Access to this full-text is provided by Frontiers.
Content available from Frontiers in Psychology
This content is subject to copyright.
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 1
TYPE Review
PUBLISHED 26 October 2022
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
OPEN ACCESS
EDITED BY
Josef Schmied,
Chemnitz University of Technology,
Germany
REVIEWED BY
Hui Luan,
National Taiwan Normal University,
Taiwan
Imelda Hermilinda Abas,
Shinawatra University, Thailand
*CORRESPONDENCE
Tongquan Zhou
zhoutongquan@126.com
Yizhong Xu
calebxuxu@163.com
†These authors have contributed
equally to this work and share first
authorship
SPECIALTY SECTION
This article was submitted to
Educational Psychology,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Psychology
RECEIVED 03 September 2022
ACCEPTED 03 October 2022
PUBLISHED 26 October 2022
CITATION
Cao S, Zhou S, Luo Y, Wang T, Zhou T
and Xu Y (2022) A review of the
ESL/EFL learners’ gains from online
peer feedback on English writing.
Front. Psychol. 13:1035803.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
COPYRIGHT
© 2022 Cao, Zhou, Luo, Wang, Zhou
and Xu. This is an open-access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License
(CC BY). The use, distribution or
reproduction in other forums is
permitted, provided the original
author(s) and the copyright owner(s)
are credited and that the original
publication in this journal is cited, in
accordance with accepted academic
practice. No use, distribution or
reproduction is permitted which does
not comply with these terms.
A review of the ESL/EFL learners’
gains from online peer feedback
on English writing
Siyi Cao1†, Siruo Zhou2†, Yong Luo3, Tao Wang4,
Tongquan Zhou1*and Yizhong Xu5*
1School of Foreign Languages, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, 2School of Foreign Studies,
Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China, 3School of Foreign
Languages, Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai, China, 4School of Psychology, Qufu Normal
University, Qufu, China, 5College of Foreign Languages, Nanjing University of Aeronautics
and Astronautics, Nanjing, China
Peer feedback is essential in writing English as a Second/Foreign Language
(ESL/EFL). Traditionally, offline PF was more widely favored but nowadays
online peer feedback (OPF) has become frequent in ESL/EFL learners’ daily
writing. This study is undertaken to probe into the gains of using OPF
in ESL/EFL writing on the basis of 37 research articles published in core
journals from 2012 till 2022. In order to accurately cover the previous
researches, we capitalize on three methods to evaluate and analyze the data,
i.e., database search, citation search and manual search. Results show that
from the perspective of the ESL/EFL learners’ gains, the OPF is basically
divided into two categories (cognitive OPF and affective OPF), involving
eight aspects in all: face-based strategies, revision-based comments, writing
performance, learning environment, reflection/critical thinking/responsibility,
writing emotion, motivation, and attitudes; and OPF can be well supported by
a set of theories like Process-oriented Writing Theory, Collaborative Learning
Theory, Interactionist Theory of L2 Acquisition and Vygotsky’s sociocultural
theory. By comparison, the gains from OPF outperform those from offline
PF in many dimensions (e.g., face-based strategies), despite some overlaps
(e.g., the shift of the role) that were revealed in several investigations. Based
on the past studies, we propose some pedagogical implications on OPF from
ESL/EFL writing, including accenting the “student-centered” teaching strategy,
providing students with OPF on the basis of incremental knowledge, adopting
OPF regularly in ESL/EFL writing activities to shape personalities and outlooks
and putting OPF into its full play with recourse to abundant internet-based
vehicles. This review is desired to provide a guideline for both the peer
feedback practice and the upcoming scholarly researches with respect to
EFL/ESL writing.
KEYWORDS
online peer feedback, EFL/ESL writing, gains, theories, educational psychology
Frontiers in Psychology 01 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 2
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
Introduction
Peer Feedback (also known as peer review, peer response,
peer editing, peer evaluation or peer revision) refers to the
activities in which students work together to provide comments
on their own written or oral drafts by active communications in
an academic subject (Liu and Edwards,2018). Since 1970s, peer
feedback has been widely used in L1 writing classes to encourage
students to evaluate their peer’s drafts and solve diversified issues
via text modifications (Bruffee,1984;Gere,1987;Spear,1988).
Gradually, this type of modernized pedagogy has also been
intensively introduced as an instructional means in ESL/EFL
(English as a second/foreign language) writing classes since 1990
(Henfernik,1983;Bell,1991;Carson and Nelson,1996;Min,
2006;Chen,2016). A review of previous studies shows that
peer feedback brings students a set of benefits or gains in many
ways. Specifically, peer feedback enables students to experience
and enhance collaborative writing (Nunan,1993) and increases
learners’ autonomy. Besides, it also fosters the sense of multiple
readers and raises writer’s awareness (Stanley,1992;Zhu,1995;
Berg,1999;Min,2005;Chen,2016).
