Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback

in a Chinese EFL writing class
Yang Miaoa,1, Richard Badger b,*, Yu Zhenc,2
a
Shantou University Medical College, Zhongping Street 8/2-301, Shantou, Guangdong, China
b
School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
c
English Language Center, Shantou University, Guangdong, China

Abstract
Feedback plays a central role in writing development. This is particularly so in tertiary education in
China because of both the attitudes of tutors and staff and also the move towards a more process orientation
to teaching writing. However, constraints resulting from examination-focused programmes and the number
of students in each class mean that the provision of feedback is limited. This study examines whether peer
feedback may provide a resource for addressing this issue by examining two groups of students at a Chinese
University writing essays on the same topic, one receiving feedback from the teacher and one from their
peers. Textual and questionnaire data from both groups and video recordings and interviews from 12
individual students revealed that students used teacher and peer feedback to improve their writing but that
teacher feedback was more likely to be adopted and led to greater improvements in the writing. However,
peer feedback was associated with a greater degree of student autonomy, and so even in cultures that are said
to give great authority to the teacher, there is a role for peer feedback.
# 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Teaching writing; Teacher feedback; Peer feedback; China

Context of study

Despite the importance attached to writing, teaching writing is often a thankless job. English
teachers in China ‘‘suffer’’ from the ‘‘tedious and unrewarding chore’’ of correcting students’
essays (Hyland, 1990). Even though feedback is valued very highly by students and teachers

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 113 343 4644 (O)/+44 1943 462955; fax: +44 113 343 4541.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Yang), [email protected] (R. Badger),
[email protected] (Z. Yu).
1
Tel.: +86 754 8544382.
2
Tel.: +86 754 2902053.

1060-3743/$ – see front matter # 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2006.09.004
180 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

(Brick, 2004; Hu, 2002), the mistakes in these essays keep on repeating themselves. This is
partially to do with the number of students in each class. In the university where two of the
researchers teach, as in much of higher education in China, class sizes are rising. Forty is
common in this university, but we know of classes of over 100 students. It also a reflection of the
ways in which writing is taught. There is considerable variation in this, but classes are often
focused on exam practice and, even in non-exam classes, students produce only one draft and
receive feedback on this. To illustrate this point, we will describe what happens in the research
university, which we consider to be typical of Chinese universities.
Students receive one hour of instruction in writing in English per week during a 16-week
writing course. Following a faculty decision about the way writing is taught, the teacher
researcher’s classes use the process oriented writing activity book of the North Star series
(Solorzano, 2003). Unfortunately, administrative constraints, the local culture of education (e.g.
Hu, 2002; Scollon, 1999), and class size means that, in practice, the focus of the writing class is
on student products. Blocks of lessons based on this book generally consist of three stages: the
teacher presents sentence (e.g. the use of the past perfect), paragraph (e.g. the use of topic
sentences), or text level knowledge (e.g. comparison/contrast essays) by a combination of
example sentences, paragraphs, or texts and a discussion, largely in English. The students then
use this knowledge to write texts, or paragraphs, normally out of class. Finally, the teacher
evaluates the student writing. There is some variation in the kind of feedback provided but the
teacher researcher, who was not in this respect particularly unusual, looked at organization, the
development of ideas, grammar, and vocabulary. (The peer feedback sheet in Appendix A is
based on this teacher’s feedback procedures.)
There has been much discussion within the English department about how to manage the
provision of feedback in a way more consistent with process approaches, so that students
receive feedback on drafts before submitting final products (e.g. Tribble, 1996; White &
Arndt, 1991) in ways that are consistent with the time available to staff and the class size.
This study investigates whether peer feedback might be a useful resource to address this
issue.
Before we could implement the use of peer feedback, there was an ethical concern that needed
to be addressed by examining the literature. This related to the impact of peer feedback on writing
development and the related issue of student attitudes to peer feedback. Saito and Fujita (2004)
comment that
there is a persistent belief among teachers that students are incapable of rating peers
because of their lack of language ability, skill and experience (p. 48).
Similar views are reported in Rollinson (2005, p. 23). One commentator points out that
Chinese education places a great emphasis on
maintaining a hierarchical but harmonious relation between teacher and student. Students
are expected to respect and not to challenge their teachers.
(Hu, 2002, p. 98)
Such relations may make peer feedback particularly problematic in China.
We needed to be sure that our investigation was not damaging the writing development of our
students. As Zhang (1995) puts it we needed to be sure that
the anticipated benefits are adequate to compensate for the attending affective disadvantage
(p. 219).
 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 181

Even assuming that peer feedback was effective, we wanted to ensure that we implemented it
in the most effective way, and this meant examining the practice of others who had used peer
review.

Literature review

We have drawn on three main areas of the literature:

 the impact of peer and teacher feedback,

 student views of peer and teacher feedback,
 implementing peer feedback.

