The students attitudes towards teachers written feedback strategies on their writings.pdf

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
LÊ HẢI ĐOÀN
THE STUDENTS’ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’WRITTEN
FEEDBACK STRATEGIES ON THEIR WRITINGS AT VOCATIONAL
COLLEGE OF POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
(Thái độ của sinh viên đối với cách thức phản hồi dưới dạng viết của giáo viên
trên bài viết của sinh viên trường Cao đẳng nghề Bưu Chính Viễn Thông)
M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
LÊ HẢI ĐOÀN
THE STUDENTS’ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’WRITTEN
FEEDBACK STRATEGIES ON THEIR WRITINGS AT VOCATIONAL
COLLEGE OF POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
(Thái độ của sinh viên đối với cách thức phản hồi dưới dạng viết của giáo viên
trên bài viết của sinh viên trường Cao đẳng nghề Bưu Chính Viễn Thông)
M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lê Hùng Tiến
HANOI - 2016

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DECLARATION
I, Lê Hải Đoàn, hereby declare that this thesis is my own work, and I have
provided fully documented references to the work of others. In addition, this thesis
has not been submitted for assessment in other formal courses in any other
university. I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and
use of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library.
Hanoi, 2016
Lê Hải Đoàn

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Associate Professor,
Doctor Le Hung Tien, for the support, guidance and valuable critical feedback. His
help, stimulating suggestion and encouragement helped me a lot right from the
beginning to the end of this study.
I would like acknowledge my thanks to the students at Vocational College of
Posts and Telecommunications in Hanoi who helped me a lot and showed great
willingness to take part in my survey.
My special thanks also go to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates for
valuable comments and criticism, their interest and encouragement.
Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my parents and
friends for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement.

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ABSTRACT
This study investigates the students‘ attitudes towards teachers‘ written
feedback at Vocational College of Posts and Telecommunications in Hanoi. The
participants included 80 non-English major freshmen. The data were collected from
survey questionnaire and the interview with 12 students at different level of English
proficiency. The results show that the students highly valued the importance of
teacher‘s feedback and had different attitudes towards each type of them; especially
they prefer direct feedback to the others. It is suggested that the use of direct should
be maintained regularly, so as to not only satisfy student‘s interests on writing, but
also improve students‘ writing fluency by practicing writing. In terms of the
students‘ comprehension of teacher written feedback, the results show that most of
them had difficulty in understanding uncoded and content feedback. Based on their
responses about the ways they deal with the feedback, they are divided into two
groups: independent students who themselves tried to understand teacher written
feedback through books or internet and dependent students who asked their teacher
or friends for help. Thus, it is expected that the research results can provide EFL
writing teachers with pedagogical implications to improve EFL students‘ writing
performance.

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TABLE OF CONTENT
DECLARATION........................................................................................................i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................ii
ABSTRACT............................................................................................................. iii
TABLE OF CONTENT...........................................................................................iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATION TERMS ....................................................................vi
LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................vii
PART 1: INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................1
1. Rationale of the study ..........................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study.................................................................................................2
3. Research questions...............................................................................................2
4. Significance of the study .....................................................................................2
5. Scope of the study................................................................................................3
6. Method of the study.............................................................................................3
7. Design of the study ..............................................................................................3
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT .....................................................................................5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................5
1. Theoretical background of L2 writing.................................................................5
1.1. Definition of L2 writing ................................................................................5
1.2. Teaching L2 writing ......................................................................................5
2. Feedback on student‘s writings ...........................................................................7
2.2. Teachers‘ feedback versus peers ‗feedback ..................................................7
3. Theoretical background of teacher written feedback ..........................................9
3.1. Feedback on grammatical errors ...................................................................9
3.2. Feedback on content....................................................................................14
4. Students‘ perceptions of teacher written feedback............................................16
4.1. Definition of attitude ...................................................................................16
4.2. Students‘ attitudes towards teacher written feedback .................................16
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY.........................................................................19

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2.1. Context of the study........................................................................................19
2.2. Participants......................................................................................................20
2.3. Methods of data collection..............................................................................21
2.3.1. Attitude questionnaire ..............................................................................21
2.3.2.Interviews ..................................................................................................22
2.4. Teacher written feedback used in this study...................................................23
2.5. Data Collection Procedure..............................................................................24
CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...................................................25
3.1. Findings ..........................................................................................................25
3.1.1. Answer to Research Question 1 ...............................................................25
3.2. Discussion.......................................................................................................36
3.2.1. Direct feedback.........................................................................................36
3.2.2. Coded feedback ........................................................................................37
3.2.3. Uncoded feedback ....................................................................................38
3.2.4. Content feedback......................................................................................39
PART 3: CONCLUSION .......................................................................................40
1. Conclusion .........................................................................................................40
2.Recommendation ................................................................................................41
3. Limitations of the study.....................................................................................41
4. Recommendations for further studies................................................................42
REFERENCES........................................................................................................43
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................... I

vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATION TERMS
L2 Second language
ESL English as a Second Language
EFL English as a Foreign Language

vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Types of grammatical error
Table 2. Types of written feedback
Table 3. Student‘ frequency of writing in High school and College
Table 4.1 . The students‘ attitudes towards the importance of teacher‘s written
feedback
Table 4.2 : The students‘ satisfaction with teacher‘ written feedback
Table 4.3 The students‘ perception with regard to the helpfulness of teacher written
feedback
Table 4.4: The students‘ perceptions with regard to the clarity of teacher written
feedback
Table 4.5 : The students‘ perceptions towards the suitability of teacher written
feedback
Table 4.6 : The students‘ preference towards teacher‘ written feedback
Table 4.7 : The students‘ comprehension of the teacher written feedback.
Table 4.8 : The students‘ attempt to understand the teacher written feedback.
Table 4.9 : The students‘ problem regarding teacher written feedback
Table 4.10 : The students‘ attention to teacher written feedback
Table 4.11 : The student‘s careful thought to teacher written feedback
Table 4.12 : The students‘ attention to teacher written feedback if not being asked
to revise

