System 55 (2015) 1e10

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System
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system

Peer feedback in second language writing: Investigating

junior secondary students' perspectives on inter-feedback
and intra-feedback
Man-Kit Lee*
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The practice of peer feedback has driven an array of studies over the past few decades.
Received 9 September 2014 Prior research on students' perspectives on peer feedback has mainly focused on reviewer
Received in revised form 5 August 2015 ewriter exchange at university and senior secondary levels. The present study examines
Accepted 8 August 2015
junior grade learners' perspectives on various peer feedback stages, including the con-
Available online 8 September 2015
ventional reviewerewriter exchange and the proposed practice of intra-feedback (a peer-
feedback-on-peer-feedback reviewer-centered task), with reference to teacher feedback.
Keywords:
The study also seeks to address a validity concern relating to measuring perceptions in
Peer feedback
Teacher feedback
comparative feedback research. A class of 30 Chinese junior secondary students in Hong
Writing instruction Kong participated in this intervention study. Questionnaire results show that like in the
case of more senior learners, teacher comments were rated more positively but some
participants indicated their preference for having both peer and teacher feedback. Inter-
view responses reveal that peer feedback could foster mastery goal orientations, trigger
task interest, offer training on perspective-taking at different feedback stages, and enhance
language and writing development. Intra-feedback was well received by the junior stu-
dents because it provided assurance for peer assistance, promoted task engagement,
enhanced reviewers' capability and reflective awareness, and eased feedback quality
concerns, suggesting that it deserves a place in peer feedback practice.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Over the last few decades, writing pedagogy has seen a paradigm shift from the traditional product approach to a learner-
centered, process-oriented approach (Graham & Sandmel, 2011; Lee, 2006). In process writing, learners “discover and refor-
mulate their ideas as they attempt to approximate meaning” in various interconnected production and regulatory activities,
including planning, drafting, reviewing, and revising (Zamel, 1983, p. 56; also see Badger & White, 2000; Pritchard &
Honeycutt, 2006). Peer feedback, one of the central components at the reviewing and revising stages, has captured the in-
terests of second language (L2) writing researchers. A substantial number of studies have examined learners' perceptions and
the psychological or motivational impact of peer feedback as well as how peer feedback could affect writing and language
development (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). However, the research literature, especially studies on learners' perspectives, has
mainly involved students at university or senior secondary levels. Thus, the findings may not be of direct relevance to language
teachers who practice or intend to practice peer feedback in classes involving younger learners (e.g. junior secondary or

* Tel.: þ44 759 215 7863.

E-mail address: [email protected].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2015.08.003
0346-251X/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 M.-K. Lee / System 55 (2015) 1e10

primary levels). The present study aims to address this issue by examining junior secondary L2 students' perspectives on peer
feedback. It compared the students' perceived usefulness of peer and teacher feedback and looked at their preferences for
different feedback modes with reference to the conventional peer feedback practice and a proposed “intra-feedback” practice.
This study also seeks to address a validity concern in relation to measuring comparative perceptions in feedback research.

