A Study On The Impact Of Peer Feedback Perception On Students’ Behavioral Engagement In Peer Review Of English Writing

Peer feedback perception refers to the cognitive and emotional factors such as the participants’beliefs,attitudes,motivations,and stances towards peer feedback(Chang,2016;Dong et al.,2020).Student behavioral engagement refers to students’behavioral reaction in providing feedback and implementing feedback in peer review,that is,how students evaluate peer texts,whether and how to modify their own texts after receiving peer feedback(Xie,2022;Fan&Xu,2020).Although research on peer feedback perception has drawn much attention in recent years and student behavioral engagement has been found decisive for success of peer review,such research has mostly focused on attitudes and its impact on learner engagement in implementing peer feedback and modifying texts(Zhu&Mitchell,2012;Yu&Lee,2015).However,peer feedback perception covers more than attitude and behavioral engagement also involves providing feedback.Therefore,the influence of peer feedback perception on behavioral engagement needs further research.Informed by cooperative learning theory and learning engagement theory,this study selects 57 English major postgraduates who accomplished a literature review writing and peer reviewing task as the research participants.A total of 114 writings of both drafts(510132 words)and 2771 feedback comments(55579 words)were downloaded from Peerceptiv,the online peer review system through which students submitted their writings and reviewed each other’s work anonymously.Meanwhile,the participants were also asked to answer a peer feedback perception questionnaire and six students who engaged the most or the least in behavior were selected for interview.The study intends to answer three research questions:(1)What are the levels of students’peer feedback perceptions in English writing?(2)How are students engaged with peer feedback behaviorally in terms of feedback provision and implementation?(3)How is students’peer feedback perception related to their behavioral engagement in providing and implementing feedback?Through careful analysis of the coded writing and reviewing data,questionnaire results,and the interview transcripts,the results show that:(1)Using the 5-likert scale,the overall level of students’peer feedback perception in English writing was medium(M=3.97).That’s to say,students had a relatively positive perception of peer feedback,and they accepted this writing teaching method fairly well.Comparatively,the level of students’perception of review assurance(M=4.31),review outcome(M=4.06)and feedback mode(M=4.06)were high.For peer comment(M=3.98),review reliability(M=3.69)and grouping mode(M=3.84),the level was medium.(2)Students’behavioral engagement in providing feedback(M=97.89,SD=37.55)and implementing feedback(M=31.63,SD=4.59)were general good and consistent.Students provided 46.95%revision-oriented feedback comments,7.47%well-founded praises.In consistent with the overall feedback provided,students were more willing to implement the revision-oriented criticism(45.8%full implementation,27.8%partial implementation).However,students also provided 45.58%only praise feedback which showed low degree of behavioral engagement in praise.(3)Students’peer feedback perception is significantly correlated with their behavioral engagement.In providing feedback,the six variables in peer feedback perception significantly predicted students’behavioral engagement(F=7.956,p<0.05,R~2=0.410),explaining 41.0%of the changes.In implementing feedback,four variables had good predictive effects on behavioral engagement(F=8.176,p<0.05,R~2=0.495).The higher the students’perception of“implementation effect”and“peer feedback comments”,the more peer feedback comments were implemented.This study implies that teachers should pay more attention to students’peer feedback perception and seek for strategies to promote learner perception so as to promote students’behavioral engagement in both providing and implementing peer feedback in future instructions.In particular,students should be trained to have more confidence on the reliability of peer review and avoid providing only praise feedback so that they could benefit more from the peer review process.