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PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
―What is the shortest word in the English language that contains the letters: abcdef?
Answer: Feedback. Don't forget that feedback is one of the essential elements of
good communication.‖ (Anonymous)
English writing, going with global development, has become an important
instrument for students to get better jobs. Advice, evaluation, grades - none of these
may give the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals in
writing. Moreover, marking student‘ writing is always considered one of the most
difficult tasks for an English teacher. After receiving students‘ written work, teacher
starts correcting errors, rearranging word order, leaving comments and eventually
giving the mark. Some researchers in writing (Leki, 1991; Raimes, 1983) have
belief in that giving feedback is one of the important methods for teachers to help
the student writers improve their writing pieces. Up to now, feedback used in
educational context is considered as an essential part of the teaching and learning
process to improve knowledge and skill acquisition. Although many studies have
been written on the subject of error correction in writing and the question about its‘
effectiveness is open-ended, we have to admit that students want feedback and
teachers feel obliged to provide it. Moreover, many studies give more attention to
the importance of feedback, the ways of providing and receiving feedback and how
feedback has effect on students‘ writing. We can see in the study of Lee (2005),
Noora (2006).―What have been neglected in those studies are preferences and
attitudes of the learners and teachers towards error correction‖ (Katayama,2007).
He also stated:― Differences in learners‖ learning styles affected the learning
environment by either supporting or inhibiting their intentional cognition and active
engagement‖. In addition, ―matching the learning styles of the students and the
teaching style of the teacher would help improve students‘ learning, attitudes,
behavior, and motivation‖ (Ferris, 2003).

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Also, a large number of studies on feedback types have been carried out; however, a
few ones pay attention to the ways the students deal with the errors after receiving
feedback from their teachers. It can be seen in some previous studies investigated
the effects of different types of feedback on grammatical improvement in students‘
writing (Fathman & Walley,1990; Padgate,1999; Hyland,2003) or surveyed
students‘ preferences for error correction (Cohen, 1987; Leki, 1991; Ferris, 2006).
Therefore, it is crucial to find out the feedback through which students prefer
receiving, their attitudes towards, their comprehension of and their attention to
different types of teacher written feedback. It is hoped that the results of this study
would help teachers to be more effective in teaching English.
2. Aims of the study
The aim of the present study is to examine the students‘ attitudes towards teachers‘
written feedback strategies. Moreover, the study aims to find out whether the
students understand the written feedback as intended by their teacher. Finally, the
study aims to find out the students‘ strategies for handling feedback after they
received their writings.
3. Research questions
To achieve the purposes of the study, the following questions were developed:
1. What are the students’ attitudes towards teacher’ written feedback strategies?
2. To what extent do the students understand teacher written feedback?
3. How do the students handle the feedback they receive?
4. Significance of the study
Feedback is an essential component of any English language writing course that
second language students expect to receive. It is necessary in the students‘ whole
writing process. There exists a conflict between teacher written feedback on
compositions and the learner‘s interest. This mismatch between the needs of the
students and those of the teachers can affect the practical effectiveness of the
written feedback.

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Under these circumstances, it is necessary to let students write drafts and teachers
can give comments to fix errors before an official version can be made. Therefore,
both teachers and students need to work more at establishing agreement on their
interpretation of feedback and at improving the students‘ writing strategies by
obtaining maximal benefit from the feedback they receive. The present study
investigated students‘ attitudes towards the different types of teacher written
feedback. It was expected that this study might provide an insight into how the
students perceived the teacher written feedback strategies. This was mainly related
to the language learning process that could be of potential value for English as a
Foreign Language teachers.
5. Scope of the study
The study is limited to 80 non-English major freshmen at Vocational College of
Posts and Telecommunications in 2015.This study focuses on the four different
types of teacher written feedback strategies: direct feedback, coded feedback and
uncoded feedback and content feedback.
6. Method of the study
Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this survey research
in order to get a more detailed and comprehensive picture about what is
investigated.
A survey questionnaire was administered to 80 non-English major freshmen at
Vocational college of Posts and Telecommunications to collect their opinions
towards teacher written feedback.
An interview conducted with the participation of 12 non-English major freshmen
selected from survey population to explore further issues being investigated.
7. Design of the study
This study is composed of three following parts:
Part 1: Introduction presents the background, aims, research questions, the
significance, the scope, and the design of the study.

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Part 2: Development is organized around three chapters as follows:
Chapter 1- Literature review, conceptualizes the framework of the study through
the discussion of issues and ideas on theories of writing in second language, types
of grammatical errors and feedback.
Chapter 2 - Methodology, presents the context, the methodology used in this study
including the subject, the data collection instruments, data collection procedure, and
data analysis
Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussions consists of a comprehensive analysis of the
data and a discussion on the findings of this study.
Part 3: Conclusion, offers a summary of the findings, recommendations,
limitations, and future directions for further study.

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PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This part of research is divided into four major sections. The first sections shed
some light on theoretical background to second language writing. The second
section focuses on types of feedback to student’s writings. The third section details
studies that show theoretical background to teacher written feedback. The forth
section focus on students’ perceptions of teacher written feedback.
1. Theoretical background of L2 writing
1.1. Definition of L2 writing
Second language writing appeared in the late twentieth century as an
interdisciplinary field of inquiry.According to Zamel (1982), second language
writing is considered a product of a person‘s search for meaning and the writers
begin the process of writing without knowing what they say and go through the
process and lastly create meaning. Harris, Muriel and Tony Silva (1993) view
second language writing as a complex activity in second language context whereas
Grabe, Kaplan (1997) explore L2 writing basing on the role of the reader, the writer
and the text in the journey towards meaning.
1.2. Teaching L2 writing
Writing is one of the most difficult skills that second-language learners are expected
to obtain. It requires the mastery of a variety of linguistic, cognitive, and
sociocultural competencies. Many teachers confirm that teaching second language
writing is a challenging task. Of the different types of written assignments, three
orientations—text-focused, process-focused, and sociocultural are mentioned much
in most relevant research (Cumming, 2001).
According to text-focused orientations, if L2 learners want to be able to write an
effective written work, they have to ―learn to write in a second language. Their
written texts display more sophisticated, complex syntax and morphology, a greater

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range and specificity of vocabulary, and improved command over conventional
rhetorical forms and over ways of signaling the relations of their texts to other texts
when performing tasks that involve reading and writing.‖(Cumming, 2001).
The process-oriented approach to the teaching of writing emphasizes mechanical
aspects of writing, such as focusing on grammatical and syntactical structures and
imitating models. It sees learning second language writing as the acquisition of
successful writing strategies. From this orientation, learning second language writer
need to improve abilities of planning, revising and editing their text and attending to
content and form concurrently and automatic searches for words and syntax. This
approach is primarily concerned with "correctness" and the form of the final
product. The learner is expected to write as much as possible without worrying
about correctness or formality and therefore, they can be more creative in writing.
Vygotsky (1978) confirmed that human learning cannot be understood
independently from the social and cultural forces that influence individuals, and that
sociocultural interactions are critical to learning. Sociocultural research sees writing
development as the learning of the genres, values, and practices of the target
community. This approach emphasizes the role of context and audience in learning
second language writing, the casual relationship between social interaction and
cognitive development, including language learning. Hyland (2002) stated that
proficient second language writers ―act effectively in new cultural settings‖
according to this orientation.
These orientations help conceptualize what learning to write in a L2 entails.
However they do so in three relatively distinctive, though necessarily
interdependent, ways. Instructional modeling of second language writing probably
should include not just modeling of text forms but also modeling of composing
processes and of the socio-culture purposes and functions that writing in the second
language serves (Cumming,1995).