The impact of peer and teacher feedback

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. They found that teacher
feedback had a much more significant effect than peer feedback, with only 5% of peer feedback
resulting in changes.
Paulus (1999) investigated the impact of peer and teacher feedback on 11 ESL students on an
intensive English language course at a public university in the USA and found slightly higher
figures. Peer feedback accounted for 13.9% of all changes and teacher feedback for 34.3%.
Teacher feedback was more likely to have an impact than peer feedback with 87% of teacher
comments resulting in some change compared to 51% of peer feedback.
Villamil and De Guerrero (1998), working in Puerto Rico, found that peer feedback had a
beneficial effect on the quality of writing and also led to more learner autonomy (1997, p. 508),
though they made no comparison with teacher feedback.
Berg’s (1999) study of ESL classes in the USA also confirms the effectiveness of peer
feedback as a means of aiding writing development, though it was beyond the scope of this study
to compare the impact of peer and teacher feedback. Berg (1999) also found that peer feedback
encouraged critical reasoning.
The student cannot just take the advice as given and make the change, as is likely when the
expert (i.e. teacher) provides feedback. Instead, the student will need to consider the advice
from a peer, question its validity, weigh it against his or her own knowledge and ideas, and
then make a decision about what, if any, changes to make (p. 232).
Tsui and Ng (2000) looked at the impact of peer and teacher feedback on the writing of
secondary school EFL students in Hong Kong. All students addressed a higher percentage of
teacher feedback than peer feedback, but there was considerable individual variation. One of
their case study students addressed 100% and 20% of teacher and peer feedback comments
respectively, but for another the figures were 83% and 78%. They also noted that some students
reported that they benefited from reading other students’ work as they prepared to give feedback
and suggested that using peer feedback may contribute to the development of learner autonomy.
Rollinson’s (2005) study of college level students of EFL in Spain found peer feedback was
effective with 80% of peer feedback comments considered valid and 65% acted on.
Adopting a slightly different approach, Saito and Fujita (2004) investigated feedback
provided to EFL students in a Japanese university and found that teachers and peers rated
students’ writing in broadly similar ways.
182 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

The research broadly indicates that teacher feedback has a much greater impact than peer
feedback, though with considerable variation, but that peer feedback can contribute to writing
development. This has to be balanced against the fact that introducing peer feedback in most
contexts means students will receive more feedback than they would if only the teacher were
providing feedback and that there may be other benefits, such as developing critical thinking,
from encouraging peer feedback. However, even if peer feedback has advantages, it can only be
introduced if students find it acceptable.

Student views of peer and teacher feedback

Zhang (1995) carried out a controversial (Jacobs, Curtis, Braine, & Huang, 1998; Zhang,
1999) study of ESL students at two universities in the USA. A very high figure of 94% of students
preferred teacher feedback to peer feedback. Jacobs et al. (1998) investigated student attitudes to
teacher and peer feedback and found almost exactly the same percentage, 93%, of their EFL
students in Hong Kong and Taiwan said they would like to receive peer feedback as one kind of
feedback. Tsui and Ng’s (2000) study of Hong Kong secondary schools, cited above, and Hu’s
(2005) study of Chinese students studying English in Singapore also found students welcomed
peer feedback.
There has been some discussion of whether particular groups of students deal with
peer feedback equally well. Allaei and Connor (1990) found students’ culture had a
significant impact on the effectiveness of peer feedback groups. In a series of papers, Nelson,
Carson, and Murphy argue that peer review works less well with Chinese speaking students.
The first study (Nelson & Murphy, 1993) found that Chinese speaking students were
less likely to accept the right of other non-native speakers of English to judge their
writing. Similarly, Carson and Nelson (1994) found that Chinese speaking students studying
ESL
will generally work toward maintaining group harmony and mutual face-saving to
maintain a state of cohesion (p. 23).
This meant that the peer review groups were less successful because of an unwillingness to
criticize others.
A later study of a group of 11 students of mixed nationalities on an advanced ESL course at a
university in the USA led the researchers to suggest that Chinese students, amongst others, are
also more like to have negative views of feedback from fellow students.
ESL students from countries with a large power distance are perhaps less likely to value
their peers’ views than are students from countries with a lower power distance (e.g.,
students from the United States).
(Nelson & Carson, 1998, p. 130)
While this finding is consistent with the view that Confucian cultures ascribe a particularly
high status to teachers (Scollon, 1999), not all commentators have accepted this position (e.g.
Gieve & Clark, 2005; Jin & Cortazzi, 2006). It is also not easy to reconcile the finding with the
studies of peer feedback with Chinese students carried out by Tsui and Ng (2000) and Hu (2005).
At the least, however, Nelson, Carson, and Murphy’s work raises questions of how Chinese
students deal with peer feedback.
The literature suggests that teacher feedback is more valued than peer feedback and that, while
many students believe peer feedback can be of use, attitudes are variable. When considered with
 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 183

the literature on the impact of teacher and peer feedback, the introduction of peer feedback to our
writing classes seemed a reasonable course of action, but we needed to make sure we
implemented it in the most effective manner.

