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Article

Teacher and Student Attitudes


toward Teacher Feedback
Nugrahenny T. Zacharias
Satya Wacana Christian University. Indonesia
ntz_abac@yahoo.com

Abstract m This study aims to explore students' attitudes toward teacher feedback.
The study used a triangulation of participants and methods in which the practice of
feedback was seen from the perspectives of students and teachers collected from the
quantitative data (questionnaires) and qualitative data (open-ended items in question-
naires and interviews). A total of 100 students participated in filling in the question-
naires and 21 of them were interviewed using a semi-structured format. In addition,
there were 20 teachers who completed the questionnaires and 10 of them were inter-
viewed using the same semi-structured format. The findings show that generally
teachers and students have a marked preference for teacher feedback. The high pref-
erence for teacher feedback was mainly the result ofthe respondents' positive atti-
tudes towards teacher feedback. Interestingly, student preferences for teacher feedback
also stemmed from their awareness that teachers control grades. The data collected
from the questionnaires and interviews indicated that students preferred teacher
feedback that was specific since this kind of feedback would facilitate students in the
revision process. Students also show a high preference for feedback which focused
on language. Compared to feedback on content, feedback on form was considered to
be more helpful. Students often complained that teacher feedback on content tended
to be general and sometimes, contradictory to student ideas. Moreover, the interview
data illustrated that teacher feedback contributed greatly to students' emotional states
particularly their motivation and attitudes towards writing.

Keywords m attitudes, coding, peer feedback, teacher feedback, teacher writing.

Introduction
Writing has always been considered one ofthe four important skills con-
tributing to students' language leaming. This is particularly so because in
almost every course, there is a writing element of some kind. Despite the

Vol 38( I) 38-52 | DOI: 10.1177/0033688206076157


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39
Teacher and Student Attitudes toward Teacher Feedback

presence of writing in almost every element ofthe language course and the
abundant amount of time students spend on writing, many students have
expressed their concems about not being able to do it well. There have
been many attempts to help students to improve their writing quality and
increase their motivation for writing tasks. One important attempt is by
providing feedback. In fact, Coffin et a/. (2003) maintain that 'the provi-
sion of feedback on students' writing is a central pedagogic practice'
{Coffin etal. 2003: 102).
Most writing courses in the English Department at Satya Wacana
Christian University (Writing 2 until Writing 4 courses) allocate time for
providing feedback. The writing classes mostly follow somewhat the same
format: students are given a chance to write the first draft and then bring it
to the class. Feedback is usually given on the first draft by the class
teacher and/or the peers. Afterwards, students revise the drafts based on
the input they have received from the teacher and/or their peers.
It needs to be noted that although feedback can come from the class
teacher and the student's peers, teacher feedback continues to be consid-
ered of utmost importance. This can be seen from the time allocated for
the teacher-student conferencing outside the classroom, which often takes
twice as long as the scheduled class hours.
Not only do the teachers' themselves consider teacher feedback as the
most itnportant, but so do the students. This is based on my personal
experience when I was teaching Writing 4 in the English Department at
Satya Wacana Christian University for three trimesters.' In every trimes-
ter, there was one writing assignment where the feedback only came from
their classmates and not from tne. At that time I asked the students to give
comments and correction on their friends' drafts. Interestingly, students
often came to me and asked if their friends' corrections and cotnments
were correct. This indicates that the students themselves think teacher
feedback is more authoritative.
Regardless ofthe time and effort spent in giving feedback, many teach-
ers in the English Department have complained that students' writing did
not improve and students keep on repeating the same mistakes. This tnakes
me wonder if students do get any benefit frotn feedback. There seems to
be a mismatch between the students' and the teacher's perception in the
use of feedback. On the one hand, the teacher feels that the students have
not attended to the feedback optimally. Most teachers assumed that if the
students attended to the teacher feedback, their writing would be 'perfect'.
On tbe other hand, the students feel that they have responded to the
40
Regional Language Centre Joumal 38.1

feedback accordingly. This mismatch is the central reason that this topic of
this study was selected.

The Study
Methodologically the study employed a combination of quantitative and
qualitative approaches. The respondents to the questionnaire study com-
prise 100 students and 30 teachers. The student respondents were selected
based on those who have taken all the writing courses in the department.
Students who have completed all the writing courses, were considered to
have experienced a wide variety of teacher feedback. Participants in the
interviews included 21 students and 10 teachers. Both student and teacher
participants were asked approximately identical questions in order to com-
pare their views and beliefs regarding teacher feedback. The interviews
were conducted to find out specific information on the teacher and student
attitudes and preferences towards the practices of giving and receiving
feedback. In addition, the interview was useful as a cross-reference and to
clarify the responses obtained from the questionnaire.