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2. Feedback on student’s writings
2.1. Students’ self-editing endeavor
Students‘ self-editing endeavor plays a very important role in minimizing their
errors in their writings and help in producing well-written texts.―Only the writer, via
drafting and redrafting, reviewing (by self or peers), re-casting, and repeated self-
editing, can respond to the entirely of textual detail, ranging from punctuation to
word appropriateness to sentence length, cohesiveness, viewpoint, force of
argument, pacing, and so on‖ ( Kasule and Lunga ,2010). This means it is so
important for students to find and correct their own mistakes. Students‘ endeavor is
one of the essential factors towards their success in language learning. However,
students may find it difficult to focus on different types of writing problems as he
reviews prose and lack the psychological distance necessary to distinguish between
the information on their writing and the information still inside the writer‘s head. In
order to help students to have success in self-editing their writing, some techniques
are designed to combat these difficulties. Take self-grade draft as an example of
techniques that helps students identify strengths, weaknesses, and omissions in
their writing (Beazley,1997).In that study, self-grade draft requires the writer to
find, mark, and evaluate individual substantive, organizational or mechanical
elements within each part of the document. It ―forces the writer to include the
document‘s basic elements…help more sophisticated writers improve their writing
independently, without the aid of a teacher‖. Because of editing writings
independently, it seems not to be suitable way for students with low English
proficiency to revise their writing.
2.2. Teachers’ feedback versus peers ‘feedback
Feedback on EFL writing was given to students not only by teachers but also by
writers themselves, peers, teachers or automatic computer programs. In this
situation, providing feedback on EFL writing by teachers and by students emerge as
the two more important methods affecting much the improvement of students‘
written work.

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Connor and Asenavage (1994) investigated the impact of peer and teacher feedback
on eight ESL students from different countries in a university in the USA. The
result was found that teacher feedback had a much more significant effect than peer
feedback, with only 5% of peer feedback resulting in changes.
Zhang (1995) carried out a controversial study of ESL students at two universities
in the USA. A very high figure of 94% of students preferred teacher feedback to
peer feedback.
Yang Miaoa, Richard Badger, Yu Zhen (2006) conducted a comparative study of
peer and teacher feedback in a Chinese EFL writing class. The result showed that
the students adopted more teacher feedback than peer feedback. Of the usable
feedback points in the teacher feedback group, 90% were incorporated as against
67% of the usable feedback points in the peer feedback group. In the interviews,
students said the teacher was more ‗‗professional,‘‘ ‗‗experienced,‘‘ and
‗‗trustworthy‘‘ than their peers. The usefulness of teacher feedback was confirmed
absolutely while the usefulness of peer feedback was expressed with reservations.
The findings of the study conducted by Srichanyachon (2012) to investigate
university EFL students' attitudes toward two types of revision methods namely
peer feedback and teacher feedback, demonstrate that the students preferred to
receive teacher feedback because they could be sure that their mistakes in writing
would be properly and fully corrected. EFL students may feel frustrated if they do
not have feedback that helps them improve their papers.
Lee (2009) found that 17% of students gave criticism to their peers‘ writing in
comparison with 5% of ones who gave praise. The reason was stated in the previous
studies. It is due to the negative nature of feedback and limited written teacher
feedback was given in the classes. Consequently, students were not confident with
making appropriate praise feedback and consequently produced less number of
comments.

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In conclusion, teacher written feedback plays an important role on students
‘acquisition; however, peer feedback also leads to improvements and appears to
encourage student autonomy as a useful adjunct to teacher feedback.
3. Theoretical background of teacher written feedback
In the context of teaching and learning language, feedback has recently become an
issue of a special interest to many researcher, a considerable number of studies have
been carried out to look at the roles of feedback. The main idea behind feedback
that most researchers share is to motivate learners‘ behavior for the purpose of
improving learning, give them some advice or point out grammatical errors made by
learners. In fact, consciously or unconsciously, we are giving students feedback all
the time. Feedback, according to Ur (1996), ―is information that is given to the
learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of
improving this performance‖. Ferris (1999) feedback is simply viewed as ―any
response a teacher may give his or her students. According to Keh (1990), feedback
is a fundamental element of a process approach to writing. It may have a definition
of input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the
writer for revision In other words, it is the comments, questions, and suggestions a
reader gives a writer to produce reader-based prose as opposed to writer prose.
Kepner (1991) defines feedback is general as any procedures used to inform a
learner whether an instructional response is right or wrong.
Teacher written feedback or handwritten commentary is a primary method to
respond to students‘ written work to help students‘ writing development; teacher
written feedback on the students‘ drafts indicate and are limited to comments on
grammatical errors and the content of the students‘ writing.
3.1. Feedback on grammatical errors
3.1.1. Grammatical Errors

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We can find many definitions of grammatical errors in different researches and
there are many ways to classify errors in term of grammatical aspects. According to
Ferris & Roberts (2001, p.169) grammatical errors are classified into five groups.
Verb errors All errors in verb tense or form, including relevant
subject-verb agreement errors.
Noun ending errors
Plural or possessive ending incorrect, omitted, or
unnecessary; includes relevant subject-verb agreement
errors.
Article errors Article or other determiner incorrect, omitted, or
unnecessary.
Wrong word
All specific lexical errors in word choice or word form
including preposition and pronoun errors. Spelling
errors only included if the (apparent) misspelling
resulted in an actual English word.
Sentence structure
Errors in sentence/clause boundaries (run-on,
fragments, comma splices), word order, omitted words,
or phrases, unnecessary words or phrases, other
unidiomatic sentence construction.
Table 1: Types of grammatical error
Chaney (1999) had another way to classify grammatical error. According to him,
there are five categories of grammatical errors: Verbs errors, noun ending errors,
article errors, wrong word and sentence structure.
Batstone (1994) states, ―Language without grammar would be chaotic and cause the
same communication problem, such as grammatical errors in writing and speaking‖.

