness of error correction, as well as the variance of CF-related beliefs across educational contexts.

Keywords:

• Learner beliefs
• oral corrective feedback
• exploratory factor analysis
• EFL learners
• Chinese universities

Acknowledgements

We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to Associate Professor Shaofeng Li at Florida State University for his valuable advice and ongoing support to our project. Our heartfelt thanks also go to Professor Rod Ellis at Curtin University for his insightful comments on this manuscript. Also, we sincerely thank the two anonymous referees and the editors for their very helpful feedback. Moreover, we owe a lot to our colleagues and friends who have helped us very generously with instrument validation and data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Universities in China are generally divided into three types: Project 211 universities, Project 985 universities, and the ordinary universities. Project 211 and Project 985, initiated in 1995 and 1998 respectively by the Ministry of Education, were aimed at enhancing academic performance and gaining international prestige for top universities in China. In this study, Project 211 and Project 985 universities were classified as key universities, and other universities were categorised into ordinary universities.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (grant number: 17BYY207).

Notes on contributors

Yan Zhu

Yan Zhu is an associate professor at the College of Foreign Languages and Literature, Fudan University (China). Dr. Zhu’s research focuses on FLT curriculum innovation, task-based language teaching, and classroom interaction. She is currently the principal investigator for a project supported by the National Social Science Fund of China.

Beilei Wang

Beilei Wang is an associate professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Tongji University (China). She is also an adjunct researcher at Shanghai Center for Research in English Language Education in Shanghai International Studies University (China). Her research interests include ELT curriculum design, formative assessment, learner autonomy and materials development.