2. Literature review

The extensive literature on L2 peer feedback has focused on a range of learner variables, including students' perceived
helpfulness of peer comments and their psychological attributes. Mixed perceptions have been reported regarding the
usefulness of peer feedback. Some studies have suggested that peer feedback could help learners raise their awareness of the
shortcomings of their work and by aiding their sense of audience (Hu, 2005; Hu & Lam, 2010; Jacobs, Curtis, Braine, & Huang,
1998; Tsui & Ng, 2000; Yang, Badger, & Yu, 2006; Zhao, 2014). Other studies have mentioned quality concerns as they found
that peer responses were sometimes not specific or lacked elaborations or explanations and thus could not facilitate revision
(Tsui & Ng, 2000; Wang, 2014). Some learners stated that their peers' advice could help with the writing content (McGroarty
& Zhu, 1997; Mendonca & Johnson, 1994), while others noted that their peers placed too much emphasis on surface errors
(Nelson & Carson, 1998; Tsui & Ng, 2000).
From the psychological perspective, it was found that L2 students could gain a sense of ownership over their writing (Tsui
& Ng, 2000) and felt the environment less intimidating (Hu & Lam, 2010; Jacobs et al., 1998; Yang et al., 2006; Zhao, 2010,
2014). In addition, a lower level of general L2 writing apprehension was evident after peer review (Jahin, 2012). Nonethe-
less, peer feedback might not be as effective as teacher feedback in terms of enhancing general L2 writing self-efficacy (Ruegg,
2014). On the other hand, some learners were found not to have much confidence in their peers’ competence; they put their
trust in their teachers, whose comments were considered authoritative and of a higher quality (Hu & Lam, 2010; Jacobs et al.,
1998; Tsui & Ng, 2000; Wang, 2014; Yang et al., 2006; Zhao, 2010). Some students were frustrated or even left amotivated
because their peers did not treat peer feedback seriously (Best, Jones-Katz, Smolarek, Stolzenburg, & Williamson, 2014; Wang,
2014). A decline in interest in peer feedback over time was also reported due to mechanical practices (Wang, 2014).
This paper extends the scope of those studies that compared L2 learners' perspectives on peer feedback and teacher
feedback. One of these earlier studies is the quantitative research conducted by Zhang (1995) in university programs of
English as a second language (ESL) in the United States. The results from a questionnaire tapping preferences for distinctive
types of feedback revealed that the participants significantly favored teacher feedback over peer feedback. Tsui and Ng (2000)
adopted a fine-grained approach by examining via a questionnaire their Chinese ESL senior secondary (Grades 12 and 13)
participants' perceived usefulness of various stages of peer feedback (reading peers' essays, reading peer feedback, and
discussing peer feedback) with respect to teacher feedback. The results showed that the participants had a significantly more
positive attitude toward teacher feedback, which corresponded to the findings by Zhang (1995).
In response to Zhang's (1995) study, Jacobs et al. (1998) argued that Zhang's providing distinctive preference options in his
questionnaire did not represent the process approach accurately in that peer feedback should be construed as an element that
supplements rather than supplants teacher feedback. The authors suggested “a middle path” approach (p. 314). Accordingly,
they surveyed their Chinese undergraduate participants in Hong Kong and Taiwan as to whether they preferred having peer
feedback as one type of feedback; significantly more participants (93%) expressed a preference for including peer feedback.
Yang et al.'s (2006) study adopted Jacobs et al.'s (1998) middle path approach and asked their Chinese university participants,
divided into the peer and teacher feedback groups, about what they preferred when given choices of teacher feedback, peer
feedback, a combination, or no feedback; the statistical results, however, were not reported. The authors also asked the
participants whether they found the comments useful. Although only 40% of all the participants found peer feedback useful or
very useful (98% for teacher feedback), 61% and 22% of the participants in the peer and teacher feedback groups, respectively,
thought peer feedback was useful or very useful. It should be cautioned, however, that there was no peer feedback in the
teacher feedback group and no teacher feedback in the peer feedback group. Students' preferences similar to those examined
by Yang et al. (2006) were also elicited by Hu and Lam (2010) and Zhao (2014). Positive results were reported, with the
majority of the Chinese university participants in both studies stating a preference for a combined feedback mode, a finding in
line with that of Jacobs et al. (1998).
Interview data collected in these comparative studies, as briefly reviewed earlier, consistently showed that teacher feedback
was perceived as more authoritative and more accurate or helpful than peer feedback, though peer comments could raise
awareness of language or writing problems and offer richer feedback. Notably, peer feedback could provide more social or af-
fective support than teacher feedback. The participants found that peers were “less threatening” (Jacobs et al., 1998, p. 312), that
they felt “more in common” when exchanging ideas with peers (Yang et al., 2006, p. 193), and that they had “greater freedom”
when approaching peers for feedback discussions (Hu & Lam, 2010, p. 385). Also, as peer feedback could enhance a sense of
audience and text ownership (roles that teacher feedback may not have fulfilled) (Tsui & Ng, 2000), the existing evidence shows
that peer feedback plays a supplementary or complementary role in feedback practice (Jacobs et al., 1998; Tsui & Ng, 2000).
While comparative perspectives on peer and teacher feedback have been extensively researched, the focus of previous
studies, as seen above, has been mostly restricted to the case of university or senior secondary students. Little is known about the
perspectives of younger learners (i.e. students at junior secondary or primary levels). The need to understand junior students'
relative perspectives on peer and teacher feedback is particularly vital in educational settings such as that of the present study,
where process writing is part of the English writing teaching strategy in junior grades (Education Department, 2002).
 M.-K. Lee / System 55 (2015) 1e10 3

Another important issue in comparative studies concerns a validity threat stemming from the interference between peer
and teacher feedback. In previous studies such as those by Hu and Lam (2010), Tsui and Ng (2000) and Zhao (2010, 2014), there
appeared to be an assessment of peer feedback from teacher feedback because the teachers commented directly on the peer
comments or on the participants' revised drafts based on the peer comments. This procedure seems to present a validity
concern: teacher feedback on peer feedback may shape students' perceived usefulness of peer comments or their general
perceptions about peer feedback practice. In daily classroom practice, such procedure is pedagogically rational because teachers
are responsible for monitoring the learning process. In a research setting that looks into relative perceptions, however, the
direct interference between peer and teacher feedback should be minimized to ensure the validity of the comparison. Such
interference can be attenuated by asking teachers and student reviewers to comment on the same drafts separately. In this way,
students' perspectives can be measured based on a more original picture of what types of advice and feedback quality teachers
and peers could offer and on less teacher-induced biased views on peer feedback practice in general.
With respect to practical concerns, the perception inquiries reviewed above have highlighted the need to address prob-
lems pertaining to peer feedback quality and trust toward peer reviewers. The key issue should be enlisting quality feedback
from student reviewers. Thus, what seems to be essential is to provide reviewers with support in relation to their cognitive
functioning (e.g. improving reviewers' feedback skills via strategic guidance or evaluation) and psychological functioning (e.g.
instigating and potentiating reviewers' motivation) for performing their reviewing task. While the literature has presented
measures that could address the issues of quality and trust, examples being peer conferences and peer feedback training, such
measures may not be adequate to offer effective reviewer support. Their pitfalls are discussed below.
In the type of peer conferences that revolves around reviewers and writers discussing peer feedback (e.g. Best et al., 2014;
Tsui & Ng, 2000), the peer exchanges are largely post hoc in nature (i.e. conducted after reviewers have presented their
feedback to writers). Thus, the function of such conferences appears to be limited in terms of supporting reviewers to
accomplish their reviewing task. One may argue, from a long-term perspective, that reviewers could learn to refine their
feedback skills from responding to writers' queries. However, it is not certain whether reviewers' reflective awareness of what
constitutes quality feedback can be readily or explicitly promoted. The reason is that writing effectiveness, rather than
feedback effectiveness, should come to the fore of one's cognitive or metacognitive processes as the conferences focus pri-
marily on revising writers' output. On the other hand, in the type of peer conferences where there is collaboration or
negotiation among reviewers leading to jointly-formulated peer feedback (e.g. Berggren, 2015; Shehadeh, 2010), reviewer-
oriented support could be limited by a lack of structured, interdependent collaboration. It is possible that in such confer-
ences, a reviewer may only commit to evaluating other reviewers' output or might behave and learn in a passive and
dependent manner (i.e. attend to but seldom contribute to reviewing) and thus the development of feedback capabilities may
not be rooted in regulating one's own feedback product. How such reviewer-centered conferences are organized has indeed
not been sufficiently detailed in the literature; their value in providing reviewer support warrants investigations. As for peer
feedback training, it mostly stays at the pre-reviewing stage for equipping students with the skills and attitudes to embark on
subsequent reviewing tasks, and it sometimes only involves exemplary writing or sample peer comments (e.g. Hu, 2005; Lam,
2010; Rahimi, 2013). Thus, peer feedback training may not be able to offer immediate support to reviewers in actual feedback
tasks. In general, there appear to be limitations in terms of providing reviewer support in prior practices.
Based on the review above, the present study sets out to explore junior L2 students' perspectives on peer and teacher
feedback and to highlight and address a validity concern relating to tapping comparative perspectives largely overlooked in
the literature. It also seeks to address the inadequacies in reviewer support in previous studies by proposing the practice of
intra-feedback and by examining the value of it with reference to student perceptions.