Implementing peer review

There appear to be two main issues in implementing peer review: the size of the peer feedback
group and the form of training, which Berg (1999) identifies as a prerequisite for successful use
of this strategy. There is considerable variation in the size of the groups in peer feedback
research. Zhu (2001), for example, worked with groups of three or four with both native and non-
native speakers of English and noted that group dynamics had a strong impact on how the
feedback group functions. Similar group sizes were used in several other studies (Allaei &
Connor, 1990; Nelson & Carson, 1998; Rollinson, 2005). Min however says that ‘‘the use of
paired peer review is preferred by most EFL students’’ (2005, p. 296), and Paulus (1999)
argues that
pairs of students have greater opportunities for intensive discussion about their writing
(p. 272).
Hu (2005), working with a group which was similar in age and culture to our own
students, suggests that, initially at least, this issue is best addressed by limiting group size
to two participants. Pairs were also adopted by Villamil and De Guerrero (1998),
working with what they term ESL students in Puerto Rico. Pairs are also possibly less
likely to lead to the kinds of issues raised in Carson, Murphy, and Nelson’s work cited
above.
There is also some variation in approaches to training students to provide peer feedback. The
students in Zhu’s (2001) study received training in the form of watching a video on peer review,
and Tsui and Ng (2000, p. 153) report only that their students were simply given broad categories
under which they needed to write comments. However, most studies have used more extensive
preparation. Berg’s (1999) study shows the benefits of an 11-stage training plan. Min (2005)
found that a demonstration of feedback and conferences between the teacher and individual
students with each conference lasting one hour was effective. This is in line with Rollinson’s
(2005) guidelines.
The literature provides useful insights as to how to implement peer feedback, particularly
suggestions such as the use of modelling by the teacher and use of feedback sheets (Berg, 1999).
However, not all suggestions will be applicable to all contexts. For example, although
conferences or extended training programmes are desirable, it would not be practical in many
contexts for teachers to spend one hour with each student.

Research design

This study investigated two of the classes taught by the teacher researcher. For the study,
both classes were involved in three rounds of multi-draft composition writing for the same
writing tasks, during which they were given parallel writing instruction, except for the
feedback they received. In the teacher feedback class (n = 41), the teacher followed her normal
practice and wrote feedback on the scripts and provided oral feedback on matters of general
interest when she returned the scripts. Students then revised their drafts and handed in their
final products.
184 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

In the peer feedback class (n = 38), feedback was given by peers working in self-selecting
(following Paulus, 1999) pairs using the peer feedback sheet and oral communication (Bitchener,
Young, & Cameron, 2005). Students were allowed to use their mother tongue, Chinese, for oral
communication so they could ‘‘more fully participate in developing their ideas for writing’’
(Pennington & Yue, 1996, p. 243). Afterwards, students revised their drafts and handed in the
final products.
In the first round of writing in the peer feedback class, the teacher researcher modelled giving
peer feedback, using the structured peer feedback sheet, covering organization, the development
of ideas, grammar and vocabulary and mechanics, to comment on a student’s draft (Appendix A).
The students were then given a blank peer feedback sheet with their partner’s draft and required
to read the draft carefully and (following Connor & Asenavage, 1994) complete the sheet after
class. In the next class, the students exchanged comments on each other’s draft and discussed
them for about 30 minutes. Afterwards, both the draft and the peer review sheet were returned to
the writers for revision. The same procedures were followed in the next round of composing and
revising. In the third round when data collection began, there was no modelling.
The topic for the third round of writing was ‘‘Some people say that the Internet provides
people with a lot of valuable information. Others think access to so much information creates
problems. Which view do you agree with? Use specific reasons and examples to support your
opinion.’’ The teacher chose this topic from a list of the test of written English in the Test of
English as a Foreign Language because her students had been working on the theme of
technology and would need to write an essay on an argumentative topic in the College English
Test later in the year.
The teacher wrote comments on the drafts from the teacher feedback class and returned the
drafts to the students when, with students’ permission, they were photocopied. She also gave oral
feedback to the whole class while returning the drafts. The students in the peer feedback class
received their partners’ drafts and peer feedback sheets. They had one week to read the draft and
complete the sheets. Afterwards, oral peer response activities were held. Several days later, the
final products of both classes were handed in again. The students in the peer feedback class
handed in the feedback sheet as well (Table 1).

