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Journal of Computing in Higher Education

, Volume 29, Issue 3, pp 496–513 | Cite as

An exploration of asynchronous and synchronous feedback modes in EFL writing

  • Hui-Fang Shang
Article
First Online:

Abstract

In the English as a foreign language (EFL) writing context, most of the research studies on the feedback process are conducted in a face-to-face context and few research studies have been conducted to investigate what actually happens in online feedback conditions. Thus, this study aimed to compare 44 EFL university students’ experience of employing asynchronous peer feedback (APF) and synchronous corrective feedback (SCF) and whether the utilization of these two modes affected EFL students’ writing on the aspect of syntactic complexity. The major findings suggested that most participants accepted this e-learning revision approach and received satisfactory results via using APF and SCF modes. The feedback that occurred in APF was potentially more usable than that in SCF in writing more sentences. It is assumed that as students added more words, they increased their writing scores after using APF. Although learners generally accepted both online feedback modes, the interview results revealed some of the reasons for learners’ preference for the APF over the SCF mode. Finally, the implications of these findings for future research are discussed and presented.

Keywords

Asynchronous peer feedback Synchronous corrective feedback EFL writing Syntactic complexity 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 105-2410-H-214-011).

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

The author declares that they have no conflict of interest.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Applied EnglishI-Shou UniversityKaohsiungTaiwan

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