3. Providing reviewer-oriented support via intra-feedback

In response to the abovementioned inadequacies in peer conferences and peer feedback training, the present study
proposes the practice of intra-feedback. Intra-feedback is characterized by a peer-feedback-on-peer-feedback task directed by
and targeted at individual reviewers. In this study, intra-feedback was incorporated into the conventional practice where
reviewers offer comments to and discuss the comments with writers (this conventional practice is referred to as inter-
feedback hereafter). Specifically, intra-feedback was carried out in a reviewers' meeting where two reviewers of the same
essays first presented all of their written comments on the essays (offered individually prior to the reviewers' meeting) to
each other. The reviewers then discussed with each other any potential discrepancies or uncertainties in their comments,
offered feedback on each other's feedback performance, and, if necessary, revised their own comments before presenting
them to the writers of the essays. In a word, intra-feedback adopts a process approach to peer review.
Conducting intra-feedback could empower and engage individual reviewers to accomplish their reviewing task, thereby
helping to address the concerns relating to quality and trust. Intra-feedback could allow student reviewers to understand
better or be more aware of the criteria of effective reviewing by learning from the strengths of another reviewer, negotiating
with another reviewer the discrepancies or uncertainties in their own feedback work, and spotting and reflecting on
insufficient reviews. Reviewers may also obtain psychological support in that intra-feedback offers a help-seeking option for
their work, which could help buffer students against the apprehension of giving feedback. For the writers, they could benefit
from more refined comments, and receiving already-negotiated comments from peers may mitigate the concern that peers
are not able to give valid feedback. Intra-feedback could function to supplement the abovementioned peer feedback practices
in dealing with the issues of quality and trust. Intra-feedback is inherently more reviewer-centered than inter-feedback
4 M.-K. Lee / System 55 (2015) 1e10

conferences (i.e. follow-up discussions on writing effectiveness between reviewers and writers). And it could be more capable
of facilitating the development of feedback skills from individualized, self-regulated learning processes than the type of peer
conferences where students produce jointly-constructed feedback. Intra-feedback could also offer more direct, on-the-task
assistance and support than peer feedback training. Notably, intra-feedback, inter-feedback conferences and training have
unique functions and thus they were all conducted in this study.

4. Research questions and methods

4.1. Research questions and strategies of inquiry

The present study aims to address the following questions:

1. How do junior secondary students value different stages of peer feedback and the mode of teacher feedback regarding
their usefulness in improving ESL writing?
2. What are junior secondary students' preferences for different feedback modes in ESL writing lessons?

The different stages of peer feedback in Research Question 1 included reading and commenting on peers' essays; dis-
cussing one's own comments on peers' essays with a partner (i.e. intra-feedback); reading peer comments on one's own
essays; and discussing peer comments in an oral response session. The feedback modes in Research Question 2 included
giving peer comments without intra-feedback and that with intra-feedback; as well as peer feedback only, teacher feedback
only, and a combined mode.
The present perception study was an exploratory project involving a peer feedback intervention conducted in a junior
secondary ESL class. This study employed mixed methods in that both quantitative data (ratings and rank data obtained from
a questionnaire) and qualitative data (semi-structured interview data) were collected and analyzed.

