“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

Discussion

The recorded interviews were transcribed and coded for thematic patterns. This section of the article will discuss the major themes and their implications for instructor feedback. These patterns are not intended to be generalized to all undergraduate students. Rather, my goal is to offer student voices to the conversation on instructor feedback.

Participants’ Perceptions of Form and Content

As stated previously, Straub’s (2000) study suggested that students perceive a clear distinction between form and content in writing. Participants mentioned that Example 1 was focused on grammar (errors or form) while Example 2 was focused on ideas. According to Participant K, “I believe the person who writes this [question] wants more of the significance of the topic while this [directive comment] is more focused on grammar issues.” The two pieces of feedback that Participant K is discussing (a question posed in Example 2 and a comment in Example 1) both address the same concern—word choice—at the same part in the text. In fact, both comments make similar suggestions in how to address revising the word choice at this point in the text, yet participants, such as Participant K, saw a significant difference in the nature of revisions suggested in these comments. I find this form-content binary to be fascinating because, as previously mentioned, both feedback examples commented on the same areas and gave the same general direction as suggestions for revisions. Participants also picked up on the similarities in what the feedback addressed and in the general direction it suggested for revision, as participants mentioned that the revised versions of the two examples would likely look very similar.

For many participants, how the feedback is framed—as a question or as an explicit suggestion—may impact how the participants perceived what the instructor was asking them to do during the revision process. This difference in participant perception of revision processes can be seen not only when participants discuss individual comments, as with Participant K above, but also as they discuss their hypothetical revision processes holistically. When asked how they would go about revising the paper if they had received Example 1’s feedback, eight participants noted that they would quickly make revisions to the text, simply creating sentence-level revisions based on the instructor’s suggestions and only focusing on sentences on which the instructor commented. For example, Participant G said about Example 1, “The straightforward—I think—nature of just telling you, ‘Do this,’ doesn’t really leave a lot of room for thinking about how you might want to improve the paper on a more substantial level. It’s just the line-by-line editing.” Other participants echoed this sentiment that Example 1 was more focused on the “line-by-line editing.” However, participants discussed how they would approach revising Example 2 more holistically. For example, Participant I stated:

I would read the comments ... And then ... let’s see ... I think I would ... I would just reflect on—yeah, reflect on the comments, and then I probably would reread it and then just try to see where those points of—Because this one I guess is different because it doesn’t try to exactly, explicitly state ... direct sentences or specific points of where it was.

Four other participants had similar reflections to Participant I, stating that they would refer to the paper’s main argument or thesis statement while revising Example 2.

Feedback can influence how student writers go about their revision and, more broadly, writing processes, whether they focus on choosing the correct words and grammatical structures to express their ideas, or on contemplating the ways in which their ideas are related to each other. Both considering word choice and grammatical forms and contemplating the relationship between ideas are important aspects of writing and revision processes. Thus, the degree to which feedback draws student writers’ attention to word choice, grammar, the relationship between ideas, etc., should be carefully considered by instructors as they offer feedback on student writing.

Instructor as a Reader

Overall, these interviews suggest that participants were more receptive to feedback when it was given in a reader’s perspective. The fact that participants found a reader’s perspective in the feedback helpful supports the theories of Ädel (2016), Brannon and Knoblauch (1982), Elbow (1973), and Shaughnessy (1977). Participants offered praise to feedback in Example 2 that provided a reader’s perspective, such as the praise offered by Participant I: “I think that [feedback comment in Example 2] is always nice to help remind you to take a step back and reflect on what you’re writing and how it’s being read by people who aren’t you.” Participant F also expressed receptiveness to receiving a reader’s perspective: “If I’m missing [providing the reader context for evidence], I would want someone to tell me, so my readers aren’t lost in what ... they’re reading. And it helps build the paper, not necessarily tear the paper apart.” Participants touched on a few specific benefits of feedback that takes a reader’s perspective.

First, if feedback promotes audience awareness, writers are more likely to keep their audience in mind in the future. According to Participant H,

I really like the reader’s portion of it, like, “Your readers will want to know this. What is the main idea of the paragraph?” Because then that’s something that I can go through and look at in each of my paragraphs.

Audience awareness is a fundamental rhetorical skill in producing effective writing. Participants recognized this and suggested that feedback that helps put them in the mindset of readers is useful to them because they are reminded to apply this mindset throughout the rest of their writing.

