The effectiveness of diverse types of written feedback: Comparative study of teacher and student feedback

다양한 종류의 피드백이 영어작문 향상에 미치는 효과: 교사.동료 피드백의 비교 연구

There is disagreement, among researchers, on the benefits of corrective feedback on L2 learners' written output. Some scholars advocate the usefulness of corrective feedback while some claim that error correction is ineffective and even harmful. So far, however, research outcomes cannot settle this debate. Based on this debate, this study examines whether there is a difference among diverse types of feedback on the effects of L2 learners' writing improvement. This study found that teacher's direct feedback was more effective than any other types of feedback on the effect of participants' writing improvement. In particular, teacher's direct feedback helped their improvement on grammar, mechanics, and form. Among the types of peer feedback, self-correction was the most effective. In teacher feedback, form-focused feedback had more effects than content-focused feedback, but no difference with regard to peer feedback. In addition, teacher's content-focused feedback was more effective than peer's content-focused feedback. Overall, in all types of feedback, teacher feedback was more effective than peer feedback. However, direct (form-focused) feedback was the most effective in teacher feedback, and self-correction in peer feedback. The least effective feedback in both teacher and peer feedback was indirect (form-focused) feedback, which is simple underlining of errors.