4.2. Participants, intervention and training

The population was Chinese junior secondary (Grades 7e9) ESL learners in Hong Kong. The sample was a class of 30 Grade
9 ESL learners (17 males, 13 females; with a mean age of 14.8 years) studying in a Band 2 school (out of three bands of general
academic proficiency). According to the internal examination results, the class contained students of similar English profi-
ciency. Prior to the study, the participants were used to the product writing approach.
The peer feedback intervention was conducted in one writing cycle lasting two teaching weeks (seven 30-min lessons).
The participants were asked to write a two-sided argumentative essay on the topic of selling junk food in schools. In the
writing cycle, the conceptual and linguistic elements were taught by the English teacher of the class with reference to sample
texts. The participants then produced the first draft, followed by a one-hour peer feedback training session conducted by the
researcher. The training was designed based on guidelines discussed in the literature (e.g. Hansen & Liu, 2005; Min, 2005); it
guided the participants through the purposes and procedures of inter- and intra-feedback via instruction and modeling and
with the help of a feedback guidance worksheet. After the training, the participants conducted inter- and intra-feedback in
randomized groups of three or four. The writers then followed up on the peer comments and discussed with the reviewers in
an inter-feedback conference. Meanwhile, the teacher offered written comments on the original first drafts separately. Finally,
the students revised their writing based on both peer and teacher feedback.

4.3. Data collection

A questionnaire (see Appendix A) was administered to the participants after the intervention. The questionnaire was
divided into two parts: Part 1 elicited perceived usefulness of peer and teacher feedback, and Part 2 elicited preferences for
different feedback modes. Part 1 contained five constructs representing the different stages of peer feedback as well as the
stage of teacher feedback (adapted from items 9e32 in Tsui and Ng's (2000) questionnaire). Each construct contained five
questions on a 5-point Likert scale, with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 strongly agree. The questions tapped the extent to
which the participants found the feedback useful in a general sense and in improving the content and organization as well as
grammar and vocabulary of their compositions. Part 2 asked students to rank, with 1 being the most preferred option, their
preferences for the different feedback modes stated earlier. As reviewed, similar preference options were used in previous
studies (e.g. Hu & Lam, 2010; Yang et al., 2006; Zhao, 2014).
Semi-structured student interviews were then conducted using a set of questions adapted from Tsui and Ng (2000, p. 157).
The core questions asked the participants whether receiving and giving peer comments and receiving teacher comments
were of any use to them and which specific aspects or instances they found helpful or not and why. Sub-questions were asked
relating to the perceptions of particular feedback stages, the types of comments the participants wanted to receive most, how
the participants evaluated and incorporated the comments, and the difficulties encountered and solutions employed. The
interviewees were randomly selected from the class and eventually nine students participated in the interviews, which were
conducted by the researcher in the interviewees’ native language and were audiotaped. Materials in the feedback sessions
 M.-K. Lee / System 55 (2015) 1e10 5

were shown to help the interviewees recall what they had done. The interview data were transcribed, translated and analyzed
adopting an inductive approach: themes and sub-themes as well as recurring and contrasting patterns were identified from
the data. A postgraduate student specializing in applied linguistics followed the trail of analysis by coding the interview data
with reference to the themes and patterns; there were minor disagreements in the coding results, which were resolved
through negotiations.

5. Results and findings

5.1. Questionnaire results

All the constructs in Part 1 of the questionnaire were subject to analysis of their internal consistency. High coefficients of
Cronbach's alpha were yielded (Table 1).
The results of a one-way repeated-measures ANOVA showed that there was a significant difference between the five
constructs, F(4, 116) ¼ 11.71, p < .0001. Pairwise comparisons using paired samples t-tests were then performed, with a
Bonferroni correction applied to control the Type I error rate (hence, the significance level ¼ .05/10 comparisons, i.e. .005).
Significant differences were found between the teacher feedback construct (Construct 5) and all the peer feedback constructs
e Construct 1 (t(29) ¼ 4.72, p < .001, r ¼ .66), Construct 2 (t(29) ¼ 5.38, p < .0001, r ¼ .71), Construct 3 (t(29) ¼ 4.15, p < .001,
r ¼ .61), and Construct 4 (t(29) ¼ 5.07, p < .0001, r ¼ .69). No significant differences were found between the four peer feedback
constructs. Therefore, the participants significantly favored teacher feedback above all peer feedback stages in terms of the
usefulness in improving their English writing.
In Part 2, the participants' preferences for the two options of peer feedback, namely giving peer comments without intra-
feedback and that with intra-feedback, were compared using the Wilcoxon sign-rank test for non-parametric data (as the
distribution was not normal). The results showed that the participants significantly preferred the option with intra-feedback,
z ¼ 2.92, p < .01, r ¼ .53. The preferences for the different feedback modes, namely peer feedback only, teacher feedback
only, or a combination, were compared using the Friedman's non-parametric ANOVA (as the distribution was not normal).
There was a significant difference between the choices (X2(2) ¼ 29.07, p < .0001). Wilcoxon tests, using a Bonferroni
adjustment (the significance level ¼ .05/3 comparisons, i.e. .0167), were then carried out as follow-up tests. The preference for
the combined mode and that for the teacher feedback mode were significantly greater than the preference for having only
peer feedback (z ¼ 4.30, p < .0001, r ¼ .78 and z ¼ 4.21, p < .0001, r ¼ .77, respectively); whereas there was no significant
difference between the former two modes, z ¼ .57, p ¼ .57, r ¼ .10. Notably, the rank total of the combined mode was
smaller (indicating greater preference) than that of the teacher feedback mode (46 and 50, respectively) and 18 of the 30
participants ranked the combined mode higher than teacher feedback. In sum, the participants expressed a statistically
significant preference for including intra-feedback in peer feedback practice, and both the options of having teacher feedback
only and a combined mode were significantly preferable to the option of having peer feedback alone.