Further, if feedback is framed as a reader’s response, writers feel as though they are still in control of the paper. By taking the point of view of a reader, instructors can promote student agency in crafting the text. In her comments on the feedback in Example 2, Participant L said,

[The instructor] told the person in charge of the essay saying that they have to describe more of their essay and what their essay is about, not only ... make the essay good but also make the reader understand what is actually going on or what the writer is trying to tell the reader.

Participant L calls the writer “the person in charge of the essay” and sees the instructor’s role, as Brannon and Knoblauch (1982) suggested, as notifying the writer where the intended idea may not be entirely expressed to the reader. This study suggests that framing feedback as a reader’s perspective indicates to the participants that the decisions that they face during their writing processes are theirs to make and that the instructor’s role is to indicate the impact of these decisions on their potential readers.

A potential pitfall of providing a reader’s perspective. Participant A noted what he perceived to be a shift in audience in the comments of Example 2. He noted that one comment begins with “As a reader…,” and other comments reference “your readers” as if the readers were separate from the instructor:

That’s interesting to me because in ... one scenario you’re writing for me—the instructor. The next scenario, we’re preparing this paper together for readers. So it’s kind of that shift of I don’t know what I am. Like the instructor doesn’t know what they are in this review scenario ... That’s something I’ve wanted to tear apart for a while.

In my experience as a student writer, writing center tutor, and in-class writing tutor, the ambiguity in terms of intended audience for class writing assignments can be frustrating for students. Participant A seemed to resent the avoidance of prescriptive feedback on student writing prominent in the field of Writing Studies in favor of more corrective feedback he experiences as a technical writing intern. He is the only participant that mentioned frustration with the shifting audience in the feedback of Example 2, and this could be because he had particular negative feelings towards certain feedback approaches. However, I think his frustration might represent a larger frustration that students sometimes have with dissonance between intended and actual audiences of writing assignments (e.g., telling students, “The audience for this paper is your peers,” even though the instructor is the only one assigning grades).

The following three subsections will focus on three features of feedback on which participants frequently commented in their interviews—open-ended questions, suggestions/examples, and explanation.

Open-Ended Questions in Feedback

Eight of the participants focused, though not exclusively, on the questions from Example 2 when discussing feedback that they like, as they found the questions intellectually stimulating and beneficial for their learning processes, similar to Straub’s (1997) findings. Two major themes arose from the data in terms of the benefits to students of open-ended questions. These themes both relate to the transferability of feedback. First, writers might ask the same kinds of questions posed in instructor feedback elsewhere in their writing. According to Participant J, a sophomore studying Technical Writing and Communication,

And you know you might just end up kind of asking these questions throughout the rest of your paper too and seeing if the flow sort of, you know, matches. And you might end up just writing a way better paper because of the questions you asked in one paragraph. Yeah, definitely rather than just getting verbatim what you should rewrite. You know, just kind of like, “Well maybe this is what you should think about while you’re writing the rest of your paper and while you’re reading what you’ve already written.”  So, I think it could just lead to a more ... thought-provoking revision process.

Second, open-ended questions such as those posed in Example 2 can assist student writers in contemplating the implications of the revisions they make. As Participant C suggested, “I ... think [posing questions as done in Example 2] gives a better idea of why you’re doing stuff, which helps so that you actually learn as opposed to just plug a hole.” Participant C indicated that considering the “why” of revisions is an important element for a successful learning process. While the open-ended questions posed by Example 2 were specific to the text, they also gave participants insight that was transferable to their future writing, which supports Bevan et al.’s, (2008) and Carless’s (2006) findings and Ädel’s (2016), Goldstein (2004), and Nicol’s (2010) recommendations.

Participants stated that open-ended questions also would prompt some to have conversations about their writing. Many participants said that after considering or crafting revisions to address the open-ended questions in Example 2, they would ask the instructor (or in some cases, a writing consultant, friend, or sibling) if their revisions adequately addressed the concern raised by the instructor in the comment. For example, Participant L speculated, “So, I’d maybe send an email like, ‘Is this what you were talking about?’ Or if it was in a Google doc or something, I’d ... respond to comments.” In considering and revising in light of open-ended questions, students want to have a conversation about their writing. Like Participant L, most participants who discussed having a conversation about revisions with the instructor of Example 2 said that they would first revise on their own and then check in with the instructor. Participant F explained her revision process for Example 2:

So maybe this one I will feel like ... I will work on it on my own first because the comments are—they’re helpful comments, so I’ll probably develop my ... maybe develop my main idea and work on my quotes and all that and go back to the teacher and double check it with them if that’s meeting things, or if they feel like I need to add more. But the comments are good enough to get me started in revising.