Peer feedback in ESL/EFL writing is subdivided into two
types, offline and online types in terms of modality (Peeters,
2018;Ahmed and Abdu,2021). Offline peer feedback refers to
the traditional modes like face-to-face peer feedback (FFPF).
FFPF allows students placed into groups to assess and evaluate
their peers’ drafts, requiring them to provide comments in
a face-to-face classroom (Mendonca and Johnson,1994;De
Guerrero and Villamil,2000;Chen,2016;Saeed et al.,2018).
Previous researches related to FFPF in ESL/EFL writing focused
on many aspects, such as language functions of feedback
patterns (e.g., exploratory function), potential benefits (e.g.,
improve linguistic details) and factors affecting FFPF (e.g.,
instructions prior to FFPF) (Stanley,1992;Mendonca and
Johnson,1994;Zhu,1995;Min,2005;Liou and Peng,2009;
Hanjani and Li,2014;Saeed et al.,2018).
Online peer feedback (OPF) arises from the development of
electronic media around the end of 20th century. These media,
which are mainly network-based or web-based discussion
boards, made OPF prevail in ESL/EFL writing classrooms since
1990 (Braine,2001), mounting to its peak in 2020 because
of the COVID-19 pandemic (Rimmer,2020). Against the
coronavirus background, online courses became the primary
means of delivering instruction for all classes (Alsuwaida,
2022); hence, computer-mediated peer feedback in place of the
traditional mode served as the dominant tool in L2 writing
classes. However, the debate has been open about whether OPF
works better than the traditional peer feedback in EFL/ESL
writing. For instance, Song and Usaha (2009) and Pham (2020)
found the OPF-group students showed more revision-oriented
comments and global revisions than the FFPF-group students.
According to Ebadi and Rahimi (2017), OPF using Google Docs
outperformed FFPF in four aspects of academic writing skills
(i.e., task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexicon and
grammatical range and accuracy). Some other studies show that
traditional FFPF is superior to OPF. In the study by Guardado
and Shi (2007), ESL students did not address a higher percentage
of important comments in OPF because they felt unconfident
and quite shy in negotiating and clarifying the meanings
with peers. Liu and Sadler (2003) discovered that students
in FFPF group made more subsequent revisions. However,
OPF group produced more revision-oriented comments. Given
that the writing scores were highly improved in FFPF group
than in the networked group, Braine (2001) accented the
cautious use of technology for peer feedback in writing
classes.
Online peer feedback (OPF) and FFPF are often adopted
combinatorically so as to compare their effects on L2 English
writing class practice. Warschauer (1996) made a comparison
on the equality of students’ participation either in FFPF
discussion or in OPF discussion. The author found that the
students showed more equal participation in computer mode,
for they felt comfortable using more complex sentences in
OPF. In DiGiovanni and Nagaswami (2001), students put
more focus on tasks in electronic mode when engaging in
combined modes of OPF and FFPF. In particular, teachers
participated more in learners’ communication and helped them
discuss in an appropriate direction during this process. Chang
(2012) demonstrated that the incorporation of OPF and FFPF
was favorable for peer response, but individuals differed in
mode preference. Tai et al. (2015) combined the teacher-led
feedback and OPF, revealing that students in combination group
improved a lot in writing skills (e.g., content, organization and
grammar). Accordingly, the authors suggested that more OPF
discussions should be encouraged than the FFPF discussions to
give students equal opportunities to express themselves.
Although mixed findings concerning the effects of OPF
have been found in early studies, the gains of using OPF in
ESL/EFL writing account for the absolutely largest proportion.
For instance, Chen (2016) concluded the characteristics, pros
and cons of OPF on the basis of 20 articles from 1990 to
2010. Saeed et al. (2018) reviewed 37 articles and categorized
different patterns (i.e., language functions, factors affecting OPF
and FFPF) of learners’ interactional feedback exchanges into
two classes, FFPF and OPF. Based on 17 primary studies, Lv
et al. (2021) conducted a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of
different online feedback, including peer, teacher and automated
feedback, revealing that the peers’ online feedback had larger
effect size (g= 0.777) than the online automated feedback
(g= 0.696).