5.2. Findings from student interviews

5.2.1. Peer feedback vs. teacher feedback

The interview data offered some insights into the reasons why teacher feedback were rated more positively than peer
feedback. Two recurring themes were reported, including issues relating to expertise and feedback quality. As indicated
explicitly by four interviewees, the teacher was considered more authoritative or professional; one of the interviewees, Sara,
put it, “The teacher is more knowledgeable…She corrected us so that what we wrote can be more like that written by native
English speakers”. Some peer comments, on the contrary, were subject to critical responses. Another interviewee, Tony, gave
an example concerning his choice of vocabulary: “My classmate told me to use think but not argue here, but as I am presenting
a problem, it is more appropriate to use argue”. The quality of feedback might also have affected the rating in that some peer
comments were considered unclear or not sufficiently elaborated; Dennis, one of the seven interviewees who mentioned the
issue, raised a concern about clarity: “Here one of them (peers) wrote: ‘it was acceptable to edit the sentence’. Does that mean
I should edit it or I could leave it?” Another interviewee, Sandy, found that peer comments sometimes lacked explanations:
“This (peer) comment states that ‘My standpoint is not clear’. But why? They (peers) sometimes just pointed out the problems
without explaining anything”. These issues could be decisive in shaping the junior participants' preferences for the optimal
feedback mode.

Table 1
Internal consistency and descriptive statistics for Part 1 (N ¼ 30).

Construct Reliability M SD
1. Reading and commenting on my classmates' compositions .74 3.53 .62
2. Discussing my comments on my classmates' compositions with a partner .71 3.53 .51
3. Reading peer comments on my composition .86 3.50 .77
4. Discussing the peer comments in the oral response session .83 3.38 .68
5. Reading teacher's comments .84 4.22 .56
Overall .87 3.63 .41
6 M.-K. Lee / System 55 (2015) 1e10

5.2.2. Preference for including peer feedback

Despite the abovementioned concerns, the interview responses revealed the value that the junior ESL students saw in peer
feedback. First, two interviewees, Andy and Sara, sensed a constructive atmosphere with learning-focused orientations
during peer feedback activities. Andy said, “I think we were not just spotting each other's mistakes but learning from each
other…I didn't mind showing my essays to my classmates because I could benefit from some of their comments…It was fine
(for peers focusing on weaknesses) because their comments could make me write better next time”. Sara had similar
thoughts: “I didn't mind letting others read my essay. I know I am not proficient in writing. It was good for my peers to give me
some help…I had no strong feeling receiving critical (peer) comments on my essay. I just felt that some of them are useful as
they could prevent me from making the same mistakes in the future”. Notably, the positive (or at least not negative) learning
atmosphere that Andy and Sara depicted seemed pertinent to their adopting mastery goals, which aim at improving one's
own knowledge and competence as posited within theories on achievement goal orientations (Ames, 1992; Kaplan & Maehr,
2007). Mastery goals contrast with performance goals, which focus on displaying relative competence, and the former
orientation could lead to better learning outcomes (Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2008). From their self-report, it is clear that
Andy and Sara aimed mainly at developing their writing skills during peer feedback but not at competing or comparing with
their peers. One can speculate that Andy and Sara's emphasizing a learning orientation was facilitated by the helping
environment during peer feedback (inter-feedback in their cases), as nurturing a sense of collaboration among learners could
contribute to adopting mastery goals (Troia, Shankland, & Wolbers, 2012). Other factors may also play a role, for instance, the
training, which explained the value and objectives of peer feedback, as well as Andy and Sara's own academic motivation.
These speculations require further investigations, but it is motivating to see that there are signs of mental representations of
task-involved instead of ego-involved desired outcomes in some junior students during peer feedback and that the students
seemed to welcome such a mastery-oriented collaborative environment.
Another finding relating to learning atmosphere was that the writing process appeared to be more affectively and
cognitively appealing with peer feedback. Three interviewees described the process as interesting or fun when asked about
the general ambience during peer feedback. One of them, Rosa, was quite vocal: “Peer feedback made the writing process
more relaxing and more delightful. We had fun. It was more entertaining…It was interesting to read my classmates' essays
and then try to assume the teacher's role…It was boring and very mechanical to do writing and editing alone”. For Rosa, peer
feedback clearly evoked positive emotional responses (the affective side), and altering the writing routine and student roles
seemed to bring a sense of novelty or vividness (the cognitive side). These elements could trigger her situational interest and/
or activate her existing individual interest (Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000; Schiefele, 2009) in L2 writing and could eventually
provide her with the motivational impetus for the writing task.
Peer feedback also helped train audience awareness, or perspective-taking (Holliway, 2004), during the writing process.
Andy reflected, “I checked each word carefully. I should not expect my classmates to understand my essay if I myself did not
understand it”. Another interviewee, Oliver, added, “The teacher should understand whatever I have written…I tried to write
more clearly for my classmates”. Thus, writing for peer response, compared with writing for teachers, seemed to enable the
students to be more aware of the readability of their essays. A sense of audience could also be developed at the reviewing
stage. Sara reported, “One of the paragraphs (by another writer) has no topic sentence. I could not follow what he wanted to
say in that paragraph…I looked at my own writing afterwards and see if I have got topic sentences...I wanted to convey my
messages more clearly”. Hence, reviewing peers’ essays allowed Sara to gain experience that made her more attentive to the
perspectives (textual concerns in her case) of the readers of her own essay.
Peer feedback was sometimes considered useful in aiding language and writing development despite the concerns voiced
above. Dennis, Oliver and Sara found that peer feedback could raise their language-related awareness; Dennis said, “He
(reviewer) said this is probably Chinglish (unidiomatic English, affected by the Chinese language)…I really did not notice that
before”. On the other hand, all interviewees said they could explore or reflect on arguments about the writing topic via
reviewing peers' work; as writers, Tony, Oliver and Andy found that they received more content-related written advice from
peers than from the teacher. The fact that content-related feedback seemed more prominent in these students’ cases could be
attributed to the discursive nature of the essay (arguing incompatible views and reaching agreement) in that effective task
completion was largely contingent on the validity of task response. Such a task could make idea development a priority in
peer review. It is also possible that the young reviewers in this study were not cognitively ready to comment on local areas.
Dennis noted, “The proof-reading exercises we did in the past involved only certain kinds of grammatical errors...It (peer
feedback) was sometimes difficult because there seemed many different kinds of grammatical problems to deal with”.
In short, the interviewees in this study could see the motivational and cognitive benefits from giving and receiving peer
feedback. It is likely that these benefits, especially those relating to motivation and audience awareness, may not be salient or
not as salient in a teacher-centered environment and could thus lead some participants to gravitate toward the preference for
a combined feedback mode.