Table 1
Background information on case study students
Name Age Sex Semesters Major
Students from the teacher feedback class
Luo 20 Female 2 Administration
Jin 20 Female 2 International Economy & Finance
Zhu 21 Male 3 Applied Chemistry
Bi 20 Female 3 Applied Chemistry
Yang 20 Male 2 Industrial & Commercial Management
Lin 21 Male 2 Industrial & Commercial Management
Students from the peer feedback class
Wang 20 Male 2 Applied Chemistry
Zhao 20 Female 2 Industrial & Commercial Management
Zeng 20 Female 2 Administration
Li 20 Female 2 Administration
Pan 20 Male 2 Applied Chemistry
He 20 Female 2 Industrial & Commercial Management
Names: pseudonyms of students; semesters: semesters of College English.
 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 185

Data sets

We collected three data sets related to the whole class. The first comprised first drafts,
feedback and second drafts written by the students in the both classes. The second came from
a questionnaire survey conducted two days after the final products were submitted to the
teacher. The teacher allowed about 20 minutes of class time for the students to fill in the
questionnaires. The questions (Appendix B) were adapted from Jacobs, Curtis, Braine, and
Huang (1998) and Zhang (1995). Two main areas were covered: (a) to what extent did the
students find the teacher/peer comments useful, and (b) if given several choices of feedback
forms, which did they prefer? Thirdly we collected the teacher researcher’s field notes on the
classes and their writing.
This was supplemented by two data sets related to six self-selected students from each class.
The groups were not designed to be comparable, but as Table 6 below indicates, the pieces of
writing from the case study students were similar in terms of words written and possible feedback
points. The first data set for the case study students comprised video recordings of interactions
between three pairs from the peer feedback class. These were transcribed and, if necessary,
translated by the researchers. There was no equivalent of this oral interaction in the teacher
feedback class but, as one reason for introducing peer feedback was to allow such interaction, this
did not compromise the study.
The second data set comprised interviews with the case study students held the day after
students handed in their final drafts (see Appendix C for interview prompts). We examined the
case study students’ drafts and final products to locate revisions before the interviews. During the
interviews, the drafts, the final products, and the written comments were presented to the
interviewees for reference when specific feedback or revision was discussed. Chinese was used
so the interviewees could clearly express their ideas. The interviews were audio taped with the
permission of the interviewees. The researchers transcribed the interviews and translated them
into English.
The case study data was intended to help us to understand the conditions under which students
adopted or did not adopt feedback from the teacher or their peers and to provide a more in-depth
view of students’ view of the different kinds of feedback.

Data analysis

Whole class data

This section covers the analysis of the students’ writing and the questionnaire. For the
students’ writing the improvement of final products over the first drafts was measured on the
basis of the teacher’s grades (see Appendix E for the scoring guide). An independent rater, an
experienced English teacher in the same university, was asked to score the students’ writing,
using the same scoring guide but without being told either which were the drafts and which the
final texts or the purpose for grading the work.
As a measure of reliability the intraclass correlation coefficient was calculated for the
scores given by the teacher researcher and the independent rater of (a) students’ drafts in the
teacher feedback class, (b) students’ final texts in the teacher feedback class, (c) students’
drafts in the peer feedback class, and (d) students’ final texts in the peer feedback class.
The coefficients ranged from 0.799 to 0.812, which indicates moderate reliability. Where
there were differences between the two marks, we used the mean. Table 2 shows the
186 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

Table 2
Improvement in the quality of the writing
Group First draft Second draft Difference
Teacher feedback class 3.59 4.46 0.88
Peer feedback class 4.08 4.50 0.42
Using a paired t-test the difference was significant for both groups at p < 0.05.

Table 3
Students’ perception of different kinds of feedback
View of teacher feedback View of peer feedback
n % n %
Not useful 1 1 3 3
A little useful 1 1 43 56
Useful 40 52 28 36
Very useful 35 46 3 4
Total 77 100 77 99
Percentage totals may not equal 100 because of rounding.

difference between the first and final drafts and indicates that revision helped to improve the
quality of students’ writing, and teacher feedback appeared to contribute to greater
improvement.
The results of the questionnaire were tabulated separately for the peer and teacher feedback
classes. Over 90% of the students found teacher feedback ‘‘useful’’ or ‘‘very useful’’, compared
to 40% for peer feedback (Table 3). However, in the peer feedback class, over 60% of the students
thought peer feedback was ‘‘useful’’ or ‘‘very useful’’, a contrast to 22% in the teacher feedback
class who held the same view (Table 4). This may indicate that experience of peer feedback has a
positive impact on student perceptions (Table 5).

