Abstract
This chapter reports on an empirical study investigating the effects of technology-mediated self- and peer assessment on L2 students’ writing development in tertiary education. Couched within socio-cultural and activity theories, the study rests on the understanding that effective learning results from collaboration, experiential learning, and hands-on, meaningful activities. Using a quasi-experimental pre-/post-test between-group research design, a group of 48 semester two students were exposed to a blended writing course over 12 weeks. Besides the process-based writing activities carried out in class, the students were divided into groups of four and were required to download multiple supplementary materials from Moodle and post their essays in an online workshop for discussion and exchange of feedback. Pre- and post-test score comparisons revealed that although both groups made progress in certain aspects of complexity and accuracy, the experimental group significantly scored higher in accuracy metrics. Qualitative analysis of students’ feedback comments showed that their noticing ability improved as demonstrated by a decrease in unhelpful comments and an increase in meaning-level comments. The implications of the results obtained for an effective blended writing course are discussed.
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Notes
- 1.
Information about the face-to-face instructional procedure was garnered based on informal discussions with the main course teachers.
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Bouziane, A., Zyad, H. (2018). The Impact of Self and Peer Assessment on L2 Writing: The Case of Moodle Workshops. In: Ahmed, A., Abouabdelkader, H. (eds) Assessing EFL Writing in the 21st Century Arab World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64104-1_5
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