5.2.3. Perspectives on intra-feedback

In general, the interviewees expressed positive attitudes toward intra-feedback. As expected, working with peers on
evaluating the same essays offered student reviewers psychological support. Tony said, “Knowing that another helper
(reviewer) would give me feedback, I was gamer when deciding whether to put down my comments or not”. Thus, Tony could
feel more assured from being given a help-seeking option and was therefore less avoidance-regulated when offering feed-
back. To the writers, intra-feedback could also provide a sense of assurance; as Sara commented, “When the comments given
 M.-K. Lee / System 55 (2015) 1e10 7

by one of them (reviewer) were wrong, the other helper could possibly help correct the mistakes…I would have been a bit
more uncertain about the comments if there had only been one helper”. What Sara said may imply that, as anticipated,
receiving already-negotiated peer comments may allow student writers to deemphasize their perceiving a considerable
difference in authority between the expert-novice and noviceenovice collaboration found in teacher-student and peer in-
teractions, respectively. Students such as Sara may possibly put more trust in peer feedback as a result in spite of still seeing
the teacher as the authority (as noted in her case earlier) and despite problems such as quality issues, which may in turn
contribute to the abovementioned perception of a constructive learning atmosphere.
Reviewers could also be more engaged in reviewing as a result of intra-feedback; as Tony stated, “I was more engaged and
more serious about writing comments because I knew I would discuss them with another helper…The exchange with others
on the same text made me treat peer feedback more seriously”. It bears noting, in reference to motivation research on self-
determination, that what Tony reported could be a consequence of autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, or a
mixture of them. Autonomous motivation is derived from being inherently interested in an activity or personally identifying
with the importance of the activity. On the other hand, controlled motivation stems from regulations partially internalized
into or external to the self, such as avoiding feelings of shame or pressure from evaluations or punishment threats (Deci &
Ryan, 1985, 2012). This is noteworthy in that autonomous motivation could lead to more adaptive learning behavior and
outcomes (Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2009). In the case of another interviewee, Donald, controlled motivation could be discerned in
his saying, “When giving feedback, I kept checking and comparing with another reviewer…I compared the total number of
the grammatical errors we could identify”. Thus, while intra-feedback could, as mentioned, offer reviewers a feeling of
assurance, it may sometimes be connected with elements of auditing or social comparison. These elements may not be so
prominent at the stage of inter-feedback e indeed, a sense of helping and learning orientation prevailed as reported above
because learners helped out on each other's product and could easily associate inter-feedback with benefits for themselves.
For some students, however, this association could have mixed with or been overshadowed by controlled regulation when
they were expecting intra-feedback, where there was a co-worker reviewing the same peer's product. In fact, controlled
regulation is still a type of motivation; it is not necessarily undesirable, especially for learners who found no or little
autonomous motivation during peer feedback. The point here is that reviewers found themselves more engaged with intra-
feedback, but their underlying motivational states may need careful attention.
Furthermore, conducting intra-feedback could develop one's capacity for effective reviewing. Responses from Andy, Oliver,
Sandy and another interviewee, Ann, mentioned that discussing with another reviewer provided them with solutions when
they did not understand or found it difficult to comment on peers' work and when they were uncertain about the validity of
their own comments. Andy recounted his experience: “I marked this (a problem with task response). I knew it (the argument)
was wrong, but I was not sure how to comment on it. So we (he and another reviewer) worked together…We presented our
thoughts and then considered which one was better…We put together our good points”. What can be seen in Andy's response
is that intra-feedback may not only help students deal with difficulties relating to giving feedback but could also orient them to
act with an eye toward monitoring and improving the quality of their own comments, which may eventually enhance their
awareness and ability for self-regulation in reviewing. This may alleviate the quality problems of peer feedback and may have
contributed to the abovementioned cognitive benefits of peer feedback for the reviewers and writers.
The interview responses also revealed a few problems with intra-feedback. For instance, Donald discovered that he and
the other helper sometimes modified their comments so that the comments ended up looking alike; he said that his real
intention might not have been reflected in the modified comments. Sandy stated that she had no idea what to do when she
received contrasting ideas from her two helpers. In general, these junior form students might not be capable of dealing with
diverse perspectives from peers.
On the whole, the interview findings indicated that conducting intra-feedback could lead to a more motivating and more
effective peer feedback process. This confirms the quantitative results that the participants favored the inclusion of intra-feedback.

