Assessing students’ peer feedback literacy in writing: scale development and validation

Abstract

Peer feedback activities are characterized by peers performing both roles of feedback provider and receiver, and peers are found to benefit from both roles. However, in current feedback literacy studies, the emphasis has been overwhelmingly given to students’ understandings, capacities and dispositions in receiving feedback, and existing student feedback literacy scales measure only the receiving side of feedback literacy. Students learn from providing and what they provide fundamentally shapes what others receive. This study conceptualizes peer feedback literacy as students’ capacities and attitudes in providing and receiving peer feedback, and developed and validated a peer feedback literacy scale on the basis of responses from 474 Chinese university students. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, and four factors emerged: feedback-related knowledge and abilities, cooperative learning ability, appreciation of peer feedback, and willingness to participate. The resulting scale showed good psychometric properties and revealed some surprising associations with student major, year and amount of prior experience.

Keywords:

• Peer feedback literacy
• writing
• scale development
• Chinese university students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by The National Social Science Fund of China [18BYY114], and Social Science Planning Fund of Jilin Provincial Education Department [JJKH20221148SK].

Notes on contributors

Zhe Dong

Mr. Zhe Dong is a PhD candidate at School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University in China. His research interests include peer assessment in EFL writing and feedback literacy.

Ying Gao

Dr. Ying Gao is a Professor at MOE Language Training Center and School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University in China. Her research focuses on EFL writing, peer assessment in English writing, and classroom interaction, with particular concern on peer review in EFL writing through co-operative learning.

Christian D. Schunn

Dr. Christian D. Schunn is a Professor and senior cognitive scientist working with Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interest extends to a wide range of cognitive studies involving STEM reasoning and learning, web-based peer interaction and instruction, neuroscience of complex learning, and engagement and learning. He is the founder of an online peer review system (Peerceptiv), which is widely used in USA, China, and some European countries.