Participants generally agreed with Participant F that though they may ask the instructor of Example 2 questions as they revise, the questions the instructor poses are enough for them to start their revision processes.

Participants had different views as to the value of conversation in writing processes. Some participants viewed the question-prompting characteristics of the feedback in Example 2 as this feedback being inadequate since there was not enough information in the feedback for student writers to complete revisions on their own. Other participants viewed the potential conversation these open-ended questions prompted about their writing as a fundamental component of the writing process. Responses from participants in this study suggest open-ended questions could be an effective tool for instructors to cultivate conversations with these participants, though participants’ attitudes towards these conversations would likely vary.

Participants also identified and discussed a number of potential shortcomings of open-ended questions in feedback. Participant A, the Technical Writing and Communication major who voiced a degree of hostility towards Example 2’s lack of explicit feedback, argued that a major constraint of open-ended questions is that they do not model for student writers the type of discourse-specific language that students might not know but that might be necessary for meaningful revisions. Participant A used his experiences learning the languages of technical writing during a technical writing internship:

But in my internship when I would get an instruction manual reviewed a lot of times, my mentor would do that—this exact thing where he would rewrite a whole entire step ... at least the part that needed revision, and it was a lot easier to see how language came into play when trying to communicate something as opposed to just leaving [an] open-ended question, “Could you break this up?” “Could you clarify more?” ... That’s not really helpful for a writer who’s learning.

Participant A suggested that open-ended questions in and of themselves might not be helpful for writers who are learning a new concept, genre, or academic language. It might be that student writers who are learning a new discourse community need to see possible revisions for a particular scenario in their writing before they can effectively answer questions to create revisions in similar types of scenarios.

Open-ended questions—especially a lot of open-ended questions—could very well further confuse a student writer who is already confused. As Participant K said, “Like, yeah, I understand you’re questioning the person’s writing, but questioning them doesn’t help them in a way because they might be confused themselves too.” Whether student writers are confused about the content of the paper or the conventions of the respective genres in which they are writing, Participant K suggested that asking students to think more deeply on a topic on which they are already less than confident could very likely diminish their confidence even further.

Some participants mentioned how if the instructor’s desired revision is obvious, framing the feedback in the form of a question can be condescending. In discussing the final comment on Example 2, Participant C read, “Financial independence?” in a condescending tone. Participant C suggested that—although it is something that we likely intuitively know already—putting a question mark at the end of a statement does not automatically make it kinder or less pushy. In fact, in some cases it does the opposite.

Suggestions/Examples in Feedback

Participants saw the lack of suggestions and examples provided in Example 2 as one of the feedback’s shortcomings. One participant spoke to this point when discussing what she might have found unhelpful about Example 2: “I guess there could be more suggestions. Like ... if you read that comment—like if you read one of the questions that they asked and didn’t necessarily know how to respond, it could be nice to have an example of—or some kind of something more directional.”  This participant expressed a concern that she or a student receiving this feedback may not be able to craft a meaningful revision with open-ended questions alone.

Although participants liked the idea of the instructor providing alternative phrasings or examples, some participants did not appreciate the tone of the feedback in Example 1 because they felt like the feedback was too commanding. Participant H addressed how the tone of Example 1 seemed commanding to her:

I didn’t like how they were—I felt like they were ordering—like let’s say this is my paper, and I felt like they were ordering me around. I obviously—I wrote this because I thought it was, for me, it represented what I wanted to say. And so them just telling me like, "Insert this here." It’s like, well I didn’t want to insert that there. Instead of maybe something like over here it says something like, "You do this. Maybe you want to think about this." And then—it’s a little different than just telling me what to do. It’s saying, "Maybe you should think about it." Instead of, "Do it."

Participant H, like other participants in this study and Straub’s (1997) study, found the suggestions of Example 1 helpful but did not like how these suggestions were given—less so as suggestions and more so as commands. From participant responses, it seems to be more so the tone and grammatical structure of the feedback, which is written in the imperative, than the mode of the comment (e.g., suggestion, question, etc.) that makes participants feel as though they are losing control, or agency, over their writing.