Results and Discussion


Teacher and Student Opinions about Teacher Feedback
This section discusses teacher attitudes towards teacher feedback. Figure I
shows the data collected from teacher and student questionnaires.

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%
5%
0% 0% 0% 0% . ,
0%
No Importance Lrttfe Irr^iortance Neutral Inportanl Very rrportant

Teachers Students

Figure 1. Teacher and Student Attitudes towards Teacher Feedback


1'

41
Teacher and Student Attitudes toward Teacher Feedhack

The data iti Figure 1 illustrate that a high majority of teachers and students
believed that teacher feedback was either 'very important' and "impor-
tant'. The teacher questionnaires indicated that 95% of teachers believed
that teacher feedback is 'important' (55%) and 'very important' (40%).
Similarly, the data from the student questionnaires indicate that 93% of
the students believed that teacher feedback was either 'important' (49%)
or 'very important' (44%).
The interview data also lean towards the importance of teacher
feedback. All ofthe students and teachers interviewed agreed that teacher
feedback, to some extent, was very important in improving student writ-
ings. The following were some reasons mentioned by the participants for
favouring teacher feedback:

(a) Teachers have higher linguistic competence in English


The most common reason for preferring teacher feedback is the opinion
that teachers have much higher language competence than the students.
This can be represented from TI 3's comments when responding to the
question 'Do you think teacher feedback is important?'
...1 think it is very difficult for student to improve their writteti English
if they don't have a good teacher feedback. I don't think just by reading
the newspaper... I don't think that will help you... I don't think it is an
effective way to improve your English.. .and then, it might help a little
bit. But if it comes to your own writing I think... we need...peer feed-
back or teacher feedback... But there has to be someone who has a
higher level than you...and that's why I think peer feedback is useful
but teacher feedback is more... It [teacher feedback] can be more useftil
because you assume teacher has a better grasp of grammar, better grasp
of word choice...but it does depend on the teacher.

TI 3's remark indicates a strong opinion ofthe crucial role of teacher


feedback in improving the student writing. She thought teacher feedback
is most useful because ofthe assumption that teachers have better a grasp
of grammar and word choice. A sirnilar idea was also seen from Tl 4 and
TI 5. Underlying this opinion is the view ofthe importance of form (or
linguistic competence) in the development of writing.
Out ofthe 21 students interviewed. 7 expressed similar views. Yet. not
all students interviewed were certain that teacher feedback on grammar is
trustworthy. During the interview sessions, SI I and SI 21 stated that they
did not follow teacher feedback on grammar blindly. Yet, they provided
different reasons for this. _ _
42
Regional Language Centre Journal 38.1

For SI 1, he did not follow teacher feedback because based on his


experience, teachers still made mistakes in grammar. Later in the
interview, I leamed that by teachers, he meant local teachers. He believed
the feedback from native-speaking English teachers was more reliable
than feedback from the non-native speakers. He assumed that due to their
nativeness, native teachers were better in giving feedback in 'all aspects of
English'.
SI 1 's view were shared by other students as illustrated by the follow-
ing comments taken from the questionnaires:
1 very much prefer to have native speakers to correct my writing. I
beiieve in their ability more than the non-native since English is their
language (SQ 26).

Not only do native speakers have excellent knowledge in English but


they also know the correct way in the use of vocabulary... (SQ 88).

When a non-native teacher corrected my paper atid then, when 1 give it


to a native speaker, I found there are many mistakes haven't been cor-
rected by my non-native teacher before. Native speaker teachers know
how to make a writing flows naturally, it is their language anyway (SQ
95).

Regardless ofthe claim that English should be 'everybody's language'


as it is the current global language, the teacher and student participants
continued to believe that English is a native-speaker's language.