Table 4
Students perceptions of peer feedback
Teacher feedback group Peer feedback group
n % n %
Not useful 3 7 0 0
A little useful 29 71 14 39
Useful 9 22 19 53
Very useful 0 0 3 8
Total 41 100 36 100

Table 5
Students’ self-perception as English learners and writers (n = 77)
Self-perception as Excellent Good Fair Poor
English learners 0 21 44 12
English writers 0 16 54 7
 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 187

Case study data

We analyzed the drafts written by the case study students to identify three things: firstly, all
possible aspects of feedback in the first drafts; secondly, all usable feedback provided by the
teacher or peers and; thirdly, all changes between first and second drafts feedback produced by
the students.
All possible feedback points in the case study students’ first drafts were independently
identified by the two researchers who did not teach the classes. Any disagreement between the
two was discussed until consensus was achieved. This is a relatively unusual procedure in the
literature and, even though it was carried out independently by two researchers, is not a
completely objective measure of the quality of the work. However, it does provide a means of
judging how the amount and kind of feedback that the students receive relates to features of the
text they have produced.
For the second kind of analysis, all the feedback that the 12 case study students were given,
their first drafts, feedback sheets and/or transcripts of oral peer interaction, as well as the
teacher’s notes, were analyzed in terms of feedback points, with each intervention that
focused on a different aspect of the text treated as a separate feedback point. Following
Hyland (1998), symbols and marks in the margins, underlining of problems, and complete
corrections, as well as more detailed comments and suggestions were all taken to be feedback
points. We defined ‘‘usable’’ feedback in Hyland’s (1998) terms, with, for example, the
teacher’s comment on Lin’s draft, ‘‘Good organization and well-supported ideas,’’ considered
‘‘unusable.’’ and ‘‘WF’’ (wrong word form), under the word ‘‘economic’’ in Lin’s draft
classified as ‘‘usable.’’
The revisions made by the 12 students in their drafts were identified by comparing the final
products with the drafts. The revisions that could not be traced to teacher or peer feedback were
also marked and discussed in the post-interview.
The revisions were coded using Faigley and Witte’s (1981) taxonomy. This
categorizes revisions as either surface changes (local changes altering the surface
structure but not adding new or deleting old information) or meaning changes (global
changes affecting the information present in the text by either adding, deleting, or
rearranging the ideas). Examples of each category are shown in Appendix D. The two sets
of data, one from six students in the teacher feedback class, the other from the six
students in the peer feedback class, were compared to see if there were any differences in
the amount or kind of revision between the teacher feedback group and the peer feedback
group.
Two researchers classified revisions in terms of their success using Conrad and Goldstein’s
(1999) taxonomy: successful revision, unsuccessful revision and no changes. ‘‘Successful
revisions’’ were defined as ‘‘those solving a problem or improving upon a problem area discussed
in the feedback’’; ‘‘unsuccessful revisions’’ were defined as ‘‘those that did not improve the text
or that actually further weakened the text’’ (p. 154). Revisions that made no changes were
regarded as feedback points not acted on and so were excluded in the coding. Following Ferris,
Pezone, Tade, and Tinti (1997), we added one more type: revision with mixed effect. Examples of
each classification are also shown in Appendix D. The results of this analysis are presented in
Table 6.
The teacher provided more feedback than the students, even though the number of
possible feedback points was broadly similarly, with a total of 225 for the peer
feedback students and 235 for the teacher feedback group. Altogether, the six students in
188 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

Table 6
Extent of incorporated feedback and its effectiveness
Case study students Words in draft Feedback points Revisions
Possible Usable Used Successful Unsuccessful Mixed Self
Peer feedback
Wang 228 42 12 11 11 0 0 1
Zhao 192 33 14 7 7 0 0 1
Zeng 192 36 6 5 5 0 0 6
Li 409 44 12 5 4 0 1 5
Pan 205 34 5 5 5 0 0 1
He 199 36 12 8 8 0 0 2
Total 1425 225 61 31 30 0 1 16
Percent of – – 27 67 98 – – –
previous column
Class teacher feedback
Luo 323 44 32 29 26 3 0 0
Jin 306 28 13 11 10 1 0 2
Zhu 174 42 13 12 12 0 0 1
Bi 212 52 11 10 0 0 1 1
Yang 204 40 17 16 14 1 1 1
Lin 221 29 15 13 7 4 2 0
Total 1440 235 101 91 79 9 3 5
Percent of – – 43 90 76 – – –
previous column
Possible: possible feedback points identified by two researchers; usable: usable feedback provided by teacher/peers; used:
feedback used by students in response to feedback. Percentages are given to the nearest whole number.

the teacher feedback group had 101 usable feedback points while the other six
students received only 61 usable feedback points from their peers. Measured in terms of
the number of words in the first draft, students received 65.6% more feedback per word from
their teacher than from their peers. In terms of the quality of the draft, students received
feedback on 43% of possible feedback points from their teacher as opposed to only 27% from
their peers. This reflects both the teacher researcher’s level of English and her feeling that her
job means she should provided as much feedback as possible without overwhelming the
students.

Findings

The impact of peer and teacher feedback

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, and the most commonly
reported reason for the non-incorporation of teacher feedback was that it was ‘‘ignored’’
(Table 7), which means that they did not read the feedback, rather than reading it and forgetting to
follow it. The most common reason for the rejection of peer feedback was that the writers did not
 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 189

Table 7
Reasons for non-incorporation of feedback
Non-incorporated feedback points in teacher feedback Non-incorporated feedback points in peer feedback
group (total: 10) group (total: 30)
Reasons Mentions Reasons Mentions
Ignoring feedback 6 60% Refusing feedback 21 70%
Having no idea how to revise 3 30% Accepting feedback but 6 2%
forgetting to revise
Refusing feedback 1 10% Ignoring feedback 3 1%

Excerpt 1.

accept the feedback for the reason that it seemed ‘‘incorrect’’ to them. A typical example is found
in Excerpt 1.