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Therefore, grammatical errors are in need of correcting to help students improve
their proficiency.
3.1.2. Feedback on grammatical errors
Many articles have been written about feedback on grammatical errors and the
effect of feedback in knowledge and acquisition; however, there exits many
different opinions about the question of whether teachers‘ feedback is useful or not
among researchers.
In the famous article of Truscott, he created two point of view flows about the
importance of feedback. Firstly, Truscott gave a great deal of evidence regarding
second language writing from previous research (Semke,1984; Robb, Ross, and
Shortreed,1986; Kepner,1991…) that there are persuasive research evidences to
show that grammar correction in writing courses is not helpful .He also draws
carefully the specific problems encountered by grammar correction. Truscott
arrived at the conclusion that feedback on students‘ errors is both ineffective and
harmful and therefore be abandoned. He saw very little benefit in positive effect of
written feedback given by language teachers to students to improve their writing.
On the contrary, these arguments of Truscott‘s were then confuted by a number of
researchers. Many studies were carried out to examine student progress in written
accuracy over time. Researchers have found that writers who received feedback on
their grammatical errors showed betterment. Ferris (1999) claimed the assertion of
Truscott to be premature. Ferris pointed out that some of Truscott‘s view and
citation of the previous studies of second language literature were one side and
therefore not able to determine whether grammar feedback helps students‘ long-
term development of accuracy.
In order to provide more conclusive finding of this issue, some studies do
researches to focus on students‘ response to teacher feedback. Ferris (1995)
conducted a study to examine student response to teacher feedback in multiple-draft
composition contexts, it was found that 93.5% of the student s‘ respondents felt that

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teachers‘ feedback was helpful in improving their writing skill because it helped
them know what to improve or avoid in the future, find their mistakes, and clarify
their ideas. Garmi (2005) set out a study to investigate students‘ attitude towards
that they have their writing corrected and commented, and their belief in the
effectiveness and importance of teacher ‗feedback. The findings the study showed
that most ESL students valued the feedback they received from their teacher to their
writing because of their value. Moreover, Zhang (1995) has support the view that
second language students appreciated teacher written feedback more than either
peer feedback or oral feedback in writing .Having the same conclusion as Zhang,
Lee (2008) indicated that most students believe teacher written feedback to be the
best type rather than peers or even self-evaluation. Ibrahim (2002) pointed out that
grammar feedback from teacher is important in two ways: it not only draws
students‘ attention to their errors, but also raises their awareness of these errors.
In brief, most students agreed that teachers‘ feedback has some influence on their
writing. After Truscott gave his claim that teachers‘ feedback was both harmful and
ineffective and should be abandoned, most researchers have demonstrated a positive
effect on teacher‘ feedback on student composition. The fact that grammar
correction may have less effect than other types; however, it does not mean that
grammar correction has no impact and should be abandoned. Ferris (1996) said that
there was always a ―more‖ or ―less‖ effective approach that could be used to
response to a student‘ writing.
3.1.3. Direct versus indirect feedback
There are two types of written feedback that teachers responded to students‘ written
work on their grammatical error : direct and indirect feedback.
Type of written
feedback
Description Example
Direct feedback The teacher provides the
student with the correct form
her

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I give she a book.
Indirect coded
feedback
(Indicating and locating
the error)
This takes the form of
underlining and use of cursors
to show omissions in the
student‘s text
Vf
She eat too much
cheese
Indirect uncoded
feedback
( Indication only)
This takes the form of an
indication in the margin that an
error or errors have taken place
in a line of text
They go to
hospital now.
(adapted from Ellis,2007)
Table 2:Types of written feedback
The word direct feedback appeared in many previous researches with different
names: Corrective feedback (Lalande, 1982), form-focused feedback (correction)
(Fazio, 2001), direct correction (Chandler, 2003) and overt correction (Lee, 2004).
However, they all refer to a technique of correcting students‘ error by giving
explicit written correction. Ferris (2002) pointed out that direct error correction
gives learners correct linguistic form such as word, morpheme, phrase, rewritten
sentence, deleted word [s] or morpheme [s] and correct forms are offered by the
teacher. Therefore, giving detection and correction are obviously the responsibility
of the teachers.
On the other hand, Ferris (2006) said: ‖Indirect feedback is when the teacher
indicate in some way that an error has been made …but not provided the correct
form, leaving the student to solve the problem, that has been called to his or her
attention‖. Indirect feedback is provided to indicate that there is an error, but it is
not corrected, leaving the learner to discover and to solve it (Bitchener, 2008).
Indirect is simply underlining or circling students‘ mistakes without providing
correct form or noting the number of errors in the margins of each line (Bitchener
and Knoch, 2008).Indirect feedback is divided into coded and uncoded feedback.
Coded feedback refers to error identification (Lee,2004) that specifies the exact

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location of an error and indicates the type of error with a code or comment right
above or next to the errors underlined or circled. Uncoded feedback refers to errors
that teachers underline or highlight them and leaves for students to identify and use
their knowledge to self -correct such errors.
The effectiveness between direct and indirect feedback became an interesting topic
for linguistic researchers. Ferris and Roberts (2001) show that teachers and students
are interested in direct feedback. According to them, direct feedback helps writers
reduce the type of confusion when they fail to remember the feedback they have
received and deal with complex errors from the information provided by teacher.
Ferris (2002) continued to point out that direct feedback gives learners right
answers and learners, especially those with low level feel it less threatening. The
result from different strategies on both text revisions and new pieces of writing
show that more correct revisions with direct feedback rather than indirect feedback.
However, Hedge (2000) noted that providing direct feedback could make learners
neglect their role in correcting errors process and become passive.
On the contrary, indirect feedback was considered to be the most effective method
to improve student‘ accuracy in subsequent writing. Lalande(1982) compared two
groups: one provided direct feedback and the other receiving indirect feedback. The
result indicates that the group with indirect feedback had shown more accuracy in
writing after six month-course. In the article named ‖Treatment of error in second
language student writing‖, Ferris (2002) stated that indirect feedback helped
students know clearly about their responsibility in error correction and be able to
improve their long-term writing accuracy.
3.2. Feedback on content
Feedback on content consists mainly of comments written by teachers on drafts that
usually point out problems and offer suggestions for improvements on future
rewrites. It is the way teacher gives comments or suggestions by praising (for
encouraging students such as ― You are doing great ! ‖, ―I know you can do it‖) or

