Digital Feedback on EFL Students' Writing: Teachers' Beliefs and Practice

Introduction

Feedback is one of the most powerful tools for students’ learning (Hattie, 2009). There is no doubt that it has a beneficial effect on students’ performance (Lipnevich & Panadero, 2021). In writing courses, teacher feedback plays a crucial role to enhance the students’ capabilities and helps them to identify their shortcomings, intensify their strengths, and promote their learning (Lee, 2020). With the technological advancements, new modes of feedback can be applied in second language writing (Mohsen, 2022; Pham, 2022). Automated feedback systems offer instant insights, while multimodal approaches combine written comments with audio or video recordings for a deeper understanding (Cavalcanti et al., 2021; Lee, 2020). Peer feedback platforms also promote student collaboration and engagement (Neumann & Kopcha, 2019). More recently, digital feedback has become a popular tool that has received great attention in developing students’ abilities (Ene & Upton, 2018; Hyland & Hyland, 2006) and improving their writing quality (Alharbi & Alqefari, 2021). Many teachers have applied technology to give feedback to their students during their teaching process (Hojeij & Ayber, 2022; Neumann & Kopcha, 2019). Much research has focused on the effectiveness and impact of digital feedback on students’ writing (Hojeij & Ayber, 2022; Wihastyanang & Latief, 2018). However, teachers’ beliefs and practice about digital feedback in writing are under-researched (Lee, 2022). Only a few studies have examined how teachers used their digital feedback for their students (Alharbi & Alqefari, 2021; Neumann & Kopcha, 2019). These studies explored the utilization of digital feedback via Google Docs by both teachers and students in delivering feedback and identified the issues and errors they commented on student writing. Nevertheless, these studies used the peer-then-teacher method to peer review in student writing, focusing more on peer writing and peer editing than on teacher editing. Moreover, Neumann and Kopcha (2019) aimed their attention on middle school setting in Pacific Northwest. With the hope to fill this research gap, the current study aims at exploring teachers’ beliefs and their use of digital feedback on EFL students’ writing at the university level in Vietnam, using qualitative research method for greater information. It is hoped that the findings of the study can offer valuable insights into the issue of teachers’ digital feedback.