Despite what participants deemed a harsh tone in Example 1, many participants, interestingly, perceived the feedback in Example 1 as suggestions, not mandates. This tendency for participants to view these imperatives as suggestions could be due to the fact that many of the students who volunteered to participate in this study are motivated students who care about their writing. Although no measurement of participant motivation as a student or efficacy as a writer was collected in this study, the fact that these students volunteered 20 to 40 minutes of their time to talk about instructor feedback on student writing indicates that they care about writing instruction enough to offer their time to contribute to our knowledge on writing instruction. Thus, the participants are likely highly invested in their education and academic writing experiences. If participants are highly invested students, they likely care deeply about their writing and ideas and will favor developing their own ideas in their own words rather than using words or phrases that an instructor provides. In wanting to express their own ideas and words in their writing, participants will likely be inclined to use feedback from an instructor that rewords phrases or sentences as models for what their writing could look like as opposed to mandates for what their writing needs to look like. Wingate (2010) found that highly motivated students are more likely to deeply engage with feedback. When asked how closely she would follow the suggestions from Example 1, Participant H replied:

Knowing myself, I’d probably would end up doing my own thing just as a kind of ... stick it to ’em kind of thing. But that’s me. I could see how some other people might not—like might just use this. But I definitely probably wouldn’t like if they—I wouldn’t write this. I would use this more of a guide than anything else.

Other participants made statements that reflected Participant H’s “stick it to ‘em” sentiment. Overall, participants were a bit resistant to the idea of direct mandates in feedback. Students less motivated than those who volunteered to participate in this study might not share Participant H’s attitude and may be more likely to use the suggestions that an instructor provides, especially if the feedback with these suggestions is written in the imperative.

Explanation in Feedback

Participants in this study tended to prefer explanation when it comes to feedback addressing grammar concerns. Shaughnessy (1977) emphasized that student writing is an effective tool to teach students grammar. Similar to Straub’s (1997) findings and Hyland’s (2003) and McMartin-Miller’s (2014) findings with multilingual writers, participants in this study appreciated receiving feedback on grammar for a variety of reasons. Some participants saw adhering to grammar rules as a fundamental part of good writing. Participant K, a freshman multilingual student, stated that she believed that having grammatical errors in a formal piece of writing is seen by the audience as disrespectful. Participant L pointed out that, in terms of Example 1, providing explanation for grammar rules instead of just correcting grammar errors will help student writers not commit these errors in the future:

If putting punctuation at the end of quotations is a persistent problem, just explaining why once could be super—because it could help them way into the future, right? So stuff like that where I’m like this could have been a teaching moment, and you really didn’t do that, I was like ...

Participant L’s tone and her trailing off at the end of this statement suggest a sense of frustration in having the paper marked with corrections to grammar without any explanation provided for why what the student had written was grammatically incorrect. It is understandable that if participants value and strive for grammatical correctness, they will be frustrated when grammar errors are pointed out to them, yet they are provided with no way of knowing how not to commit that error again in the future. Participant L suggested that explanation of grammar rules could provide her with transferable knowledge of grammar, supporting the findings of Bevan et al. (2008), Lizzio and Wilson (2008), and the suggestions of DeNisi (1996) and Nicol (2010) that students prefer feedback that can be applied to future writing. Participants suggested that explanation of grammar rules is a way to ease frustration and improve understanding of the grammars of standardized Englishes.

Participant L also offered some insight in the use of feedback to comment on word choice. While other participants saw the instructor’s concerns about word choice in Example 1 as nit-picky and frequently unwarranted, Participant L offered insight that portrayed the word choice comments in Example 1 in a more complex and nuanced light. Participant L saw the comments dealing with word choice in Example 1 as the result of one of two possibilities. Either the instructor’s preferences for some words over others was a personal preference, or it reflected the preferences and practices of the discourse community in which this paper was designed to teach the student to participate. Participant L stated that if the second possibility were the case, indicating so would have helped her as someone learning the ropes of a specific discourse community:

Again, when you’re talking about discipline, I feel like if these are changes that need to be made, then still saying them—like, “The language here is not correct,” or whatever but then saying why so ... I mean, but that’s a big “if” too—I don’t know if that’s the reason why it was presented or not so ...

Without explanation that certain words are preferred over others in a specific discourse community, Participant K would have no way of knowing that she might need to modify her diction to effectively participate in the specific discourse community. While most participants resented the feedback pertaining to word choice, they might have seen this feedback differently had it been supplemented with further explanation as to why the instructor felt that the current words were inappropriate. Cases of word choice could be where instructors enact Dobrin’s (1999) advice of making the structures of discourse communities clear to student writers.