(b) Teacher feedback provide.^ secttrity for the [poor] students


The second assumption for considering teacher feedback as the most essen-
tial is the opinion that teacher feedback provides security for the students.
This is expressed by TQ 5. She was sure that students, especially the
weaker ones, might be embarrassed to have their writing corrected by their
friends. To some extent, her opinion shows an awareness ofthe concept of
'face'^ in Asian countries. In collectivist countries such as Indonesia, it is
assumed that 'face' is considered as the primary value (Cutting 2001).
Surprisingly, TQ 5's belief is indeed contradictory to what the stu-
dents felt. SI 10, categorized as a poor writer, did not see peer feedback
as face threatening. In fact, he thought peer feedback has helped him in a
way that teacher feedback did not. During the interview% ST 10 explained
that when teacher feedback was confusing, he always found a friend to
clarify the teacher feedback. He did not mention the concem brought up
by TQ 5 despite the fact that he was a poor student.
43
Teacher and Student Attitudes toward Teacher Feedback

Similar to SI 10, SI 17 felt that it was peer feedback which provided


security not teacher feedback. As she said during the interview:
...when I received teacher feedback, I felt a little bit stressed out...like
'digurui' (patronizing). I preferred peer feedback because 1 could feel
more relaxed...like chatting. During the consultation session with my
lecturer, I always felt they were judging me.. .especially if 1 made stupid
mistakes like grammatical mistakes that I should not have made. I felt
embarrassed but I never felt like that when my friends gave me feed-
back,.. (SI 17, my transtatioti).

Similar to SI 10, she also has friends who ofteti helped her in her
writing. This is because teacher feedback made her felt dictated to and/or
patronized by the teachers.

(c) The cultural belief that teachers are the source of knowledge
The third reason for preferring teacher feedback, as stated by several
students, is the belief about teachers being the source of knowledge. TI 6
and SI 6 offer a critical reason for this. They thought the reason for the
assumption that teachers are knowledgeable was mostly cultural. As SI 6
noted during the interview session:
.. .since childhood, we were used to be guided by our teachers.. .we tend
to follow them.. .do whatever they say.. .including following the feed-
back they gave. We needed teacher feedback because we were confused
if the teacher did not give feedback. We didn't know where to go. So
since we were a child, we were conditioned to just follow. It was cul-
tural... (SI 6, my translation).

SI 6's comment indicates that student trust in teacher feedback might


stem from their cultural upbringing. She explained that since childhood,
she had been conditioned to follow teachers. Her idea is shared by Ti 6
who added that, in Indonesia, students were not conditioned to evaluate
and/or criticize sources. They took it for granted that information from
teachers was always right. According lo TI 6, this belief has greatly
affected the students' high adherence to teacher feedback.

(d) Teachers control grades


The fourth reason students preferred teacher feedback was that they were
aware of the control teachers have over their grades. As written by SQ 3,
SQ 8, and SQ 80 in the questionnaire:
..because whenever I didn't revise according to the teacher feedback, I
gotaD(SQ3).
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Regional Language Centre Journal 38.1

...because the teacher gave us the grade so we played safe (SQ 8).

Usually what the teacher said was the correct one and the grade for
writing was very subjective (depended very much on each individual
teacher) so it was very important to know what the teacher wants from
our writing. Forme, their feedback is what they want. To get an A, just
follow what they want (SQ 80).

The interview data from SI 4, SI 5, SI 7, SI 17, SI 18, and SI 19 also


echo similar opinions. Another interesting case was encountered by SI 5.
She reflected her experience when she was taking Writing 3 course. In fact,
she did not want to follow the teacher feedback but, then, she assumed she
would get a low grade for not following teacher feedback. Therefore, she
changed her written expression 'use your own track' to conform with the
teacher response 'use your own way'. As she bluntly explained:
.. .Once in Writing 3,1 wanted to use figurative language but the teacher
did not understand what I meant. At that time, I used 'use your own
track' what I actually meant was 'use your own way'. I wanted to say if
you went to F building, you could use many ways. One way, that 1 sug-
gested, was this little path across the football field. When I write 'use
your own track" my teacher underlined it with a wriggle line. She said it
was not clear. We [native speakers] never used it. Then 1 thought, isn't
figurative language supposed to be unclear?... But in the final draft, I
used her feedback anyway. I was sure if I kept on using 'my own track'
I would get a low grade... (SI 5, my translation).

The questionnaire and interview data mark student awareness of the


unequal power distribution among student and teacher. Students are well
aware that it is the teacher who controls the grade. They felt that if they
did not follow the teacher feedback, teachers might give them low grades.
This finding is indeed worrying as it does indicate that students are
primarily interested in the grade when revising. Students are more con-
cerned with becoming correctors of mistakes pointed out by the teacher
rather than writers trying to communicate with their readers. The data in
this study reaffirms previous studies conducted by Thompson (1994). He
found that students wanted teacher responses that would help them get
better grades.

