Chinese undergraduates' engagement with peer feedback : perceptions and practices

Abstract

Peer feedback – with its substantial potential to promote student learning – is used increasingly in higher education, yet student engagement with the feedback processes is relatively neglected. Framed by the notions of dialogic feedback and social mode of self-regulated learning (SRL), this study explores Chinese undergraduates’ engagement in peer feedback. The year-long ethnographically oriented qualitative research was contextualised in an English writing curriculum at a Chinese university. Three datasets were collected to answer the following research questions: (a) How do the students perceive dialogic opportunities within feedback processes with their Chinese peers? (b) How do different modes of comments within peer feedback processes influence student engagement? (c) How do the students engage in asynchronous online cross-cultural peer feedback? The first dataset comprised classroom observations, interviews and focus groups, and journal entries. The data were analysed thematically. The students perceived considerable value in peer dialogue about written feedback, which could result in two inter-related key benefits: feedback-on-feedback for the provider and the opportunity to clarify or negotiate meaning for the receiver. Contextual challenges for productive peer dialogue included insufficient teacher scaffolding to student reviewers and time constraints. The second dataset contained interviews, focus groups and stimulated recall interviews, journal entries, annotated drafts with peer comments, peer review forms, audio tapes of face-to-face peer discussion, and a small-scale open-ended survey. A combination of thematic and content analysis revealed that opportunities for oral discussion about written feedback led to richer and deeper feedback. The students preferred feedback on deep features of the writing and reported a beneficial process of problem-solving among peers through clarification, negotiation or co-construction of knowledge during the discussion. Different degrees of receiver proactivity were detected in written and oral modes of feedback. The third dataset encompassed online written conversations between 23 pairs of Chinese and U.S. students, reflective essays from both parties, and interviews/focus groups with Chinese students. Both thematic and conversation analysis was performed. Chinese students displayed some significantly different SRL actions from the American students, and reported emotional engagement and substantial cognitive benefits in language, writing and socio-cultural understanding. Structural and cultural factors were identified to mediate their engagement. The study’s main contributions include a continuum of receiver proactivity and a model of written and oral feedback. A framework of co-regulation in dialogic peer feedback processes also adds a cultural dimension to effective peer feedback design whilst encapsulating the reciprocal co-regulation among peer reviewer, receiver and teacher. The identification of some facilitative cultural elements including humility further enriches the understanding about Chinese learners’ behavioural engagement. Lastly, the role of verbal dialogue and the importance of pre-emptive, ongoing and developmental teacher guidance cast light on the current debate about the benefits of composing and receiving peer feedback.