The Effectiveness of Indirect Focused and Indirect Unfocused Corrective Feedback in Improving the Accuracy of First Year University Students’ Writing
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Date
2014-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The major objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of indirect focused versus indirect
unfocused written corrective feedback in improving the accuracy of Ethiopian university level first year
students’ exemplification (expository) paragraphs. It also attempted to survey students’ and teachers’
beliefs about the importance of corrective feedback in improving writing accuracy, students’ preferences
for receiving CF on their written grammar errors, students’ experiences of receiving CF, teachers’
practices of CF on their students’ written grammar errors, teachers’ beliefs about different CF types in
improving writing accuracy, and problems (if any) the teachers and students face when providing and
receiving CF on written grammar errors.
To achieve these objectives, data were gathered from questionnaires for both the students (N=60) and
their writing teachers(N=11) and from 3 paragraphs written by 52 students.
Results from the students’ questionnaire indicated that all the students believed teacher CF to be of an
immense importance in improving the accuracy of their writings. To this effect, most of the students
preferred to have unfocused CF which they believed to be practiced most often by their writing teachers.
Besides, a majority of the students preferred to have direct CF followed by a combination of direct and
indirect CF and this again went in line with what they said was actually practiced by their writing
teachers. It was also found that many students have been facing problems when they received their
compositions back with CF. The major problem was the fact that it has been difficult to understand their
teachers’ CF.
Results from the teachers’ questionnaire also showed that the teachers greatly valued CF in improving the
accuracy of their students’ writings. Most of the teachers believed that focused CF could be more
effective than unfocused CF in improving the writing accuracy of their students. It was also found that the
teachers were most often employing focused CF. Moreover, it appeared that a majority of the teachers
were most frequently employing a combination of direct and indirect CF which they believed could be
more effective in improving the accuracy of their students’ writings. Finally, it was indicated that all the
writing teachers have been facing multi-dimensional problems when they were providing CF on their
students’ written grammar errors, the major problem being their students’ compositions were becoming
full of linguistic errors which has been frustrating for them even to start providing CF. The other problem
indicated by the teachers was the fact that they were dealing with large class sizes; at times more than 70
students in a class.
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From both the questionnaires, it could be deduced that both the students and their writing teachers
believed in the importance of CF on improving writing accuracy. However, there were some mismatches
in the students’ preferences and the teachers’ practices and in what the students perceived to be most
frequently applied on their grammar errors and what the teachers themselves reported to practice. For
example, the students believed that their teachers most often employed unfocused CF while the teachers
reported that they most often applied focused CF. Besides, the students preferred to have unfocused CF
where as the teachers believed that focused CF might be more effective.
From the students’ compositions, it was found out that the students who received indirect focused
CF(IFCF) in the form of underlining errors and writing codes for that errors have shown a significant
improvement in their writing accuracy levels between the immediate post-test and the delayed post-test
which were respectively written about a week and 5 weeks after the onset of the CF intervention process.
In addition, the students in this group have brought a significant improvement in their writing accuracy
between the pre-test and the delayed post-test. Further, a comparison of the 3 means in the writing
accuracy levels of the students in this group has revealed that the IFCF has resulted in an overall
significant improvement in the writing accuracy of these students throughout the CF intervention process.
The students in the unfocused CF group (IUFCFG), on the other hand, haven’t shown any significant
improvement in the accuracy of their writing between any of the writing occasions as well as across the 3
writing instances.
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Keywords
First Year University Students’ Writing