“Students’ Perceptions of Written Instructor Feedback on Student Writing”

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About the Author

Eric Wisz is currently a graduate student in the University of Central Florida’s Rhetoric and Composition M.A. program. His research interests include writing center studies and instructor feedback on student writing.

Contents

Introduction

Instructor Feedback in Literature

Student Interviews

Participant Demographics

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Appendices

ABSTRACT

Instructor feedback on student writing has been a popular topic of discussion and research in the field of writing studies for the past few decades. As an undergraduate student researcher, I conducted one-on-one interviews with undergraduate students about their perceptions of and feelings towards written instructor feedback on student writing. Using a mock page of student writing, I created two examples of instructor feedback that I had participants read and discuss during the one-on-one interviews. This article reports on the qualitative data gathered from these interviews. Participants made a distinction and created a binary between comments that directed them to focus on the ideas of their paper and feedback that directed them to focus on word choice and sentence structure. Participants valued feedback framed from a reader’s perspective. Participants thought open-ended questions in feedback were helpful in seeing the relationship between and developing their ideas. They found suggestions and examples helpful in formulating their own revisions and explanation useful in learning grammar rules and discourse community norms. Participants saw the merits and benefits of a variety of feedback forms, which suggests that the form of feedback ought to be dependent on the context—what the feedback is discussing, the revision the feedback is implying, the skills and knowledge of the particular writer to whom the feedback is geared, where the writer is in their writing process, etc.—in which it is given.

Introduction

We assume that feedback on student writing plays a pedagogically prominent role in students’ development as writers, just as class instruction, course readings, student-instructor writing conferences, or peer writing tutoring sessions. Indeed, there is much overlap between these forms of instruction, but for the purpose of this article, I focus on written instructor feedback on student writing.

The meaning of written instructor feedback influences how students conduct their revision processes and future writing processes and, thus, how they view the act of writing. In his inquiry into instructor feedback on student writing, Straub (1996) finds that “the way comments are framed has a direct influence on the meaning of the comments” (p. 235). Thus, this article focuses on, more specifically, student perceptions of instructor feedback on their writing. My overall research question is the following: How do students perceive instructor feedback on student writing when different feedback approaches are presented? Student perspectives in this report take the form of transcripts from student interviews. Due to the limited scope of this project (12 student interviews), the data gathered from these interviews should not be generalized to all students. Rather, the purpose of this study is to contribute student voices to the ongoing discussion on instructor feedback practices.

I begin by offering an overview of some of the relevant literature from the field of composition studies pertaining to instructor feedback on student writing. I then outline how the interviews in this study were conducted and detail some relevant participant demographics. Finally, I discuss some of the students’ impressions, interpretations, and uses of instructor feedback and what this could mean for feedback practices. Participants made a distinction and created a binary between comments that directed them to focus on the ideas of their paper and feedback that directed them to focus on word choice and sentence structure. Participants tended to respond positively to feedback framed in terms of a reader’s perspective. Participants thought open-ended questions in feedback were helpful in seeing the relationship between and developing their ideas. They found suggestions and examples helpful in formulating their own revisions and explanation useful in learning grammar rules and discourse community norms. Overall, participant responses indicate that what qualifies as “good” feedback depends on the rhetorical situation of the feedback.