Exploring online peer feedback and automated corrective feedback on EFL writing performance

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have been done to research the effects of different electronic feedback (e-feedback) modes of helping English as a foreign language (EFL) students improve their writing. The purpose of this study was to employ online peer feedback (OPF) and automated corrective feedback (ACF) to assess EFL learners’ writing performance in the areas of sentence complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical density. Our major findings suggest that OPF is potentially more useful than ACF in improving sentence writing, making fewer grammatical errors, and producing more types of lexical items. Nevertheless, we also found that the majority of students favored the use of ACF for the purpose of producing a richer vocabulary. Less skilled writers tended to make greater improvements than higher-skilled writers in producing more sentences and lexical items after OPF use; however, the difference was not statistically significant. Based on our research results, we discuss and present the implications of these findings for pedagogical instruction and future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Online peer feedback
• automated corrective feedback
• sentence complexity
• grammatical accuracy
• lexical density

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 105-2410-H-214-011).

Notes on contributors

Hui-Fang Shang

Hui-Fang Shang is a Full Professor of Department of Applied English and Dean of College of Language Arts at I-Shou University in Taiwan. Her expertise and research interests include TEFL, CALL, and curriculum design.