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criticizing (pointing out places students lack on their writing such as ―Not enough
words!‖,‖ I want to see a second draft next Monday‖) or suggesting (giving
constructive advice to students to improve the flow of their writing, such as ― ―You
should describe her appearance more detail!‖ in order to improve the following
areas: Creativity, coherence, paragraphing, and organization. Content feedback
focuses more on content quality and organizational features in students'
composition. The students got feedback in a dialogic fashion on the content of their
writing through comments, questions, or both. No explicit or consistent attempt was
made to handle the student‘s grammatical errors (Kepner,1991; Semke,1984).
Besides feedback on grammatical errors, a number of studies showed that feedback
on the contents of a student‘s writing has noticeable improvement. Semke (1984)
conducted a research with 141 students to investigate the effect of four methods of
teacher treatment of free writing assignment.She found that the students who
received only comment on their writing, showed more progress than the groups
which received error correction.Semke‘s findings showed that grammar correction
does not improve writing skill, nor does it increase total competency in the
language. It is obvious to say that the students who received feedback on content
made improvement in their writing skills. Students who received feedback on
grammatical errors, naturally, made improvement in their grammar only.
According to Semke, the main focus of writing is not grammar, it is how to express
ideas in writing.
Kepner (1991) carried out a study to find out the most helpful type of teacher
written feedback in second language writing. He compared a group receiving only
error correction and a group receiving feedback on content. Like Semke, the result
of the study showed that the group receiving feedback on content performed better
than the group receiving only error correction. However, Kepner just point out that
feedback on content is one of alternatives to make students improve their writing
skill.

16
Fathman and Whalley (1990) conducted a study to support the idea that both
grammar correction and feedback on content in students‘ writing are necessary. In
their research, the students who received both grammar correction and feedback on
content in their composition showed the improvement in their grammar accuracy
and more than 70 percent of students improved the content of their writing.
Whereas the students getting only feedback on content had progress in writing
grades; however, their grammar errors still existed. It is true that students have their
own choice of preference on how they like to receive feedback. In brief, the
argument on the types of feedback and their role in student‘ composition never
come to one conclusion.
In conclusion, the impact of a teacher‘s feedback, whether given feedback is
positive or negative, on a student‘ writing has been still argued by many
researchers.
4. Students’ perceptions of teacher written feedback
4.1. Definition of attitude
―Attitude‖ has been defined as a hypothetical construct used to explain the direction
and persistence of human behavior (Backer,1992). From an operational point of
view, Child (1973: 253) defines it as a term ―generally reserved for an opinion
which represents a person‘s overall inclination towards an object, idea or
institution‖. In practical terms, then an ―attitude‖ is a construct derived from
subjects‘ answers to a number of questions about an object.
As a concept, attitude is subject to all the normal worries of the validity of
instrument used and of the honesty of the subjects‘ answers to the questions.
4.2. Students’ attitudes towards teacher written feedback
4.2.1. Negative attitudes
According to previous studies, teacher‘s feedback is distortive for students to
understand because teachers misunderstanding students‘ contents leave some

17
feedback unrelated to students‘ journals. First of all, in Zamel‘s (1985) research, it
is claimed that students scarcely read teacher‘s comments and corrections because
teachers misunderstand students‘ contents and give divergent feedback to guide
students with the biased instructions. Moreover, in Zacharias‘s (2007) study,
teacher‘s feedback is divergent from students‘ original ideas while writing. Students
would be confused about how to revise because the teacher gives an irrelevant idea
which is totally different from students‘mental gist of their journal.
In addition, students have difficulties in reading teacher‘s feedback because
they cannot read teacher‘s feedback with complex wording which is unclear for
understanding. In Sommers‘s (1982) study, it is proposed that some teachers‘
feedbacks are not clear to provide the truly precise suggestions and responses
regarding to what students‘ contents, so that students cannot improve their writing
skills. The obvious exemplification Sommers disclosed is that some words or
sentences revised by students are even worse than the original sentences because of
teacher‘s unclear written instructions. Moreover, according to Zacharias‘s (2007)
study, it is also indicated that students have difficulties in reading teacher‘s
feedback which is unreadable to the correction, so that students are not prone to
accept while receiving the teacher‘s feedback. Furthermore, in Zamel‘s (1985)
research, students deemed that the teacher‘s feedback is vague so as to mislead
them to the wrong direction; meanwhile, students would doubt why they have to
read the teacher‘s feedback. Due to this doubt, students omit and even keep away
from the teacher‘s feedback (Sommers, 1982; Zamel, 1985). Therefore, although
students can read teacher‘s feedback, they are still confused by teacher‘s feedback
with complex wording as well as vague expressions.
4.2.2. Positive Attitudes
On the other hand, students regard teacher‘s feedback as a useful instrument
for them to improve their writing skills because it facilitates students to correct the
errors. Teachers continue to give written feedback because the empirical studies

18
have consistently suggested that students place a very positive value and high
expectations on teachers‘ feedback. For example, in a study investigating the
attitudes of 47 EFL students to teachers‘ feedback (Enginarlar, 1993), an
overwhelming majority of students approved of the instructional value and
usefulness of various types of written feedback given by teachers. In fact, one of the
generalizations Ferris (2003) made after reviewing 11 studies investigating
students‘ views of teacher commentary was that ―students value and appreciate
teacher feedback in almost any form‖ (p. 103). As evidenced by the impressive
empirical studies as well as supported by the first-hand experience of most teachers,
the provision of written feedback seems essential and indispensable to the teaching
and learning of writing. As result of this, researchers are interested in finding out
what and how written feedback should be given in order to maximize its efficacy.
The questions of ‗what‘ and ‗how‘ have, therefore, become two major topics
researched in the area of L2 written feedback.
In short, this chapter has established the theoretical background concerned with
the topic of the research. It has mentioned an overview of theoretical background to
second language writing, types of feedback to student‘s writings, theoretical
background to teacher written feedback and the student‘s perceptions towards
teacher written feedback.

