More enjoyable to give or to receive? Exploring students’ emotional status in their peer feedback of academic writing

Abstract

In the peer feedback literature the topic of students’ enjoyment is largely unexplored, and attention to the emotional differences between feedback givers and receivers is unbalanced. To address this gap, the present study examined the enjoyment differences of Chinese graduate students (N = 32), performing consecutively the role of feedback givers and of receivers, over eight weeks in their English academic writing class. It found that the students generally preferred the giver role, reporting significantly higher scores in private and peer enjoyment with that role. The thematic analysis of their personal letters accompanying peer feedback revealed that they had heightened their sense of fulfillment and enthusiasm when giving comments. Pedagogical suggestions are given to innovate and improve peer feedback activities in academic writing.

Keywords:

• Enjoyment
• peer feedback
• feedback giving
• academic writing

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Humanity and Social Science Fund of Ministry of Education of China (Grant Number: 17YJC740074).