The Use of Online Paired and Grouped Peer Feedback in Improving Low Proficiency Students’ English Grammatical Ability
Keywords:
Online peer feedback, grammatical ability in writing, low proficiency students, online paired peer feedback, online grouped peer feedbackAbstract
The study aimed to investigate and compare the effects of online paired peer feedback (OPP) and grouped peer feedback (OGP) on Mattayomsuksa 6 students’ English grammatical ability in writing. Two intact groups of fifty-four Mattayomsuksa 6 students studying at a secondary school in Hatyai, Songkhla were purposively selected as participants in this study. They were assigned to two experimental groups, namely, OPP group (n = 22) and OGP group (n = 32). The instruments employed in this study were pre- and post-writing tests, writing tasks and semi-structured interviews. The pre- and post-writing tests were used to obtain the accuracy scores of targeted grammatical points. The writing tasks were employed to reveal the frequency of students’ comments on the four grammatical aspects, and the interview data were used to illustrate students’ reflections on the targeted grammatical aspects they focused on when giving comments. The quantitative data gathered from the pre- and post-writing tests and the writing tasks were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-test for means, standard deviation and percentage. The qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews were analyzed and categorized into themes. The findings showed that neither types of peer feedback showed any significant difference in improving students’ overall grammatical ability in writing. However, both types were found to have practical significance to most of the targeted grammatical points at a low level. The findings suggest that peer feedback is beneficial for writing instruction. However, the teacher’s feedback is needed for low proficiency students.
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