Student Feelings towards Teacher Feedback


This section deals with the extent to which teacher feedback influences
students' feelings and emotional states. Figure 2 gives a visual representa-
tion of the data collected from the student questionnaires.'
45
Teacher and Student A ttitudes toward Teacher Feedback

100%

80%

60%

39%
40%


25%

20%

3% 3% 1%
1 1
0%

I Excited Discouraged a Confused D Irritated Disappointed Stressed

Figtire 2. Student Feelings towards Teacher Feedback

In descetiding order of frequency, the tnajority of the student respon-


dent (75%) felt excited, followed by 'conflised' (39%), discouraged (25%),
irritated (3%), disappointed (3%) and stressed (1%). The students wrote
three reasons in the questionnaires for feeling 'excited' about teacher feed-
back. First, teacher feedback helped students to be aware of their tnistakes.
Second, teacher feedback gave direction during the revising process.
Finally, teaeher feedback provided students with an idea of what their
instructors expected from them.
Surprisingly, the interview data reveal a slightly different picture.
Among the 21 students interviewed, only 2 students (9.5%) stated that
they felt 'excited' when receiving teacher feedback. The remaining inter-
view respondents (90.5%) admitted that their feelings very much depended
on the arnount of teacher feedback generated from their drafts. If students
received 'too much' feedback, then, they would feel 'annoyed' and dis-
couraged to continue writing. In contrast, if the teacher gave little feed-
back, students would feh 'happy' and 'motivated' to revise their writing
for less feedback meant fewer mistakes. Their remarks show how the
teacher feedback greatly determines students' emotional states.
However, from the interview data it can be learned that the perception
of 'too much feedback' is quite complex as it differs from one student to
another. y ..-
46
Regional Language Centre Journal 3 8.1

For SI 18. teachers gave 'too much feedback' if their feedback was
more than the students' writing. In fact, she has experienced this when
joining one of the earlier writing classes. This practice made her feel 'help-
less', 'disappointed', 'sad' and "discouraged'. Similar feelings and experi-
ences were felt by SI 17 and S! 19.
For SI 16, teachers gave "too much feedback' when they crossed out
almost every word and/or the whole paragraph in a piece of writing.
Although she realized that her writing may need fixing, sbe thought
teachers should try not to cross everything or even most of the parts in
student writing As inferred from Bandura (1986), such practice might
lower student self-efficacy."* Bandura (1986) suggests that when teacher
feedback leads to student lower self-efficacy, students would not make
optimal use of the feedback.

Student Stated Difficulties with Teacher Feedback


As mentioned in the previous section, most of the students interviewed did
not feel particularly excited when receiving teacher feedback because they
experienced difficulties in understanding it. in fact the data from the
questionnaire show that 91% of the students 'sometimes' have difficulty in
understanding teacher feedback.
The following are some areas which students found most troublesotne
in teacher feedback, summarized from the open-ended items in the ques-
tionnaire and the interview:

(a) The coding


The interview data sbow that students encountered difficulties in reacting
to the feedback. Although codes did help to point out the problematic parts
of students' writings, they did not facilitate the revising process. This was
experienced by SI 17. He did not know how to improve his writing
although the teacher has underlined the parts need revising. A similar
problem was put forward by SQ 17, SQ 47 and SI 8. Their remarks indi-
cate that instead of identifying mistakes, it would be better if teachers
could justify their feedback through oral feedback.

(b) General feedback


SI 8. SI 12 and SI 13 stated that written feedback such as 'many mistakes
on grammar', 'revise your ideas', 'add more information', 'develop the
idea' and 'revise' were not helpful since they were very general. A similar
problem was expressed by SI 10, SI 16 and SI 18.
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Teacher and Student Attitudes toward Teacher Feedback

Students' preference for specific teacher feedback is indeed supported


by Ziv's study (1984 cited in Wiltse 2000). He found that students
responded favourably to teacher comments that were explicit, offering
specific suggestions on how to correct writing errors. He explains that
comments such as 'rephrase this sentence' did not result in a better
second draft because students did not understand how to rephrase and
what to rephrase.
When comparing student responses with those of the teachers, the data
indicate contradicting views. During the interview, TI 7 explained that if
there were too many errors in the students' writing, she just wrote 'many
grammatical errors' or 'a lot of grammatical errors' because she expected
her students to find the errors themselves. When 1 asked further how the
students responded to that feedback. She answered:
...ifljustgive general comments like'many grammatical errors', some
diligent students will check their writing, check the sentences and I can
see they revise the sentences but sotne lazy students just ignore the
sentences which 1 don't give any correction symbol.