The impact of peer and teacher feedback: Successful revision

Although the students in the peer feedback group adopted less peer feedback in their revision,
when they adopted the feedback, slightly more successful revisions resulted. Forty out of the 41
(98%) revisions that were traced to peer feedback were successful, as against 79 out of 91 (87%)
190 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

Excerpt 2.

for the teacher feedback group. See Table 6. The most common reason for unsuccessful revisions
was misinterpretation. One example of this is shown in Excerpt 2.
The teacher researcher thought the original sentence would be improved by the insertion of a
transition marker, such as a conjunction. But Luo told the researcher that she thought the teacher
wanted her to use transitions to link the sentence to the previous one, so she added ‘‘but’’ at the
beginning of the sentence.

Excerpt 3.
 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 191

Table 8
Levels of revision: peer feedback group
Name Meaning changes Surface changes
P U S S/P% S/U% P U S S/P% S/U%
Wang 8 1 1 13 100 34 91 11 29 91
Zhao 8 4 1 13 25 25 9 6 24 67
Zeng 11 2 2 18 100 25 4 3 12 75
Li 11 4 1 9 25 33 8 4 12 50
Pan 9 4 4 44 100 25 1 1 4 100
He 7 3 2 29 67 29 9 6 21 67
Total 54 18 11 20 61 171 42 30 18 71
P: possible feedback points; U: usable feedback points; S: students changes in response to feedback; S/P%: student
changes as a percentage of possible feedback points; S/U%: student changes as a percentage of usable feedback points.
Percentages are given to the nearest whole number.

No unsuccessful revisions were found in the peer feedback group. Oral interaction
between the pair probably contributed to better communication and avoided misunderstand-
ing. An excerpt from the transcript of oral interaction is presented as an example here
(Excerpt 3).
In a later revision, Pan followed the suggestion, deleted the irrelevant sentence, and made
‘‘Surfing is also a good activity to relax yourself’’ a topic sentence in the beginning of the
paragraph, which improved the whole paragraph. Negotiation of meaning in the oral interaction
allows participants to negotiate what is not understood. In this way, ideas are freely exchanged,
which would be more difficult to bring about through either teacher written comments or oral
feedback to the whole class.

The impact of peer and teacher feedback: kinds of revision

The peer feedback group made more meaning changes than did the teacher feedback group
(Tables 8 and 9). Of the 41 revisions that were made as a result of peer feedback, 11 (27%) were
meaning changes, whereas the meaning changes only accounted for 5 instances (5%) of the 92
feedback points made by the teacher.

Table 9
Levels of revision: teacher feedback group
Name Meaning changes Surface changes
P U S S/P% S/U% P U S S/P% S/U%
Luo 11 7 1 9 14 33 29 28 85 97
Jin 12 2 1 8 50 16 11 10 63 91
Zhu 13 2 1 8 50 29 11 11 38 100
Bi 11 2 0 0 0 41 9 10 24 111
Yang 11 3 2 18 67 29 14 15 52 107
Lin 8 2 0 0 0 21 13 13 62 100
Total 66 18 5 8 28 169 87 87 51 100
P: possible feedback points; U: usable feedback points; S: student changes in response to feedback; S/P%: student changes
as a percentage of possible feedback points; S/U%: student changes as a percentage of usable feedback points. This may
exceed 100% because of self-initiated changes. Percentages are given to the nearest whole number.
192 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

This is in line with Connor and Asenavage’s (1994) findings. It also revealed a gap between the
teacher researcher’s perception that her feedback treated content and organization as important as
grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics, and her actual practice. The interview data also showed
that students prefer feedback on meaning to feedback on surface features.
The reason peer-initiated revisions were concerned less with surface changes might be the
writers’ perception of the low linguistic abilities of the students providing the feedback. In the
questionnaire, 72.7% of the students in the two classes viewed themselves as ‘‘fair’’ or ‘‘poor’’
English learners and 79.2% thought of themselves as ‘‘fair’’ or ‘‘poor’’ English writers (Table 5).
This might be thought to make them less capable of giving comments on grammar and
vocabulary.

