Students' Evaluation on the Effects of Electronic Peer Responses in Writing
Abstract
The paper, part of a bigger project, is to investigate how the students, in a student-centered pedagogical focus, perceive their own learning progress in e-peer feedback activities, including the effectiveness of the use of blogs for e-peer responses in an L2 writing class. Thirty-two 2nd year Vietnamese students at a university in Ho Chi Minh City participated in a 15-week writing course. Data collection was from in-depth interviews, semi-structured interviews and end-of-course questionnaires. Results of the study revealed that when students themselves assessed their own writing its quality improved in both global and local areas; moreover, their writing was lengthier after revisions. In addition, the students highly evaluated the use of blogs for e-peer responses because of its usefulness and effectiveness for their writing improvement. The study will be helpful for instructors who would like to apply a popular online medium for their writing courses.