The studies mentioned above indeed proved OPF had a lot
of gains, but left the following issues unsettled: (1) although
numerous studies in the past decade have shown the benefits
of OPF from ESL/EFL writing, their majority just focus on
special aspects (e.g., language functions), ignoring other gains
students may obtain from writing peer feedback; (2) although
Frontiers in Psychology 02 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 3
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
there have been a few studies on OPF from 2012 till 2022, all
of them (including reviewing articles) focused on other aspects
instead of gains of OPF from ESL/EFL writing; (3) although the
positive impacts of OPF are multi-faceted yet heterogeneous in
nature, there has not been a systematic classification of the gains
to date; (4) although a couple of theories were introduced to
account for the availability of the gains from ESL/EFL writing,
their explanatory power was not compared and hence may not
be sufficiently convincible, particularly from the perspective of
educational psychology. As a consequence, the current study
aims to describe and generalize the gains of using OPF in
ESL/EFL writing from different perspectives (e.g., face-based
strategies) by exhaustively reviewing all the research articles
published in the core journals from 2012 till 2022. In addition to
solving the above issues, this study highlights our contribution
mainly from two aspects, the wider coverage of literature
concerned and the more aspects regarding the gains of OPF.
Specifically, this paper is dedicated to answering the
following three questions:
(1) How many types of gains from OPF in ESL/EFL writing
can be identified in the researches from 2012 to 2022?
(2) What theories can be adopted to account for the different
gains from the OPF in ESF/EFL settings?
(3) What implications can be acquired from the current
review, from the perspective of educational psychology in
particular?
Methods
The present study used three methods to review the
literature systematically, including database search, citation
search and manual search. In order to target at the articles
for review accurately, we adopted the following inclusion and
exclusion criteria throughout the searching process.
Inclusion criteria:
(1) The articles were related to ESL/EFL writing activities and
published between 2012 and 2022.
(2) The articles were targeted to study at least one type of peer
feedback (i.e., OPF) in ESL/EFL writing activities.
(3) All articles applied qualitative or quantitative methods or
mixed methods.
Exclusion criteria:
(1) The articles were published before 2012 and their
topics were not related to OPF, such as special needs,
corrective feedback etc.
(2) The OPF studies selected the participants from ESL/EFL
learners other than English natives.
(3) The articles used anonymous participants to explore OPF
from English writing activities.
For database search, the authors first employed the databases
of ERIC, SCOPUS, Web of Science and CNKI to explore all
the articles related to the benefits of OPF from 2012 to 2022.
Only peer-reviewed studies were selected as the target articles
for analysis by the keywords OPF, second language learning,
foreign language learning and writing contexts. Papers dealing
with special needs, corrective feedback, self-correction and
automated feedback were excluded from the search. As a result,
74 records were identified, i.e., 23 articles from ERIC, 6 articles
from CNKI, 22 articles from SCOPUS and 23 articles form
Web of Science database. After removing 37 duplicated articles,
the database search led to a total of 37 peer-reviewed papers
pooled for analysis.
At the screening period were adopted citation search and
manual search. For citation search, re-read the 37 papers
via database search to discover more related articles by their
references. For manual search, use Google scholar to search for
other papers of the same topic. In all, citation and manual search
led to another 6 relevant papers. Taken together, a total of 43
full-text articles were selected and assessed for eligibility.
To guarantee the research focus of studies, 6 articles
irrelevant to the benefits of OPF (e.g., those using OPF
anonymously) were excluded after a re-examination and a
primitive analysis. Eventually, 37 articles (i.e., 34 empirical
and 3 theoretical studies) were selected as the most relevant
ones to look into the gains from OPF (the other detailed
information like education background is listed in Appendix
1). The screening process of the reviewed articles was shown
in Figure 1. In order to display a systematic overview of the
OPF, all the articles were sorted out in an excel file according to
feature maps (Hart,2001) in terms of title, author/date, research
questions, methods, materials, results, abstract and given a final
category for further classification.
Discussion
According to the results obtained from the above methods,
this section discusses two issues relating to the gains from a
variety of OPF in EFL/ESL writing. One describes how these
potential gains are realized in EFL/ESL writing activities, and
the other introduces theories approaching OPF from other
perspectives, particularly the educational psychology.
A panorama of the gains from the
online peer feedback on ESL/EFL
writing
Based on the 37 articles selected, the beneficial patterns of
OPF in EFL/ESL writing contexts are roughly categorized into
two classes, cognitive OPF and affective OPF. Cognition deals
Frontiers in Psychology 03 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 4
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
FIGURE 1
Screening process of the reviewed papers.
