A Study On Features And Effectiveness Of Peer Feedback Between American And Chinese College Students

Peer assessment,as an effective strategy to realize the potential of assessment for learning,has been increasingly adopted in second language writing classrooms.Previous studies have verified the validity of peer assessment and yielded fruitful results in addressing feedback issues.However,most of these studies are conducted exclusively among either L1 students or L2 students.Studies on mixed peer assessment,in which native speakers and foreign language learners give and receive peer feedback from each other,remain not only scarce but also controversial.In particular,results on features and effectiveness of the peer feedback made by L1 and L2 students are inconsistent and inclusive.Therefore,research on mixed PA is warranted for the insufficiency of existing empirical research and the pedagogical implication of mixed peer assessment for L2 writing instruction in China.Drawing theoretical implication from Assessment for learning and Vygotsky's Sociocultural theory,the present study compares features of the feedback by L1 and L2 students and examines the influence of the feedback on students' revisions and writing development in a mixed peer assessment activity.39 Chinese students and 39 American students participated in an online peer assessment activity.Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used.In total,1418 pieces of peer feedback(American=738,Chinese=680)were compared in terms of their type,area,and nature,employing the coding software winMax 1998 and adapting the coding scheme from Liu & Sadler(2003)and Lu & Law(2012).Meanwhile,728 places of revisions(American=318,Chinese=410)were coded in terms of their type and area,following the coding scheme in Villamil & De Guerrero(1998).Chi-square test of independence was used to examine whether significant difference existed in the peer feedback and revisions made by L1 and L2 students.Results showed that L1 and L2 students have made significantly different feedback on the type and nature category,while difference on the area category was not significant.Both groups offered more cognitive comments than affective comments,more global comments than local comments,and more non-revision-oriented comments than revision-oriented comments.The present study argues that L2 students,especially those with higher language proficiency,are as capable as L1 students in providing quality feedback in peer assessment activity,and students' commenting behavior is influenced by multiple factors simultaneously.For the influence of peer feedback on students' revision,results showed that 36% and 43% of the revisions made by L1 and L2 students respectively were based on the peer interaction,which to a great extent,adds evidence to the effectiveness of the mixed peer assessment.In addition,the study further revealed that the majority of meaning-changed revisions,namely content and organization changes were inspired by the peer interaction;while self-revisions mainly occurred on word and grammar level.It also showed that mixed peer assessment was beneficial in promoting students' writing development,given both groups have significantly improved the quality of their writings form the first draft to the final draft.The thesis also provides qualitative analysis of the mixed peer feedback by both groups with examples given on categories of development of ideas,organization,grammar,and word choice.Accordingly,pedagogical implications are proposed and directions for future studies are pointed out.