What Is the Influence of Peer Feedback and Author Response on Chinese University Students’ English Writing Performance?

Enhancing writing pedagogy in university‐based courses for students of English as a foreign language has been a long‐term goal of educators and researchers. Most recent work, however, has relied on qualitative methodologies that limit our capacity to generalize findings. In this quantitative study, the authors adopted a quasi‐experimental control group design to investigate effects of peer feedback and author response on university students’ writing performance in a context of English as a foreign language. A total of 198 sophomores majoring in English took part in a 15‐week research study. The authors conducted a repeated‐measures analysis of covariance to examine the effects of a traditional teacher feedback instructional group compared with an experimental peer feedback group. Results showed that the peer feedback group showed a significantly greater writing performance gain than the traditional teacher feedback group. Furthermore, follow‐up analyses focusing on the experimental group that relied on a series of multiple regressions showed that both the quality of students’ feedback and the quality of their author responses were significant and stable predictors of students’ writing performance. Results also showed that the quality of students’ author responses had a slightly larger impact on writing performance than the quality of students’ feedback. This study provides clear evidence of the power of formative peer feedback as an approach to support learning that both empowers students and addresses widely cited problems that arise when the instructor is the only source of feedback in a writing course. 在以大学为基础的课程中,为英语作为外语的学生加强写作教学,是教育工作者和研究人员一直以来的长远目标。然而,现今的研究工作却大部分只依靠定性研究方法,因而限制了通用化研究结果的能力。本文作者在本定量研究中,采用准实验对照组设计,在英语作为外语背景下,探讨同侪反馈和作者回应对大学生写作能力的影响。共有198名主修英语的大二学生参加了这个为期15周的研究。本文作者进行重复测量共变数分析,以考查一个传统教师反馈教学组与另一个同侪反馈实验教学组的相比效果。分析结果显示,同侪反馈实验组写作成绩的提升,显著高于传统教师反馈组。此外,一系列以实验组为重点的多种回归后续分析结果显示,学生反馈的质量和作者回应的质量,都是学生写作成绩的显著和稳定预测指标。结果亦显示,学生作者的回应质量对写作成绩的影响比学生反馈的质量略大。本研究提供了明确的证据,证明形成性同侪反馈作为一种支援学习的方法,既能增强学生的权能,又能解决广泛被认为在写作课程中教师是唯一反馈来源而出现的问题。 Mejorar la pedagogía de la escritura en cursos universitarios para estudiantes de inglés como lengua extranjera ha sido un objetivo a largo plazo de educadores e investigadores. Los estudios más recientes, sin embargo, se ha basado en metodologías cualitativas que limitan nuestra capacidad para generalizar los hallazgos. En este estudio cuantitativo, los autores adoptaron un diseño de grupo de control cuasi‐experimental para investig