Undergraduate writers' experience with two peer feedback tools

The essay assignment has been commonly used in a wide range of courses in higher education to facilitate student learning of subject-specific knowledge. However, undergraduate students do not always fully benefit from essay assignments. Assisting students' revision of their essay drafts with peer feedback is a growing instructional practice that is thought to enhance learning outcomes. Although research evidence mostly supports the effectiveness of peer feedback, there is uncertainty about which peer feedback procedures return the greatest benefits. To investigate designs with potential to improve the peer feedback experience for writers, the effects of two intervention tools were explored: (a) a Prior Question Tool which enabled the writer to request specific types of feedback from the reviewer (b) a Helpful Feedback Survey and Sharing (HFSS) Tool which allowed writers to nominate for distribution the feedback comments that they found most helpful. Data were gathered from 31 undergraduate students taking an educational psychology course that featured a series of three peer reviewed essay assignments. Types of feedback seen as helpful by writers and constructed by reviewers were identified. Writers' use of feedback was observed, and students' attitudes toward the peer feedback experience were examined. Students' adherence to the instructions was also analyzed. Three different methods were used to answer these research questions: comment analysis, case study, and quantitative description. The results indicated that writers preferred feedback that identified problems, suggested action, and addressed topic-related issues. They were more likely to act upon these types of feedback during the revision process. However, in-depth analysis indicated that writers did not necessarily adopt feedback of the type they requested. The results also showed that reviewers constructed problem-identifying, directive, and topic-related feedback more than other feedback types. Students tended to report positive attitudes toward the peer feedback experience. Most requests writers made via the Prior Question Tool were addressed by reviewers. While reviewers did provide feedback directly in response to the writers' requests, they more often constructed feedback autonomously. Most reviewers fully utilized the Prior Question Tool, but the majority of writers did not.