The Influence of Computer-based and Collaborative Handwritten Peer Feedback on the Writing Performance of EFL Learners

The present study investigated the accuracy of writing, amount of feedback and comment category (global and local comments) of twenty-eight intermediate EFL students providing peer-peer feedback on writing in a computer-based and collaborative handwritten based format. Following administration of a proficiency test, the participants wrote a composition on a topic for the pretest, completed three writing tasks, and wrote on the same topic for the posttest (as in the pretest). During the treatment sessions, students in the computer-based group provided peer-peer feedback using word processor tools and the students in the handwritten group provided collaborative handwritten peer feedback to each other. The results indicated that the accuracy of the collaborative handwritten group significantly improved from pretest to posttest; however, no significant difference was found in the writing accuracy between the two groups. The qualitative analyses of the data collected during the treatment sessions indicated that the amount of feedback in the collaborative handwritten group was considerably higher than that of the computer-based group. Moreover, considering the comment category, it was revealed that the students of both groups predominantly focused on providing local comments. It can be concluded that applying collaborative handwritten peer feedback might be beneficial in providing more elaborated feedback, conducive to L2 writing development.