with mental processes such as memory, learning, problem-
solving, attention and decision making, employing concrete
and manageable strategies while affect deals with emotional
areas, such as motivation, attitudes, and feelings (Sfard and
Kieran,2001;Jones and Issroff,2005;Immordino-Yang and
Damasio,2007). In terms of this distinction, cognitive OPF
and affective OPF can be further divided into four sub-
aspects, respectively (as shown in Figure 2): cognitive OPF
involving face-based strategies, revision-based comments,
writing performance and learning environment; and affective
OPF involving reflection/critical thinking/responsibility,
writing emotion, motivation, and attitudes. Here, critical
thinking is classified into affective OPF due to its involvement
of willingness, desire, and disposition to base one’s actions
and beliefs (p. 23) (Siegel,1989). Reflection captures the
conceptualization of knowledge, thoughts and feelings of
students, which were used to detect affective outcomes
(YuekMing and Abd Manaf,2014). According to the affective
experiences described, the students deemed that they had
the responsibility to participate in learning apart from their
perceptions of learning itself (Galloway et al.,2016). The three
aspects are discussed altogether just because they have some
shared points, like desire, motivation, belief, and feeling among
other internalized emotions. The eight types of OPF in turn
yield the corresponding eight gains, specifically. The following
is to elaborate on all the aspects to illustrate how the OPF gains
are realized in ESL/EFL writing activities, with the gains from
cognitive OPF followed by the gains from affective OPF.
Gains from cognitive online peer feedback
Gains from face-based strategies
Among the 37 articles, 4 papers are involved in the gains
from face-based strategies, demonstrating that the students
in OPF could overcome face embarrassment, and provide or
receive praise and critique from their peers (Daweli,2018;Saeed
et al.,2018;Ma,2020;Pham et al.,2020).
For example, Pham et al. (2020) explored the perception of
students from the impacts of Confucian values by virtue of OPF,
showing that the students’ negative feelings at the beginning
shifted significantly to a positive level after OPF. This indicates
that learners broke through the face-based cultural barriers by
resorting to OPF. Such a change of face-based strategy was
also found in Ma (2020) that the students were willing to give
more praises than suggestions (685 vs. 394) and tried to be less
face-threatening when providing online comments.
When interviewed about whether or not preferring to
receive comments from peers via Google Docs, the participants
responded that “Your best friend’s comments are preferred
because he is closer to you than the teacher.” (Daweli,2018: p8),
suggesting that using Google Docs-mediated peer feedback can
aid all participants to avoid face embarrassment, for hierarchical
power and students’ beliefs and experiences of peer feedback
were supposed to be the key to this face culture (Ma,2020).
Based on the literature review of OPF’s language functions,
Saeed et al. (2018) concluded that students gave more social
interactional comments, such as thanking peers, praising peers
and surprise, to adjust the face-based strategy in order to
maintain good relationships with peers, which were not yet
found in offline peer feedback like FFPF.
With regard to face culture, OPF evidently outdoes FFPF
from their gains from English writing, for the students engaged
in FFPF tend to strongly avoid assessing and commenting
on their peers’ drafts due to face threatening (Chiu,2009),
particularly in Confucian contexts (Pham et al.,2020).
Confucian values involve two core principles, the concept
of face and power distance. It is reported that the students
in the Confucian context evade providing comments and
giving critiques to their peers, for they fear destroying the
harmonious relationship and causing conflict or even hurting
their classmates (Chiu,2009). Similarly, Chinese students are
reluctant to voice criticism and express disagreements due
to face culture (Luo and Liu,2017). That is, they more like
and respect teacher feedback which is endowed with reliable
knowledge and absolute authority (Li et al.,2010).
Gains from revision-based comments
Two papers in the current review showed that OPF could
generate more revision-based comments than FFPF in actual
writing practice (Ho,2012;Pham,2020). According to Pham
(2020), OPF using Google Doc was better than traditional
oral FFPF in this regard. The results suggested that more
revision-oriented comments were triggered by the OPF group
(MO = 1.14) than by the FFPF group (MF = 0.53) for Vietnamese
EFL students. Nevertheless, there occasionally came up a bit
different situation in which both OPF and FFPF produced
Frontiers in Psychology 04 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 5
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
FIGURE 2
Classification of online peer feedback (OPF).
a similar proportion of revision-oriented comments (53% vs.
52%) (Ho,2012).
Another 6 articles explored revision-oriented comments
from OPF in two types, i.e., global and local comments. Our
statistics showed that the two types of comments do not
come up symmetrically in students’ writing peer feedback.
While some studies indicate that more local comments (e.g.,
referencing, supporting details and language) were made than
global comments (e.g., content, organization and argumentative
genre) in OPF (e.g., Chang,2012;Saeed et al.,2018), others
prove the opposite view (e.g., Bradley,2014;Pham and Usaha,
2016;Saeed and Ghazali,2017;Ma,2020). To illustrate, Chang
(2012) reported that 87% of local comments but 13% of global
comments appeared in OPF. By contrast, Ma (2020) found that
peer suggestions were more about layout and organization (125)
than about language details (43).
