Corrective feedback and personality types: An investigation of their effect on grammatical accuracy

Corrective feedback studies have proved more useful when coupled with a consideration of personality type factors. This study compared the effects of two different corrective feedback (CF) treatments on 60 Iranian learners’ use of past tense. Also, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) was administered to determine the participants’ personality types, i.e., introversion and extraversion. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups of prompt, recast, and control with approximately equal number of students from each personality type. In the two feedback groups, teachers consistently provided corrective feedback, i.e., recasts and prompts, in response to participants’ errors duringthe activities, whereas the control group only faced the placebo. Comparisons of the group means from both the immediate and delayed post-tests through a two-way ANOVA revealed that the CF conditions had a positive effect on the participants’ grammatical accuracy. However, no significant relationship was seen for personality types and the interaction factor. Post-hoc analyses for both immediate and delayed tests revealed more significant gains by the prompt group as compared to the recast and the control group. The recast group also proved significantly better than the control group.