She was aware that general comments may not work well with poor
students as with diligent students. Based on her experiences, only diligent
students revised their writing despite the general feedback their teachers
gave them. They even revised parts of their writing not specifically indi-
cated by teacher feedback.
Wiltse (2000) might provide a useful explanation for this. He stated
that revising entails taking a risk. Thus, many students wiil not take the
risk of changing anything not commented on by the teacher even if they
sense that revision is needed. The fact that revision entails risk is very
much felt by SQ 84:
Sometimes teachers asked me to add more information but they did not
tell me what the information should be. As a result, in the revision, it
became another mistake that should be revised in later drafts (SQ 84).

She noted that if the teacher feedback was not explicit, the feedback
would become 'another mistake' that she should revise in later drafts.
Another student, SI 3, confessed that she did not revise the writing that her
teacher did not code for fear of making a new error. With regard to this,
Wiltse (2000) further suggests the need for classroom activities to be
designed to help students overcome their apprehension about revising.
Student preference of specific teacher feedback is realized by TI 8. As
she expressed during the interview session:
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Regional Language Centre Journal 38.1

... If the feedback is very specific, it is useful. It means the students


know exactly what they have to do, but if the feedback is general, for
instance, 'please consider the content, it is not logical' or we just give
a...we just mark the wrong grammatical sentences sometimes the stu-
dents could not know...they could not know what to do with the
underlined phrase or words so they still repeat the same mistakes.

TI 8 pointed out that feedback should be directive, telling students what


they needed to do to improve their writing, otherwise students would keep
on repeating similar mistakes in later drafts.
However, she further stated that this attempt was not without its draw-
backs. When asked if she always attempted to be specific in giving feed-
back, she answered:
Yes but that would be time-consuming especially when it is related to
* language so usually I try to be specific as long as their mistakes are
limited to content but then with language, usually in writing 4, stu-
dents had to write 3 papers. The first paper I try to be specific maybe I
gave examples how to combine sentences, how to combine simple
sentences...

From her remarks it shows that while giving specific feedback is effec-
tive and preferable, it is very time consuming. In the context of the study,
the writing class consisted of 20-25 students. In each writing class, stu-
dents are normally expected to write three kinds of writing products and
for one writing product, students need to write, at least, a first draft and a
final draft.
By taking into account the time constraints in providing specific feed-
back. TI 6 shared her experience of how to overcome this dilemma. As she
described her feedback strategy:
So in the last writing class. I gave a specific feedback to some of the
students' work. 1 noticed students learn from mistakes. I mean I wrote
the feedback using an AVA showing the parts that were wrong in
students' writing. I also pointed out the parts that were already correct
using an OHP transparency so they [the students] can really see why it
was wrong and how to correct them. So students can develop a skill on
how to revise their writing. Apparently they learn a lot and I felt
students improve a lot. So, all their grades were good.

TI 6 has developed a feedback strategy that she found to be effective


and time-efficient. Instead of attempting to give specific feedback to every
student in the class, she just picked some of student works and pinpointed
the parts that were already good and the ones that needed improvement.
49
Teacher and Student Attitudes toward Teacher Feedback

Furthermore, her strategy highlights an important aspect of teacher feed-


back. It shows that teacher feedback needs to be complemented with
training the students in revision strategies. By doing so, students know
what their teachers expect them to do in the revision process.

(c) Teacher feedback on content


From the interview, it could be learnt that some students found difficulties
with teacher feedback on content. This is particularly because teacher feed-
back on content is difficult to follow. As SI 13 said,
1 would prefer teacher gave more feedback on grammar like punctuation
or diction. Similar with Joko [SI 12], I don't like feedback on content. 1
did not know how to revise it... where to start... 1 needed to think from
scratch again...so 1 needed to change the whole idea. This does not
happen with feedback on grammar. I just changed the grammar, for
example to make it past or present...just like that and I did not need to
change my idea from the start (SI 13, my translation).

SI 13's difficulty in following teacher feedback on content was also felt


by SI 8 and SI 20:
Iteacher feedback on content]...sometimes confiising. Like...if we had
made an outline and then we needed to change it because the teacher
disagreed with it... I am confused... I have to think again...how... ldid
not know how to change the outline...but i like feedback on gram-
mar... sentence stnicture...it'snot confiasing in fact, it helps... (SI 8).