The impact of peer and teacher feedback: Self-correction

Any revision that was made by the writers themselves, not initiated by their teacher or
peers, was considered to be self-correction. Different amounts of self-correction happened in
the process of revision. The peer feedback group made 16 self-corrections and the teacher
feedback group made 5, which suggests a stronger tendency for self-correction in the peer
feedback group. Further analysis of the transcripts of the oral peer interaction and the post-
interviews showed that several students did not completely depend on the feedback they got
from their teacher or peers. The more they doubted the feedback, the more likely it was that
they would develop their own independent ideas they had for revision. All students in the
peer feedback group said they accepted peer feedback with certain reservations. Three of
them explicitly expressed their doubts about the linguistic knowledge of their partners and
claimed that they would not accept peer feedback until the comments were confirmed in some
way, by checking grammar books or asking the teacher. Plate 1Excerpt 1 above is an example
of this.
In contrast, exposure to teacher feedback seemed to reduce self-correction, perhaps because
students believed that the teacher had pointed out all their mistakes and there was no need for
further correction. All the case study students believed the teacher was more authoritative in
giving feedback than their peers. The over-dependence on teacher feedback is likely to lower the
students’ initiative and lead to fewer self-initiated corrections in the teacher feedback group. This
is in line with the quote from Berg (1999, p. 232) cited above.
In summary, while students used peer feedback less than teacher feedback in their revisions,
they appeared to be more actively involved in self-correction. Such a finding confirms Ferris,
Pezone, Tade, and Tinti’s (1997, p. 334) claim that the lack of responsiveness to others’
comments ‘‘may . . . rather indicate that the student is thinking creatively and functioning
independently.’’

Students’ views of teacher and peer feedback

When asked if feedback was useful in the revision, all the case study students gave
positive answers. The usefulness of teacher feedback was confirmed absolutely while the
usefulness of peer feedback was expressed with reservations. In the students’ words, peer
feedback was ‘‘basically,’’ ‘‘partially,’’ or ‘‘sometimes’’ useful and several of our case study
students would have preferred to received peer feedback and then teacher feedback. This
acceptance of peer feedback is in line with the questionnaire data (Tables 3 and 4), where
comments included:
 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 193

Two heads are better than one.

My peers are closer to me in age and experience. We have more in common when we
exchange ideas.
I can have more time communicating with my partner.
You can always learn something from your classmates.

On teacher feedback they said:

Teacher feedback is more accurate.

Teacher feedback is more to the point.
Teacher feedback is more trustworthy.

Such a finding is contrary to Zhang’s (1995) claim that ESL students overwhelmingly prefer
teacher feedback, but it echoes Tsui and Ng’s (2000) result that learners see teacher comments as
more authoritative but value peer comments. Villamil and De Guerrero (1998, p. 491) explicitly
state that ‘‘peer revision should be seen as an important complementary source of feedback in the
ESL classroom.’’ It seems reasonable to make a similar claim for peer feedback in the EFL
classroom.
Furthermore, the usefulness of reading peers’ writing and giving peer feedback was
acknowledged by 70% of the peer feedback class students as (a) learning from others’ strong
points to offset their own weaknesses and (b) communicating with each other to enhance
understanding and explore better solutions to writing problems.
Conclusion

We draw four main conclusions from this study. Firstly, feedback plays a very important role
in Chinese EFL students’ revision of writing. Most of the teacher feedback and more than half of
the peer feedback is incorporated, leading to successful revisions in most cases, with final
versions being better than initial drafts.
Second, the impact of teacher and peer feedback is different. More teacher feedback is
incorporated than peer feedback and leads to greater improvement, but peer feedback appears to
bring about a higher percentage of meaning-change revision while most teacher-influenced
revisions happen at surface level. At the same time, teacher-initiated revisions are less
successful than peer-initiated revisions, probably because negotiation of meaning during the
peer interaction helps to enhance mutual understanding and reduce misinterpretation and
miscommunication.
Thirdly, our students value teacher feedback more highly than peer feedback but recognize the
importance of peer feedback.
Lastly, peer feedback, though it had less impact than teacher feedback, does lead to
improvements and appears to encourage student autonomy, so it can be seen as a useful
adjunct to teacher feedback, even in cultures which are supposed to grant great authority to the
teacher.
The results of this study are much more positive about peer review than studies such as
Zhang (1995, 1999), Carson and Nelson (1994), and Nelson and Carson (1998) carried out in
English speaking countries, though they are similar to studies such as Tsui and Ng (2000)
carried out in Hong Kong. It is possible that the relative success of peer review reflects factors
relating to particular students and teachers. However there are alternative explanations of the
194 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

difference. One plausible explanation is that the relative lack of exposure to English outside
the classroom of the students in this study means that students are more positive towards the
English their peers produce than they would be if they were attending classes in an English
speaking country. A complementary account relates to the fact that the students in this study
come from similar cultural backgrounds, and the resultant group solidarity may mean that
students are more willing to take advice from their peers than they would be if their peers came
from culturally different backgrounds. Both these issues need to be examined in further
research.
Our findings argue against the universality of Carson and Nelson’s (1994) and Nelson and
Carson’s (1998) findings that students from countries with a large power distance may find
participating in peer feedback groups confusing. This may reflect the use of pairs rather than
small groups and/or that our students were studying in monolingual classes in China rather than
in multilingual classes in an English speaking environment.
The current research does however indicate that using peer feedback on drafts followed by
teacher feedback on final texts can be a useful resource to enable teachers of English working in
China to better help their learners develop their writing skills. To cite the words of He, one of the
case student students:

if the teacher gives feedback first, the peer would feel the pressure and say nothing for fear
of saying something wrong because we all trust the teacher more. But if the peer gives
feedback first, he would be much freer to express his opinions. Teacher feedback that
comes later could evaluate both the essay and the peer’s comments, which, I think, is of
great help.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the help of our colleagues and students at Shantou University
in making this research possible. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the
editors for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article.