Gains from writing performance
A critical concern in ESL/EFL writing OPF is whether
students can make evident progress on writing performance
under OPF. In our reviewed literature, there are 7 papers
investigating this issue centered on the students’ improvement
in the writing scores. For instance, Usaha (2020) discovered that
32 Vietnamese EFL students’ writing scores were significantly
enhanced after OPF. Similarly, Kitchakarn (2013) and Huang
H. Y. C. (2016) reported that the writing scores were elevated
significantly after blog-mediated peer feedback and Wechat-
mediated peer feedback, respectively, indicating that OPF played
an important role in improving students’ writing skill.
Other studies focus on comparing OPF with other types
of feedback in terms of writing scores. For instance, Ciftci
and Kocoglu (2012) compared the writing scores of two
modes, i.e., blog-mediated peer feedback and FFPF. They found
that both groups improved their writing scores after peer
feedback but the average writing scores were significantly higher
from blog-mediated feedback (M= 69.19) than from FFPF
(M= 65.17). The same circumstance exists in Wahyudin (2018)
and Awada and Diab (2021) that the writing scores improved
significantly in the OPF group than in the FFPF group. Likewise,
the comparison among the writing scores of three groups (i.e.,
self-correction, paper-pencil peer feedback, and electronic peer
feedback) reveals that although all the types of feedback could
increase learners’ writing achievements, the electronic peer
feedback group performed the best (M= 73.74) among the three
(Wanchid,2013).
In addition to the writing scores, the 7 papers have shown
that after OPF, both local and global aspects of writing were
all improved. For example, OPF is shown to improve error
correction (i.e., grammatical errors, spelling errors and sentence
correction) and text revisions (e.g., global features of text),
particularly for less-proficient students (Yang and Meng,2013).
Pham et al. (2020) also obtained a similar result from students’
perspective in the Confusion context in Vietnam. In Pham et al.’s
(2020) questionnaire survey to test students’ perceptions toward
global and local aspects of writing, global aspects were more
favored by the students, as “E-peer feedback will help (helped)
to improve the flow, organization, and transitions of the essays.”
Besides, students focused more on local aspects like grammar,
sentence structure, and vocabulary after OPF (Li,2012;Saeed
and Ghazali,2016).
Relative to other types of peer feedback (e.g., paper-based
peer feedback, FFPF and automated corrective feedback), OPF
also facilitates the improvement of local and global areas of
writing performance. OPF group made more local (i.e., word
and sentence) and global (i.e., substitution, reordering and
consolidation) revisions whereas paper-based peer feedback
group made no such revisions (Yang,2016). OPF using
the Google Docs group can make significantly more writing
enhancements than the FFPF group (Ebadi and Rahimi,2017).
In Shang’s (2022) study of local features by OPF and automated
Frontiers in Psychology 05 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 6
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
corrective feedback, the grammatical errors by OPF (via
Moodle) were proven to be significantly fewer (M = 10.85)
than the errors by automated corrective feedback (via the
Coll Sentence Corrective Network) (M= 13.79). For lexical
density, the students adopting OPF produced more tokens
(M= 245.50) and types of words (M= 132.91) than the students
adopting automated corrective feedback. Similar findings were
also unveiled in other studies (Cai,2012), indicating that OPF
offers students more gains than other types of feedback from
evaluating writing performance.
Gains from learning environment
Of the 37 targeted articles, 5 studies displayed that OPF was
easy to help build up a better learning environment and the
corresponding gains were classified from two aspects, the use
of the target language and the atmosphere during the feedback
(Daweli,2018;Saeed et al.,2018;Ma,2020;Elboshi,2021;Sun
and Zhang,2022).
With respect to the target language used on online
platforms, students tend to apply English as the
communicational language when providing comments
orally on each other’s assignments on a web-based platform
(where the teacher is monitoring, and the first language is not
allowed) (Elboshi,2021). In addition, L2 learners are required
to write suggestions for their peers in English; hence, the
OPF-targeted English practice forces them to write more and
create a more active learning atmosphere during the class. Sun
and Zhang’s (2022) translanguaging study showed that students
using translanguaging (M= 12.15) through OPF outperformed
those in English-only OPF (M= 11.23). Yet the students
claimed that both conditions were conducive to improving
learning efficiency, implying that either the use of English
or translanguaging as the target language in OPF helps offer
an academic learning environment and enhance L2 learners’
understanding.