19
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
The research shows the various ways to accomplish the tasks while the research
instruments had been described. It then goes on to illustrate how data analysis was
done for the quantitative as well as qualitative data produced from the respective
research instrument.
2.1. Context of the study
This study is conducted at Vocational College of Posts and Telecommunications, a
vocational college in Thanh Xuan district, Hanoi, Vietnam. It belongs to Posts and
Telecommunications Institute of Technology and majors in providing good training
in two main fields: managing and designing website.
At Vocational College of Posts and Telecommunications, English is considered an
extremely important subject to all students because it related directly to their
speciality; the students hence have to study English during two years before taking
the Graduation examination by the end of the third year.
To increase the quality of learning English and to improve all of the four
communicative skills, the book named New English File was chosen as the official
course book. The book includes 9 themes, each theme consists of many parts
focusing listening, speaking, reading and writing. Besides, the freshmen have a
worked book which include a Unit Review (which reviews the Vocabulary,
Grammar, Reading and Pronunciation learnt in each unit), and Writing Practice
(which provides practice on sentence building and paragraph writing). This material
will be done after students finish a Unit in the course book. Furthermore, every
week, students also have 2 periods to study with E-learning – an online English
program, under the guide and support of teachers. This program is intended to use
as a self-teaching tool for students. Totally, the participants of this study have a
large amount of time to study English in class, and the other materials to support
them are available.

20
The writing section may begin with a model, followed by activities that guide
students through the writing process such as putting the verb in the correct form,
analyzing the text or practicing writing. In this part, students are required to produce
various text types such as personal and formal letters, post card, chart, graph and
table description. The general and specific objectives are set clearly in the books.
In writing cycle, the students were asked to write three drafts for each chosen topic.
They submitted the first draft and received content feedback from their teacher that
provided comments on content relating to the effective components of writing.
After presenting the second draft, they received feedback on their grammatical
errors.
2.2. Participants
The participants of this study included 80 first year non-English majored students at
Vocational College of Posts and Telecommunications. The students have had a term
to practice all of the communication skills including writing in English, thus they
could understand and use teacher feedback for their rewriting.
Based the students‘ background information taken from the questionnaire, we can
see that the students‘ age ranged from 19 to 21 years old. They had studied English
for 12 years on average in Vietnam. The students come from all areas in mostly the
northern and central provinces of Vietnam. As they said, their hometown is a rural,
urban or mountainous location. Most of them have poor English background; a few
of them are quite good at English. Table 1 below illustrates the subjects‘ self-report
of their opportunity to practice writing in English in high school and in college.
Table 3: Student’ frequency of writing in High school and College
Frequency Writing in school Writing in college
No. Percent No. Percent
1.Never 60 75% 53 66.25%
2.Hardly 15 18.75% 17 21.25%

21
3.Sometimes 5 6.25% 10 12.25%
4.Usually 0 0% 0 0%
N 80 100% 80 100%
Based on background information regarding to their frequency of writing in English
during high school, most of the students (75%) confirmed that they never had
practiced writing in English when they were at high school. Meanwhile, a small
group of the students (18.75%) stated that they hardly did it and the rest of the
students that make up 6.25 % reported that they often practiced writing in high
school. When they were asked about how frequently they practiced writing in
English in university, the majority of students (66.25%) said that they never had
practiced writing in English at all. Some of the students (21.25%) report that they
hardly practiced writing and the rest of the students that sometimes practiced
writing in English makes up 12.25%.
2.3. Methods of data collection
This research followed a mix approach of quantitative and qualitative method to
collect the data: questionnaires and interviews. The use of different methods can
lead to a synthesis or integration of theories, bring diverse theories to bear on a
common problem and serve as the critical test, by virtue of its comprehensiveness,
for competing theories (Todd D. Jick, 1979).
The study‘s quantitative feature allowed the researcher to determine the students‘
attitudes towards teacher‘ each feedback type. On the other hand, qualitative data a
chance to investigate student‘s strategies for dealing with feedback they got and the
reasons for their strategies.
2.3.1. Attitude questionnaire
A questionnaire is used to collect the students‘ data focused on their attitudes
towards different types of teacher written feedback strategies. It includes two main
parts. The first part collects the demographic information, eg: age, gender, learning

22
English experience, etc. The second part collects the data with regard to their
attitudes towards teachers‘ written feedback strategies.
The questionnaire was adapted from Padgate (1999). However, the objective of this
research aimed at investigating student‘s attitudes towards teacher‘ written feedback
strategies in a college context so that some questions were omitted to make the
questionnaire relevant and appropriate for participants. Special attention was paid to
using Vietnamese for the questionnaire so that it would not be misunderstood by the
students. The students‘ questionnaire focuses on four variables: attitudes towards
teacher‘s written feedback strategies (questions 7,8,9,10,11,12,13), comprehension
of the feedback (questions 14,15,16), and attention to feedback (questions
17,18,19).Most of the questions had four choices.
2.3.2.Interviews
Giving questionnaire to participants is the popular way researchers often do to
collect quantitative information. Structured interviews were conducted in
Vietnamese to obtain qualitative data and were aimed at finding what the students
did to deal with their teacher written feedback.
Interviewing is a way to collect data as well as to gain knowledge from individuals.
Kvale (1996, p. 14) regarded interviews as ― … an interchange of views between
two or more people on a topic of mutual interest, sees the centrality of human
interaction for knowledge production, and emphasizes the social situatedness of
research data.‖ Interviews enable face-to-face discussion with human subjects. To
get more details regarding how students handled the feedback they received, 12
randomly selected students were interviewed. All interviews were tape recorded and
translated by researcher. Huberman & Miles (2002) confirmed the reason for such
small size of the sample by stating that qualitative research focuses on the quality
of information obtained rather than quantity and size of the sample. In order to
collect qualitative data, the following questions were asked:

23
1. Do you think direct feedback is useful for your writing? Why?
2. Do you think coded feedback is useful for your writing? Why?
3. Do you think uncoded feedback is useful for your writing? Why?
4. Do you think content feedback is useful for your writing? Why
5. Do you have any problems in understanding your teacher’ written feedback? If
yes, can you specify them?
6. What do you usually do after you read your teacher’s written feedback on your
writings? Can you explain your choice?
2.4. Teacher written feedback used in this study
This study focuses on the students‘ attitudes towards different types of teacher
written feedback so that four different strategies of teacher‘s responses were given
to the participants. These feedback methods were divided based on their function of
responses: content and form.
In the process approach writing class, content feedback was given to the students in
their first writing. According to Bates, Lane and Lange (1993), useful feedback on
content should be given as follows:
a. Write personalized comments: maintaining a dialogue between reader and writer
b. Provide guidance where necessary: avoiding advice that is too directive or
prescriptive
c. Make text-specific comments: relating to the text rather than general rules
d. Balance positive and negative comment: avoiding discouraging students with
criticism.
In this case, content feedback was personalized to the needs of the individual.
After receiving content feedback on the first writing, the students were asked to
revise their writing and to hand in their second writing. Then they got three types of

