Trajectories of Students’ Writing Feedback Attitudes

Abstract

Students’ acceptance and use of feedback to improve their writing may be influenced by their attitudes toward receiving such feedback. In the present study, we investigated the trajectories of students’ attitudes toward receiving feedback on their writing from teachers and peers in Grades 3–7. Data were collected from 1,071 students in the fall of three consecutive academic years using a cohort-sequential design. Results indicate that students have a generally positive attitude toward receiving writing feedback by both peers and teachers at all grades. However, results of parallel process latent growth modeling suggest that these attitudes decline annually between third and seventh grade. Further, both trajectories seem to shift between fifth and sixth grade, suggesting different processes between Grades 3–5 and Grades 5–7. Finally, female students tended to like receiving feedback from teachers and peers more than their male peers.

Keywords:

• Attitudes
• elementary school
• feedback
• latent growth model
• middle school
• writing

Notes

1 Although the MAR assumption is statistically untestable (Enders, 2010), some statistical evidence (e.g., correlations) and knowledge of the data collection procedures and study design can support this assumption.

2 Although SMC-FCS imputation considers the substantive model during imputation, it does not force imputed data to adhere to the substantive model. That is, it does not impose the model on the imputed data.

3 The fifth grade measurement point was the only occasion at which there was no planned missing data. If a student had planned missing data for a given measurement occasion, we did not have teacher information for that student and could therefore not nest that student within a classroom.