Online peer feedback (OPF) generates a more open and
friendly atmosphere, encouraging students to express more
opinions freely. According to Saeed et al. (2018), compared with
offline peer feedback, students added more social interactional
comments (e.g., thanking, welcoming, praising and even social
talks or chatting) to establish a more positive atmosphere in
OPF. Similar evidence was also revealed by Ma (2020), in which
the praises by students doubled peer suggestions (685 vs. 394)
in a wiki writing assignment, suggesting that OPF situation
relative to FFPF is more comfortable so that peers try to be
more friendly and supportive in providing comments. Another
study about OPF employing Google Docs suggests the gains
from the comments students made, as exemplified by “I really
like how it saves my time instead of meeting in class and
work wherever I want.” (Daweli,2018: p9). This indicates that
the Google Docs-mediated peer feedback was just like working
outside a classroom, creating for the peers a free social and open
environment.
Gains from affective online peer feedback
Gains from reflection/critical thinking/responsibility
Reflective thinking, as the synonym of critical thinking
emphasizes on how students express their thoughts and feelings
about what has occurred when making decisions (Schön,2017).
More importantly, responsibility was also considered as an
important trait for developing the habit of thinking critically
(Djoub,2021). That is why the three items are interrelated and
therefore combined together for discussion here.
According to the 4 articles in the reviewed literature,
OPF accelerates students’ reflection, critical thinking and
responsibility to some extent. In Zhang et al.’s (2014) study,
an interviewed student claimed that “. . .My peers’ feedback in
blogs gives me an opportunity of knowing where I am wrong
and why I am wrong. That encourages my self-reflection of
my writing.” This suggests that OPF helps to facilitate critical
self-reflection and learners can gain a rewarding experience
of L2 writing through a self-reflection process. As mentioned
above, Pham et al.’s (2020) investigation of Vietnamese learners’
attitudes toward the reflective and critical effects after OPF
showed that OPF significantly improved their reflective thinking
in correcting mistakes and minimizing weaknesses.
Critical thinking makes students take the initiative in taking
responsibility for their learning in OPF. When interviewed
about their feelings in the process of OPF using Google Docs,
Saudi EFL students responded, “It is a positive feeling because
I feel I am a critical editor” (Daweli,2018: p8). Similar gains
of OPF were supported by a study using Facebook (Wahyudin,
2018), suggesting that Facebook-based OPF on English writing
made students more aware of errors or mistakes and improved
students’ critical thinking in writing, resulting in the significant
increase of their writing ability. According to Ma (2020), the
critical comments from peers’ OPF could also predict the L2
writing scores of writing assignments by correlation analysis
(r = –0.559). This implies that L2 learners likely enjoy the
responsibility of providing OPF and improving their peers’
writing (Cassidy and Bailey,2018).
Gains from writing emotion
In the present review, 2 articles dealt with writing emotions,
demonstrating that OPF is a valid method to mitigate the
effects of writing anxiety for L2 learners. With recourse to
Second Language Writing Anxiety Instrument (SLWAI),1Iksan
and Halim (2018) compared the degree of writing anxiety for
Malaysian L2 learners after OPF between OPF group (using
wiki) and FFPF group. The results showed that both groups
could low L2 writing anxiety and OPF was more effective
than FFPF. Similarly, with 41 South Korean English majors,
1 In view of lacking an L2 writing anxiety scale for long, Cheng (2004)
coined SLWAI, which was broken down into three subcomponents:
cognitive (i.e., feelings that they could not understand), somatic (i.e.,
physical responses due to such feelings) and behavioral (i.e., avoidance
because of feelings and physical effects).
Frontiers in Psychology 06 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 7
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
Bailey and Cassidy (2019) also adopted SLWAI to explore the
same research question and found that OPF could reduce or
eliminate writing anxiety.
As an important component of writing emotions, writing
anxiety refers to the fear of the writing process that surpasses
the possible benefits of the capacity to write (Thompson,1980).
In general, all writers (either native speakers or second-language
learners) have experienced writing anxiety during the writing
process (Cheng et al.,1999;Woodrow,2011). The two articles
justified the point that OPF provides an effective way to reduce
or low writing anxiety for L2 learners. However, few studies dealt
with this topic in the past, requiring more its investigations in
the future.
Gains from motivation
Motivation is the process that initiates, guides, and
maintains goal-directed behaviors and plays a very important
role in ESL/EFL learners’ writing. The 4 articles of the reviewed
literature demonstrate that students greatly enhance motivation
via OPF when learning English writing.
Huang J. (2016) adopted a questionnaire to survey Taiwan
students’ perceptions of learning motivation, such as “I feel
writing blog assignments is easier and more motivating than
doing other writing assignments.” The results showed that this
item had the highest mean score in three classes (M= 4.62)
because the assignment via OPF did not have defined topics, so
students enjoyed more latitude to choose what they wanted to
write about.
