Giving and responding to e-feedback and handwritten feedback in an academic writing course for early childhood education students

The recent and rapid developments in the application of educational technology have significant impact on L2 writing teachers’ feedback practices (Stapleton & Radia, 2009). While it is still common for teachers to give handwritten feedback, some give written feedback on online word-processing software (e.g. Google Docs, OneNote). Although recent studies on e-feedback have shown that synchronous and asynchronous feedback given online was positively perceived by both students and teachers (Long, 2007; Shintani, 2016), the comparative effectiveness of e-feedback and handwritten feedback is still not thoroughly examined. The present study, which was conducted in the speakers' own writing classrooms, investigates how e-feedback on Google Docs and handwritten feedback are given and attended to in a Hong Kong community College. Based on the data collected from four sources: two essays written by 94 students (the first drafts and the redrafts), e-feedback and handwritten feedback given by the author-instructor, open-ended student questionnaires administered at theend of the course, and individual semi-structured interviews with 12 students, findings indicate that while the writing instructor gave more e-feedback than handwritten feedback and the students attended to more e-feedback, students’ response to e-feedback was less satisfactory. Implications related to teachers’ feedback practices are discussed, which include suggestions for adopting a blended approach to giving feedback and providing strategy-specific e-feedback. Copyright © 2017 by TEA Conference 2018. All Rights Reserved.