Online Paired and Grouped Peer Feedback : Effects on Low Proficiency Students' English Grammatical Ability and Their Perceptions / Rotsana Kittiwat

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the effects of online paired peer feedback (OPP) and online grouped peer feedback (OGP) on Mattayomsuksa 6 students' English grammatical ability in writing, and to observe the extent to which students incorporated peer's comments in revisions, and students' perceptions toward peer feedback activities. Two intact groups of fifty-four Mattayomsuksa 6 students studying at Hatyaipittayakom 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, perception questionnaire and stimulated recall interviews. The quantitative data were analyzed for means, standard deviation, frequency, Cohen's d (effect size), t-test and percentage. The qualitative data were analyzed and categorized into themes. The findings showed that both types of peer feedback had no significant difference in improving students' overall grammatical ability in writing. However, they were found to have practical significance to the targeted grammatical points at different degrees ranging from low to medium. Additionally, it was found that the students in the OPP group and the OGP group mostly adopted 80.56% and 83.49%, respectively, of their peers' comments into their revisions. The interview data revealed that three reasons the students incorporated peer's comments were peer's language ability, online resource consultation and self-observation. Furthermore, the majority of the students from OPP and OGP had a positive perspective toward peer feedback and agreed that it was useful for improving their grammatical knowledge in writing. However, 58% of the students in OPP had a neutral opinion on the comments they received, whereas 60.2% of the students in OGP had a positive opinion. The findings suggest that peer feedback is beneficial in improving grammatical ability in writing instruction. Teacher feedback, though, is needed for low proficiency students.