The effect of feedback on metacognitive strategy use in EFL writing

Abstract

This study mainly explored the effects of teacher feedback, peer feedback and automated feedback on the use of metacognitive strategies in EFL writing. Ninety-seven participants were recruited and divided into three groups, who received two months of feedback from teachers, peers and an automatic writing evaluation system, respectively, and then completed English writing tasks. Metacognitive strategies in this study entail planning strategies (including language knowledge accumulation strategies and pre-planning strategies), monitoring strategies (including selective attention strategies and self-monitoring strategies), and self-evaluation strategies. By conducting repeated-measures ANOVA on three groups of participants’ use of metacognitive strategies before and after receiving different feedbacks, it was found that there were statistically significant differences in the effects of teacher feedback, peer feedback, and automated feedback on the use of selective attention strategies, whereas there were no statistically significant differences in the impact of those aforementioned types of feedback on other metacognitive strategies. It was also found that automated feedback had a hindrance effect on the use of monitoring strategies, whereas teacher feedback and peer feedback had a promotive effect on the use of all metacognitive strategies.

Keywords:

• Automated feedback
• teacher feedback
• peer feedback
• metacognitive strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jianhua Zhang

Zhang Jianhua is a PhD student in Applied Linguistics at the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is a Professor of English Applied Linguistics at the School of Foreign Languages, Sichuan University of Arts and Science. He holds an MA in Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from Xi’an International Studies University, China. His research interests lie in second language writing and second language acquisition. He has published papers in SSCI-indexed journals such as Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Journal of Quantitative Linguistics and Reading & Writing Quarterly.

Lawrence Jun Zhang

Lawrence Jun Zhang, PhD, is Professor of Linguistics-in-Education and Associate Dean for the Faculty of Education and Social Work,The University of Auckland, New Zealand. His major interests and 100-plus publications are on learner metacognition, language-teacher education and L2 reading-writing development. He is Co-Chief-Editor for System and an associate editor for Frontiers in Psychology, serving as an editorial board member for Applied Linguistics Review, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Journal of Second Language Writing, Metacognition and Learning, Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics and RELC Journal. He was honoured by the TESOL International Association (USA) in 2016 with the award of ‘50 at 50’, acknowledging ‘50 Outstanding Leaders’ and was officially installed as a newly elected member of the Board of Directors of the Association in 2017. Email: [email protected]