.. .we understood teacher feedback on content. But the difficulty is when


it came to revising our writing.. .it's difficult. If they asked us to change
the content...we understand but we don't know how to do thai...how
should we revise our draft.. .that's the most difficult part (SI 20).

The comments represented by SI 8, SI 13 and SI 20 were also experi-


enced by SI 12. SI 16, and SI 21. The dislike towards feedback on content
is not because they did not understand the comments but it has more to do
with how to react to the feedback. As pointed out by some students in the
interview, teacher feedback on content simply points out students' prob-
lems but does not indicate how to revise the writing.

(d) The use of complex language when giving feedback


The fourth problem is brought up by the students related to the language in
giving feedback. SI 1 and SI 16 thought that it would be better if teachers
used easy language when delivering their feedback. Both of thetn experi-
enced difficulty in teachers' use of unfamiliar terms.
50
Regional Language Centre Journal 38.1

This finding is in line with Robb. Ross and Shortreed (1986 cited in
Reesor 2002) study. They found that the extent to which students can
make use of feedback is largely related to a learner's level of L2 acquisi-
tion. Thus, Reesor (2002) concludes that the identification of some gram-
matical errors that correspond with student current acquisition level may
have a positive eftect on student writing, but the identification of errors
beyond the student's current acquisition level will not. Similar suggestions
were put forward by Williams (1997) and Ryoo (2004).
Therefore, teachers should be careful not to concentrate too heavily on
errors in form beyond student present acquisition level. If teachers re-
sponded to errors at a level beyond a learner's level of acquisition, they
may risk not only wasting much of their own time, but also confusing
students. Consequently, the feedback is not effective since students cannot
make optimal use of it.

(e) Teacher feedback that contradicts student ideas


During the interview session. S7, S9, S11, SI 16 and SI 19 mentioned that
teacher feedback becomes troubiesotTie when it does not suit the student
ideas. As the following opinions show:
...usually feedback on ideas. When I wanted to write my own experi-
ence in one of the writing classes, the teacher said it needed to be like
this...so that it would be more coherent...but my experience was not
like that. In this condition, usually I just followed teacher feedback...
what the teacher wanted (SI 17, my translation).

.. .teacher feedback sometimes was confusing when they gave feedback


on ideas. During the outlining, I wanted the idea to be like this but this
did not correspond with teacher's suggestion. At that time 1 was so
confused how to change it. Once 1 changed my topic three times just
because my idea was different from the teacher's.. .so what I wanted did
not correspond with what the teacher wanted... (SI 9, my translation).

When I have an argument...this argument actually was much related


with the ideas in the paragraphs that followed. But because teacher gave
suggestion to change the argument, it ruined the ideas in the next para-
graphs....it confused my own line of thought (SI 16, my translation).

These students expressed their difficulties in following teacher feed-


back if the feedback did not correspond to their previous ideas. SI 11 and
SI 16 went even further saying that when this happens, they did not know
how to continue the writing and became confused since they needed to
change their ideas to comply with the teacher comments.
51
Teacher and Student Attitudes toward Teacher Feedback

Conclusion
Similar to the teachers, the data from the questionnaire and interview
illustrate that the majority of students strongly believed that teaeher feed-
back is of utmost importance to improve students' writing. This is because
many times, though not always, teachers are considered to be more com-
petent in terms of language and knowledge. In addition, they are believed
to be more experienced in writing and providing feedback, the source of
knowledge and the ones who control grades. Because of this strong belief,
students considered teacher feedback as more "qualified', 'experienced'
'accurate', 'valid', 'reUable' and 'trustworthy'. Yet, it is important to point
out that not all students agree with this, particularly those who have experi-
enced being given inappropriate teacher feedback. With regard to stu-
dents' emotional states, the data from the questionnaire indicates that the
majority of the students felt 'excited' when receiving teacher feedback.
However, the interview data provide a different result. Of the 30 students
interviewed, 28 (93%) admitted that the amount of teacher feedback
largely influenced their feelings. While too much feedback would make
the students depressed, little feedback was considered more motivating, as
for the students, it indicated fewer mistakes.

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Lansing, MI: National Center for Research on Teacher Learning).

NOTES

1. In the English Department, one academic year consists of three trimesters.


One trimester equals to four months.
2. Cutting (2002) defines 'face' as a person's public image.
3. See Appendix B: Student Questionnaire, question nutnber 6.
4. Self-efficacy is people's judgements of students abilities in organizing and
executing courses of action required to attain a particular type of performances
(Bandura 1986).

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