6. Discussion

The present study examined a less explored issue pertaining to junior grade writers' relative perspectives on peer feedback
and teacher feedback. The questionnaire results revealed that in general, the participants rated teacher feedback more
positively than they did the various stages of peer feedback (though the latter was not at all rated negatively) in terms of the
usefulness in improving their writing. This finding is consistent with Tsui and Ng's (2000) research involving senior secondary
students in the same educational context. There was also a greater preference for receiving only teacher feedback than having
only peer feedback. These quantitative results seemed to point to a conviction from the perspectives of the junior form
participants that teacher feedback was superior to peer feedback in terms of practical value. However, the result that the
combined feedback mode was also preferable to conducting peer feedback alone suggests that peer feedback might have
presented certain benefits supplementary and/or complementary to teacher feedback. It is worth noting that the statistically
non-significant difference in the preferences between coupling or not coupling teacher feedback with peer feedback appears
to deviate from the findings of prior university-based studies where the vast majority of the participants preferred a com-
bined mode (Hu & Lam, 2010; Jacobs et al., 1998; Zhao, 2014). Thus, the participating class in this study did not seem as
overwhelmingly positive toward a combined mode as their senior counterparts.
The interview findings may help elucidate the abovementioned patterns. The interviewees articulated their reservations
about the helpfulness of peer feedback. Such reservations stemmed from issues of authoritativeness and feedback quality,
8 M.-K. Lee / System 55 (2015) 1e10

which have been consistently documented in studies involving more senior L2 learners (Hu & Lam, 2010; Jacobs et al., 1998;
Tsui & Ng, 2000; Wang, 2014; Yang et al., 2006; Zhao, 2010). Even though some peer comments were reported to be useful in
that they could raise awareness of language errors and help with task response, these reservations could undermine
perceived usefulness toward receiving and discussing peer feedback. Eventually, such doubts about peer feedback could be
salient enough to produce a negative perception among some students that a combined feedback mode was suboptimal.
Notably, for other students (those who ranked the combined mode the highest), the abovementioned usefulness, plus some
motivational and cognitive-related merits relating to peer feedback in general as reflected in the interview responses, might
override the reservations, hence drumming up support for embracing peer feedback.
From the motivational perspective, the inter-feedback task in this study was found to nurture a mastery-oriented learning
atmosphere, apparently not placing much emphasis on competition among peers or normative evaluations. This seemed to
tie in closely with previous evidence that peer feedback presents an environment that is less threatening and that promotes a
sense of peer relatedness (Hu & Lam, 2010; Jacobs et al., 1998; Yang et al., 2006; Zhao, 2010, 2014). Also, peer feedback was
perceived as a fun and novel experience, which could trigger or help develop the participants' intrinsic interest in the im-
mediate writing process or in L2 writing. However, a note of caution here is that the sense of novelty may wear off in pro-
longed interventions, leading to a decline in interest over time, similar to that reported by Wang (2014). On the cognitive side,
the peer feedback activities could foster audience awareness, leading to enhanced communicative adequacy in one's writing.
In this regard, prior perception research and discussions in the literature have mainly focused on the role played by drafting
for peers and receiving peer comments (e.g. McGroarty & Zhu, 1997; Mendonca & Johnson, 1994; Rollinson, 2005; Tsui & Ng,
2000). The present study showed that the reviewing stage could play a part in training for perspective-taking e this is akin to
the reading-as-their-readers strategy discussed in L1 writing research (Holliway, 2004; Traxler & Gernsbacher, 1993). In
reading as their readers, writers were put in the position of readers of similar texts produced by peers, interpreting and
assessing the texts to sense the readers' informational needs, and eventually harnessing their trained sense of awareness to
revise their own texts. On the whole, the present findings suggest that peer feedback could play a constructive part in L2
writing at more junior grade levels.
A further aim of the present study was to address an issue of validity relating to measuring learners’ perceptions. There is a
concern in comparative studies that actual perceptions could be masked by biases stemming from the interference between
peer and teacher feedback. It is impossible to eliminate such biases, even if teachers and peers offer comments on the same
drafts separately (as in this study), because students can always compare peer and teacher comments on their writing to
hand. The point is to minimize the biases by preventing teachers from making direct judgements on peer feedback prior to
tapping comparative perceptions. Drawing on student perspectives that are less prejudiced, researchers should be able to
identify merits and shortcomings of peer feedback more genuinely voiced by learners.
Relating to instructional practice, the present study proposed intra-feedback, a process approach to peer review that aims
to enhance feedback effectiveness via offering support to individual reviewers at the reviewing stage, and explored the
participants' perspectives of this approach. Several merits of intra-feedback were reported, including those pertaining to
psychological support, task engagement, as well as the capacity to enhance reviewers' feedback ability and reflective
awareness and to address feedback quality concerns. These merits were likely the reasons behind the strong preference for
including intra-feedback. Indeed, intra-feedback might have played a vital role in the functioning of the intervention e
without intra-feedback, concerns about peer feedback quality and trust among peers could have been much more pro-
nounced. In prolonged interventions, intra-feedback has the potential to exert an even stronger, more positive influence on
student perspectives as there are regular self-reflection opportunities and regular on-the-task support for reviewers. How-
ever, the findings suggest that teachers implementing intra-feedback should beware of the effect of social comparison among
student reviewers and how reviewers and writers grapple with diverse viewpoints from peers. It is essential to conduct pre-
feedback training to inculcate desired attitudes toward co-reviewing and to teach and demonstrate feedback response
strategies. All in all, intra-feedback could function as an important ingredient in the recipe for effective peer feedback and
thus could have its place in peer feedback practice.