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Appendix A. Peer feedback sheet

 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 197

Appendix B. Questionnaires
198 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

Appendix C. Interviews prompts

Appendix D

D.1. Examples of revision levels and effectiveness

Surface change:
Excerpt from Yang’s draft: Internet was set up in 1969, at the beginning, it was only use in
military affairs.
Excerpt from Yang’s final text: The Internet was set up in 1969. At the beginning, it was only
used in military affairs.
Meaning change:
 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200 199

Excerpt from Zeng’s draft: Thirdly, in the filed of culture, from the Internet, we can know the
history of other countries or aplenty knowledge to enlarge our eyeshot. If you want to find
some information to finish your work or article, computer will help you a lot.
Excerpt from Zeng’s final text: Thirdly, in the field of simple life, by the Internet, we
can know what’d happened all over the world and find any information we need when
we work or study. Of course, it is convenience to us to enlarge our eyeshot and
improve the efficiency of working and studying if we learn the information from the
Internet.

D.2. Examples of revision effectiveness

Successful revision:
Excerpt from Jin’s draft: Regardless of this information that as a negative effect on the healthy
growth of the youth generation has been prohibit spreading by law, the result indicates that it
is hard to be forbidden.
Excerpt from Jin’s final text: Although the information that has a negative effect on the new
generation has been forbad by law, the result indicates that it is very difficult to be forbidden.
Unsuccessful revision:
Excerpt from Luo’s draft: They forgot their homework, their lessons. Only play games in the
Internet!
Revision with mixed effects:
Excerpt from Luo’s final text: But they forgot their homework, their lessons. Only play games
in the Internet!
Revision with mixed effects:
Excerpt from Li’s draft: According to the information from Internet, they can know much
more about the market—the situation used to be and is being, also help them to predict it
will be so that they can make accurate decision accord with the timely changeable
information.
Excerpt from Li’s final text: According to the information from Internet, they can know much
more about the market—the situation used to be, now, and in the future. All these help the
managers make accurate decisions in accord with the timely and changeable information.

Appendix E. Essay scoring guide

6 Impressive
 Strong organization of essay and paragraphs
 Persuasive reasoning through varied and detailed examples
 Demonstrates style through sophisticated and varied vocabulary, complex grammar and
sentence structure, accurate spelling, and effective transitions and punctuation
5 Clearly competent
 Clear organization of essay and paragraphs
 Relevant, detailed examples
 Correct use of most vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, transitions, spelling, and
punctuation; minor errors do not interfere with communication
4 Satisfactory (sometimes only marginally)
 Organized essay and paragraphs
 Developed with adequate examples, but lacking detail
200 M. Yang et al. / Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2006) 179–200

 Correct use of most vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, transitions, spelling, and/or
punctuation; occasional errors sometimes interfere with communication
3 Unsatisfactory
 Some evidence of organization of essay and/or paragraphs
 Little development
 Frequent errors in vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, transitions, spelling, and/or
punctuation sometimes interfere with communication
2 Weak
 Slight evidence of organization of essay and/or paragraphs, but ideas confused and/or
disconnected
 Very little development, but simplistic
 Frequent and varied errors in vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, transitions, spelling,
and/or punctuation interfere with communication
1 Severely limited
 No evidence of organization
 No development
 Limited to basic words, phrases, and sentences often with errors
 May be off topic or merely a copy of the Essay Test Topic

Zhu, W. (2001). Interaction and feedback in mixed peer response groups. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(4),
251–276.

Miao Yang (BA English Language and Culture, Guangdong Foreign Studies University, MA TESOL Leeds University/
Guangdong Foreign Studies University) lectures in English at Shantou University Medical College, China. Her main
interests are in classroom-centered research.

Richard Badger (LLB Exeter, PGCE (TESOL) Institute of Education, University of London, MA and PhD Applied
Linguistics (University of Birmingham)) lectures in TESOL at the University of Leeds, UK. His research interests include
argument, legal language and the teaching of writing.

Zhen Yu (Dip in TEFL Changchun Normal University, MA Linguistics Guangdong Foreign Studies University) is
associate professor of English at Shantou University, China. Her research interests include multimedia teaching in English
classroom, translation theory, and second language reading and writing.