The Relationship between Iranian Teachers' Experience and Education, and their Written Feedback on their Students' Papers

This cross-sectional study was designed to explore the written corrective feedback (WCF) strategies employed by Iranian university teachers and the focus of their feedback; we also aimed to determine the relationship between the use of the identified strategies and the teachers' teaching experience and educational level. To this end, 100 MA and PhD volunteer teachers with various years of experience in teaching English from different universities in Iran participated in this investigation. Each male or female participant was requested to provide the researchers with a batch of rated writing essays which contained at least 15 papers. Afterwards, the collected essays were analyzed in terms of feedback strategy types and focus of feedback. To analyze the relationship between feedback strategies and teacher characteristic variables, we used the chi-square test. The findings indicated that the teachers used all the feedback strategies under study including direct, indirect, comprehensive, and selective strategies with the predominance of direct and selective ones. Besides, form followed by organization received the teachers’ attention in the current research more than other aspects of writing. The results of the chi-square test showed that education, rather than experience, had a significant relationship with the teachers’ feedback strategies and was a better predictor of the feedback strategies given by the teachers. At the end, pedagogical implications are provided for researchers and teachers interested in this area of study.