Engaging with multiple sources of feedback in academic writing: postgraduate students’ perspectives
Abstract
Despite a surge of research interest in feedback engagement in higher education, postgraduate students’ engagement with multiple sources of feedback in the context of academic writing is understudied. Informed by the notion of feedback literacy, we explore how Chinese postgraduate students perceive and engage with automated, peer and teacher feedback, as well as the feedback process as a whole, in academic writing. The analysis of 120 students’ diaries and ten students’ interviews shows that multiple sources of feedback and related activities complement each other in feedback areas (e.g. grammar, content, structure), perspectives (e.g. reader, expert) and depth of improvement to the writing (e.g. from correction to polishing or refinement). We conclude that engaging with multiple sources of feedback supports students’ writing and learning. This study adds to the literature by revealing the social, co-constructed, complementary and enabling nature of feedback engagement. The students engage with multiple sources of feedback and related activities internally, externally, proactively, critically and collaboratively in the intrapersonal, interpersonal and human-material spheres.
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Peer feedback was noted to be insufficient, over-generalized, brief, superficial, and neglecting intricate issues.
“Specifically, feedback was noted to be either insufficient (López-Pellisa et al., 2021; Xu and Zhang, 2023), or characterized by over-generalization, brevity, and superficiality (Cheong et al., 2023; Weaver et al., 2014), neglecting the intricate issues that truly require attention (Gao et al., 2019).”
From Incorporating peer feedback in academic writing: a systematic review of benefits and challenges (2024) · cites this paper as Xu and Zhang, 2023
The deficiency in constructive feedback can be attributed in part to the intricate cognitive and social processing skills required for effective peer feedback generation.
“This issue can be attributed, in part, to the intricate cognitive and social processing skills required for effective peer feedback generation (Xu and Zhang, 2023), rendering it a formidable task for students to generate constructive feedback on their peers’ manuscripts.”
From Incorporating peer feedback in academic writing: a systematic review of benefits and challenges (2024) · cites this paper as Xu and Zhang, 2023
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- Authors
- Xu, L., & Zhang, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Zhang, Tiefu
- Venue
- Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2022-12-23
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 995-1008
- ISSN
- 0260-2938 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-297X
- OpenAlex
- W4312180802
- Semantic Scholar
- fef68b2a8ebca50ecb252fca00844f62eb9f94e8
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 2
- FWCI
- 15.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Social Science Fund of China
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Student Assessment and Feedback
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Discourse Analysis in Language Studies
- Social Sciences › Education › Evaluation of Teaching Practices
- Keywords
- feedback engagement, academic writing, graduate students, feedback literacy, automated feedback, peer feedback, teacher feedback, Chinese students, writing improvement, co-constructed learning, student perceptions
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