The other three studies (Cai,2012;Zhang et al.,2014;Qiu
and Li,2022) relating to OPF motivation were all conducted
in China. By interviewing students about why they were
all motivated by OPF, Cai (2012) thought that the students
tended to be afraid of losing face in the Confucian culture
context; meanwhile, every student could gain praise from
peers, bringing them a sense of achievement. Zhang et al.
(2014) employed a 36 student-based questionnaire to study
the relationship between blog-mediated peer feedback and
learner motivation from two aspects: self-efficacy (e.g., “I
can do the hardest work in my WRITING class if I try.”)
and task value scale (e.g., “I find WRITING interesting”).
Their result showed that OPF was correlated to learner
motivation (r= 0.450) and three factors seemed to explain
the motivation: (1) immediacy and availability of OPF; (2)
attention from the intended readers; and (3) protecting
one’s face, indicating that students increased confidence by
using OPF.
Qiu and Li (2022) compared the motivational effects
of OPF and teacher feedback on English writing. In their
research, motivation was divided into two parts, intrinsic writing
motivation and extrinsic writing motivation. The statistical
analysis showed that higher scores in achievement motivation
(a subtype of intrinsic writing motivation) occurred in OPF
than in teacher feedback (MO = 3.986; MT = 3.681), suggesting
that OPF was more effective than teacher feedback in terms of
generating intrinsic writing motivation.
These results are in line with Aljumah (2012), which
demonstrated that incorporating web tasks (e.g., blog) into
writing courses could enhance ESL/EFL students’ writing
motivation and effectiveness because they felt that all the people
in the world (their teachers and peers in particular) were reading
their writing. In this regard, OPF acts as an incorporating tasks
using online platforms, indeed boosting L2 students’ writing
motivation.
Gains from attitudes
A total of 10 articles (Ciftci and Kocoglu,2012; quantitative
study: Chen,2012;Kitchakarn,2013;Wanchid,2013;Huang J.,
2016;Cassidy and Bailey,2018;Xu and Yu,2018;Putra et al.,
2021; qualitative study: Kitchakarn,2013;Ebadi and Rahimi,
2017) have unanimously demonstrated that ESL/EFL students
had positive attitudes toward the OPF practice.
In a survey to explore students’ perceptions of OPF, Ciftci
and Kocoglu (2012) found that 86.7% of students strongly
agreed upon the assistance of blogs-mediated peer feedback in
improving their English and 80.01% would recommend to other
students the online writing course using blogs. Additionally,
73.30% of students thought that the features of blog websites
could help writers a lot. Similarly, in the study by Cassidy and
Bailey (2018), 89% students believed that OPF helped them
enhance their writing ability and 60% admitted that they made
improvements according to their peers’ comments.
The questionnaire-based studies have acquired similar
results. For instance, Chen (2012) and Wanchid (2013) designed
a different number of statements to test students’ attitudes
toward three types of feedback, including self-correction,
paper-pencil peer feedback and electronic peer feedback, and
the results pointed to the same conclusion that electronic
peer feedback received the highest scores from most of the
participants. Responses like “The peer feedback activity was a
useful learning tool to improve my writing ability” (Kitchakarn,
2013) conveyed the similar gain obtained from the student’s
experiences in using OPF. In the same fashion, Huang J. (2016)
reported that the participating students adopted a supportive
attitude toward the blog-mediated peer feedback. Putra et al.
(2021) showed that 73% of the students (M= 3.77) were willing
to provide peer feedback by Ozone.
Interview is another approach to examine ESL/EFL learners’
attitudes toward OPF. According to Kitchakarn (2013), 24 out
of 34 participants reported that peer feedback via blogs was
useful for learning from mistakes and gaining more vocabularies
and writing skills. ESL/EFL students in the research (Ebadi and
Rahimi,2017) liked peer-editing using Google Docs because
they could learn from peers by comparing the writings to put
focus on the key features, such as core ideas in feedback.
Opposite to the above were the studies by Choi (2007)
and Guardado and Shi (2007). In Choi (2007) Hong Kong
Frontiers in Psychology 07 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 8
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
L2 l earners reserved attitudes toward OPF while Canadian
ESL/EFL students showed mixed attitudes in Guardado and Shi
(2007). These diversified findings may result from the situation
in which some students considered online communication more
challenging than face-to-face communication, easily leading to
misunderstanding in writing classrooms.