24
feedback on form. They were direct, coded and uncoded feedback which focused on
five error categories given by Ferris & Roberts (2001).
2.5. Data Collection Procedure
All students were noticed that this survey was not to evaluate or mark them, but to
investigate their opinion in order to find a better way to teach them writing .After all
the questionnaires were returned, the researcher checked, sorted, and numbered.
The interviews with students were carried out after the questionnaire. All of the
twelve interviews were conducted in Vietnamese to make sure that they are fully
understand the purpose of the interviewer and not influenced by the answers of
other informants. The twelve students were chosen and put into three groups: high,
moderate and low proficiency groups,respectively based on the English mark they
got at the end of the first term. All the content of the interviews were typed and only
the particularly interesting and useful responses were translated into English. The
writer read each response of each student to sort out the ways they handled the
feedback they received and the problems they had to face up to the teacher‘ written
feedback.
In conclusion, Chapter 2 describes the research methodology for the present study.
Context of the study, methods of the study and data analysis are described in detail.
Chapter 3 presents the research results regarding to the students‘ attitudes towards
teacher written feedback strategies.

25
CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Chapter 3 plays an important role in this study. It serves two functions (1) giving a
presentation on the quantitative results from the survey questionnaire and the
qualitative results from the interview, (2) making an interpretation based on the
data. As mentioned above, this present study focuses on answering three research
questions:
1. What are the students’ attitudes towards teachers’ written feedback strategies?
2. To what extent do the students understand the teacher’ written feedback?
3. How do the students handle the feedback they receive?
To investigate the students‘ attitudes towards teacher‘ written feedback strategies, a
survey questionnaire is used and it focused on the three main section:
-Students‘ attitudes towards teacher‘ written feedback strategies
-Students‘ comprehension of teacher feedback
-Students‘ attention to teacher feedback
The object of the interview was to collect qualitative information about Students‘
comprehension of teacher feedback. Moreover, it was expected that the interview
would provide some insights on how the students handle the feedback from the
teacher on their writings.
3.1. Findings
3.1.1. Answer to Research Question 1
The first seven questions focuses on the students‘ attitudes towards teacher‘s written
feedback strategies

26
Question 7: How important is it for your teacher to give you written feedback?
Not important Not very important Okay Very important
No. Percent No. Percent No. Percent No. Percent
0 0% 2 2.5% 14 17.5% 64 80%
Table 4.1: The students’ attitudes towards the importance of teacher written
feedback
From table 2, it was found that the majority of the students assented to the
importance of the feedback given by the teacher on their writings. 80% of the
students stated that it was very important while 17.5% of the students reported that
was okay. Finally, there were only two people (2.5%) chose ―not very important‖
for this question.
Question 8: To what extent were you satisfied with how the following feedback
was given by your teacher? Put a tick in the box.
Types
feedback
Not satisfied
at all
Not very
satisfied
Rather
satisfied
Very satisfied
Direct 0 0 % 0 0% 5 6.25% 75 93.75%
Coded 3 3.75% 31 38.75% 34 42.5% 12 15%
Uncoded 15 18.75% 39 48.75% 6 7.5% 20 25%
Content 2 2.5% 56 70% 20 25% 2 2.5%
Table 4.2: The students’ satisfaction with teacher written feedback
From Table 3.2, it can be seen that most of the students were very satisfied with
teacher‗s direct feedback, with the percentage of 93.75%. For coded feedback, the
majority of the students (42.5%) reported that they were satisfied with it, while
most of the students did not feel very unsatisfied with uncoded and content
feedback with the percentage of 48.75% and 70%, respectively.

27
Question 9: How helpful are the following types of teacher‘ written feedback to
your subsequent assignments?
Types of
feedback
Not helpful at
all
Not very helpful Rather helpful Very helpful
Direct 0 0% 2 2.5% 7 8.75% 71 88.75%
Coded 17 21.25% 8 10% 40 50% 15 18.75%
Uncoded 12 15% 57 71.25% 5 6.25% 6 7.5%
Content 4 5% 16 20% 56 70% 4 5%
Table 4.3: The students’ perception with regard to the helpfulness of teacher
written feedback
With regards to the helpfulness of each type of feedback for subsequent
assignments, the majority of the students reported that direct feedback was very
helpful for their writings, with the percentage of 88.75%.For coded feedback, most
of the students (50%) thought that it was rather helpful. The similar result was
found in content feedback in which the majority of the students thought that it was
rather helpful with the percentage of 70%.Most of the students (71.25%) reported
that uncoded feedback was not very helpful.
Question 10: When you read each type of the following feedback, to what extent
did you think that the feedback that you received was clear?
Types of
feedback
Not clear at all Not very clear Quite clear Totally clear
No. Percent No. Percent No Percent No Percent
Direct 0 0% 0 0% 2 2.5% 78 97.5%
Coded 0 0% 16 20% 8 10% 56 70%
Uncoded 0 0% 9 11.25% 56 70% 15 18.75%
Content 21 26.25% 41 51.25% 3 3.75% 15 18.75%
Table 4.4:The students’ perceptions with regard to the clarity of teacher written
feedback

28
According to Table 4.4, most of the students thought that direct feedback given by
their teacher was clear, with the percentage of 97.5%.This was also similar thought
towards coded feedback when 70% of the students reported that it was totally clear.
For uncoded feedback most of the students (70%) thought it was quite clear.
Different from the positive attitude towards direct, coded and uncoded feedback, the
majority of the students (51.25%) thought that content feedback was not very clear.
Question 11: To what extent did you think the teacher provided feedback was
suitable?
Not suitable at all Not very suitable Rather suitable Very suitable
8 10% 15 18.75% 50 62.5% 7 8.75%
Table 4.5: The students’ perceptions towards the suitability of teacher written
feedback
According table 4.5, when asked to what extent they thought how suitable the
feedback provided by their teacher, the majority of the students reported that
feedback given by the teacher was rather suitable, with the percentage of 62.5%.
8.75% of the students said that they thought the feedback was very suitable. 18.75%
of the students indicated that they thought it was not very suitable. Only 10% of
them reported that they thought the feedback given by their teacher was not suitable
at all.
Question 12: Which of the following type of feedback would you like your teacher
to give more in future? (Please tick only ONE answer)
Direct feedback Coded feedback Uncoded feedback Content feedback
45 56.25% 11 13.75% 5 6.25% 19 23.75%
Table 4.6: The students’ preference towards teacher written feedback