7. Conclusions

The present study shows that peer feedback could be a valuable component within a junior secondary ESL writing context
and that the proposed intra-feedback practice was well received. The findings are, however, subject to limitations. First, there
is a question of generalizing from the small sample size of students of a specific academic grade and English proficiency level
drawn from the same class in a single school. Second, this study involved a single writing cycle, which may not have been
adequate for revealing a full picture of learners' perceptions. Other factors contributing to or confounding perception results,
such as different writing topics and text types, different episodes of randomized groupings as well as accumulating expe-
rience and familiarity of peer feedback, cannot be properly taken into consideration in one cycle.
Conferring a range of benefits that may not be readily yielded in peer feedback conferences and training, the reviewer-
oriented intra-feedback practice proposed here deserves attention in the field. The reported benefits of intra-feedback
seem particularly relevant in settings that involve junior grade L2 students, who may have relatively less writing and lan-
guage learning experience than their senior counterparts. These younger learners may thus need greater support at more
isolated or more independent stages of peer collaboration such as the initial phase of inter-feedback. The significance of intra-
feedback could be intensified in classrooms similar to that in the present study in which a medium to large class size does not
 M.-K. Lee / System 55 (2015) 1e10 9

allow teachers to offer much immediate guidance to student reviewers. For research purposes, the practice of intra-feedback
could offer a new avenue. Future studies might, for instance, examine in prolonged interventions how intra-feedback helps to
re-engender and reshape reviewers' awareness of effective reviewing, and how intra-feedback influences or is influenced by
learners' situational and contextual motivation. Researchers may also look into discourse structures and strategy use in
reviewerereviewer interactions in intra-feedback, as well as the impact of intra-feedback on peer feedback quality, revision
behavior, and writing achievement.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Dr. Victoria Murphy and Dr. Lynn Erler for their feedback on the preliminary version of this article (a
Master's dissertation). I am also grateful to the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful revision comments. My
thanks are also due to Ms. Anny Tsui for her help with the intervention and data collection and to Dr. Suzanne Hoelgaard for
her editing advice. This research was supported in part by a scholarship from the China Oxford Scholarship Fund.

Appendix A. Perception and preference questionnaire

Please circle your preferences (1 ¼ strongly disagree; 5 ¼ strongly agree)

About reading and commenting on my classmates' compositions

1 I found reading and commenting on my classmates' compositions useful. 1 2 3 4 5
2 Reading and commenting on my classmates' compositions helped me enrich the content of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
3 Reading and commenting on my classmates' compositions helped me improve the organization of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
4 Reading and commenting on my classmates' compositions helped me improve the language (including grammar and vocabulary) of 1 2 3 4 5
my composition.
5 I benefited from reading and commenting on my classmates' compositions. 1 2 3 4 5
About discussing my comments on my classmates compositions with a partner
6 I found discussing my comments on my classmates' compositions with a partner useful. 1 2 3 4 5
7 Discussing my comments on my classmates' compositions with a partner helped me enrich the content of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
8 Discussing my comments on my classmates' compositions with a partner helped me improve the organization of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
9 Discussing my comments on my classmates' compositions with a partner helped me improve the language (including grammar and 1 2 3 4 5
vocabulary) of my composition.
10 I benefited from discussing my comments on my classmates' compositions with a partner 1 2 3 4 5
About reading peer comments on my composition
11 I found my classmates' written comments useful. 1 2 3 4 5
12 My classmates' written comments helped me enrich the content of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
13 My classmates' written comments helped me improve the organization of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
14 My classmates' written comments helped me improve the language (including grammar and vocabulary) of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
15 I benefited from my classmates' written comments. 1 2 3 4 5
About discussing peer comments in the oral response session
16 I found my classmates' comments in the oral response session useful. 1 2 3 4 5
17 My classmates' comments in the oral response session helped me enrich the content of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
18 My classmates' comments in the oral response session helped me improve the organization of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
19 My classmates' comments in the oral response session helped me improve the language (including grammar and vocabulary) of my 1 2 3 4 5
composition.
20 I benefited from my classmates' comments in the oral response session. 1 2 3 4 5
About reading the teacher's comments
21 I found reading my teacher's comments useful. 1 2 3 4 5
22 My teacher's comments helped me enrich the content of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
23 My teacher's comments helped me improve the organization of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
24 My teacher's comments helped me improve the language (including grammar and vocabulary) of my composition. 1 2 3 4 5
25 I benefited from reading my teacher's comments. 1 2 3 4 5

Please rank your preferences (the lower the rank, the greater the preference)
About giving peer comments Rank
(1 ¼ more preferred; 2 ¼ less preferred)
ACommenting on your classmates' writing alone _____
ACommenting alone and then discussing your comments on your classmates' compositions with a _____
partner
About the modes of feedback Rank
(1 ¼ the most preferred; 3 ¼ the least
preferred)
APeer feedback (giving and receiving comments) only _____
ATeacher feedback only _____
ABoth peer feedback (giving and receiving comments) and teacher feedback _____

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