29
As shown in Table 4.6, direct feedback was chosen as the most favorite feedback by
most of the students with the percentage of 56.25%.Next came the content feedback
being with the agreement of 23.75% of the students. Other feedback strategies
which are less interested in by students were chosen by 13.75% (for coded
feedback) and 5% (for uncoded feedback), respectively.
Besides, the result from the interview shed light on the students‘ attitudes towards
teacher‘ written feedback. Most of the students gave the same idea about the
usefulness of the four written feedback. They reported that the feedback they
received from the teacher was the most reliable feedback for their writing in
comparison with self-editing endeavor and peer feedback. However, the students
had different attitudes towards each type of teacher written feedback.
Concerning direct feedback, most of the students joining the interview felt satisfied
with it. For example, the idea from a student in the low group:
“This type of feedback was very good, sir because the teacher corrected directly the
errors that sometimes I did not find out and know how to correct it.“
However, the students in high proficiency group seem to want the teacher only
point out their errors and that correcting errors should be their task. A student in this
group stated:‖ The direct feedback given by the teacher was very useful for my
writing because he corrected directly the errors, however, I want the teacher to give
codes on the errors so that I myself correct them.”
Regarding to their attitudes to coded feedback, the most of the interviewees agreed
that it was quite helpful for their writing. For example, a student from the high
proficiency group said: “This type of teacher written feedback let me see the errors
and what kinds of errors I made so that I could correct them well and easily.” One
in the moderate proficiency group supported this idea:‖ It is very useful because
basing on the code the teacher gave, I knew what kind of error I made and then
found the suitable way to correct errors.”
With regard to uncoded feedback, the twelve students interviewed had different

30
opinions. The students in high proficiency group saw that uncoded feedback not
only helped them realize their errors but also increased their motivation in
correcting errors by themselves.
“My teacher underlined the errors I made, so I had to think to know why these
points were incorrect and found the way to correct them. Correcting errors by
myself helps me remember them and then I will not make this kind of error in the
future.”
However, the students in moderate and low proficiency group showed their anxious
about uncoded feedback. A student in the low proficiency group shared his view:
“I think it is not helpful for my writing. I am not good at English, thus that the
teacher only underlined or circled my errors would make me get stuck in correcting
them. I did not know why they are wrong and how to correct them.”
For content feedback, most of the student thought that it was very useful for their
writings. They all agreed that this kind of feedback:‖ ….help me improve my
writing and revise the content easily based on the teacher’ guideline.‖ – a student in
moderate proficiency group admitted. Similarly, one from the low proficiency
group said:‖ Yes, it is rather useful because I had a guideline and the teacher gave
comments in detail on my writing. Thus it is easier for me to improve my writing.”
3.1.2. Answer to Research Question 2
To answer this research question, the results from the questions 13-15 in the
questionnaire were collected. These ones refer to the students‘ comprehension of
their teacher written feedback.
Question 13: When you read each of the following feedback, to what extent did you
understand it?
Types of
feedback
Not
understood at
all
Weakly
understood
Relatively
understood
Mostly
understood
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31
Direct 14 17.5% 8 10% 35 43.75% 23 28.75
Coded 1 1.25% 18 22.5% 43 53.75% 18 22.5%
Uncoded 35 43.75% 20 25% 18 22.5% 7 8.75%
Content 19 23.75% 47 58.75% 6 7.5% 8 10%
Table 4.7: The students’ comprehension of the teacher written feedback.
From table 4.7, it was found that most of the students (43.75%) relatively
understood direct feedback. Similarly, the majority of the students (53.75%)
reported that they relatively understood coded feedback. In contrast, uncoded
feedback made most of the students (43.75%) not understood at all. For content
feedback, the majority of the students (58.75%) show that they weakly understood
it.
Question 14: When you found some troubles with the feedback that you did not
understand, how often did you make an attempt at understanding it?
Never Sometimes Often Always
21 26.25% 15 18.75% 37 46.25% 7 8.75%
Table 4.8: The students’ attempt to understand the teacher written feedback.
From table 4.8, the majority of the students with the percentage of 46.25% reported
that they often tried to understand feedback given by their teacher when they faced
to some troubles with it. 8.75% of the students showed that they always tried to
understand feedback.18.75% of the students sometimes did that and 26.25% of
them never tried to understand feedback when they had trouble with them.
Question 15: When you read each of the following feedback, how often did you
have problems in understanding it?
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32
Types of
feedback
Never Sometimes Often Always
Direct 68 85% 2 2.5% 2 2.5 % 8 10%
Coded 7 8.75% 57 71.25% 8 10% 8 10%
Uncoded 5 6.25% 12 15% 18 22.5% 45 56.25%
Content 6 7.5% 3 3.75% 47 58.75% 24 30%
Table 4.9: The students’ problem regarding teacher written feedback
From table 4.9, it was found that most of the students (85%) did not have problem
with direct feedback. The majority of the students (71.25%) reported that they
sometimes had problems with coded feedback. In contrast, uncoded feedback made
most of the students (56.25%) always had problems. For content feedback, the
majority of the students (58.75%) show that they often had troubles with it.
In the interview, when asked what their problems were when reading their teacher
written feedback, all of the students in high proficiency group stated that they had
no difficulty in understanding feedback provided by their teacher. A student in this
group said: “I could understand immediately when my teacher points out the
errors.”
Another one provided this idea:” I am familiar to the codes my teacher used, so it is
not difficult for me to understand what the errors were.”
For coded feedback, most of the students agreed that it was easier to understand
than uncoded feedback. Nevertheless, they also complained that many codes the
teacher gave made them misunderstand because they did not remember what those
codes stand for.
In the interview, it was very difficult for most of the students, especially the
students in low proficiency groups to understand uncoded feedback. Although
coded feedback helped to point out the problematic parts of the students' writings,
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