To summarize, among the 37 articles divided into the two
categories, more studies dealt with cognitive OPF (31) and
relatively few with affective OPF (20), despite some overlapping
articles for different issues. This asymmetrical distribution
may result from the easy access to cognitive OPF test in
data collection, e.g., the data regarding whether the writing
performance was improved during OPF. By contrast, the data
relating to affective OPF are hard to obtain and lead to few
studies as a consequence. For instance, the conclusion that OPF
could enhance responsibility of ESL/EFL students was drawn
solely from the interview (Cassidy and Bailey,2018). In addition,
7 articles dealt with the comparison between OPF and FFTP, 5
articles between OPF and teacher feedback, automatic feedback
or other types, further intensifying the important role of OPF in
ESL/EFL writing activities.
Major theories on the gains from
online peer feedback
Ideally, specific theories had better be proposed to directly
target at motivating why and how students can obtain gains
from OPF on English writing. But according to the 37
reviewed articles, the theories adopted were basically lent
from more general domains like educational psychology, social
psychology and language acquisition. In practice, these theories
do provide the rationales for the feedback and the corresponding
gains related to ESL/EFL writing activities. In another way,
students’ gains from the OPF can be well-explained by the
hypotheses both theoretically and expirically. On this account,
the following introduces 4 representative theories on the
OPF gains, i.e., Process-oriented Writing Theory, Collaborative
Learning Theory, Interactionist Theory of L2 Acquisition and
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.
Process-oriented Writing Theory from educational
psychology is considered a dynamic, non-linear and recursive
process in which the writing takes place (Hayes,2012). As one
of the three steps constituting the process (Keh,1990), the
third step stresses that the text should be revised several times
according to the feedback provided before completing the final
assignment. In this regard, ESL/EFL students undoubtedly
enhance their reflection/critical thinking/responsibility through
some rounds of text revisions and improve their general writing
ability by offering different feedback, including OPF.
Collaborative Learning Theory from social psychology
argues that learning and knowledge can be constructed
implicitly under social communications among peers, which
can be regarded as a process wherein knowledge like language
skills can be acquired through collaboration (Bruffee,1984).
In light of the theory, OPF provides a facilitative and learning
environment so that the English learners are willing to offer
revision-based comments wherein L2 learners can effectively
complete the assignment (rather than do it individually), with
the help of peers’ interaction and collaboration (Hu and Lam,
2010).
Interactionist Theory of L2 Acquisition from language
acquisition stresses the important role of explicit and
implicit feedback in second language learning, which creates
opportunities for students to negotiate the meaning actively
and discuss it with peers (Long and Porter,1985). In line with
this theory, students with recourse to online peer response
offer adequate positive and negative feedback and then make
modifications according to these inputs and bridge the gaps
in their interlanguage system (Hyland and Hyland,2006).
Compared with the Collaborative Learning Theory, this theory
appears to emphasize the mutual exchange of ideas when the
participants serve as a text writer or a reviewer. The common
point of the two theories is to highlight the mutual interaction
or collaboration among language learners, in which peer
feedback (the OPF in particular) fulfills the function directly,
i.e., to improve writing ability via recurrent revisions and
modifications of writing manuscripts.
The gains of reflection/critical thinking/responsibility of
OPF draw support from Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in the
view of educational psychology, which accents the significance
of social interaction among peers in learning and cognitive
development (Vygotsky,1987). In Vygotsky’s (1978: 86) view,
students can develop from a novice level to a higher level
with the assistance and scaffolding of an expert learner by
improving reflection and critical thinking in the “zone of
proximal development (ZPD)”.
Activity Theory, as the extension of Vygotsky’s theory,
serves as another important theoretical framework for the gains
of the learning environment, writing efficiency and overall
writing quality of OPF in L2 writing (Jin and Zhu,2010;Zhu and
Mitchell,2012;Yu and Lee,2016). This theory, developed from
the construct of mediation, holds the view that human beings
mediate the relationships with others and the world through
artifacts like physical tools (e.g., books and computers) and
symbolic/psychological tools (e.g., language and signs) (Jin and
Zhu,2010). In this theory, mediated activities, which are socially
organized and goal-directed, play an essential role in human
development. Associated with ESL/EFL writing, OPF mediates
students and the world through computers and offers them a
more academic and friendly learning environment, facilitating
collaborative learning among peers (Yu and Lee,2016).
To conclude, among the current 37 reviewed articles,
17 papers considered Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory as their
theoretical framework while 8 papers adopted Process-oriented
writing theory to introduce OPF. Both Collaborative learning
Frontiers in Psychology 08 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 9
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
theory and Interactionist theory of L2 acquisition was used
in 4 studies, respectively (but the left 8 articles were centered
on the report of emperimental data, without resorting to
any theory at all). This distribution may result from that
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory is one of the most significant
theories in educational psychology. By contrast, Collaborative
learning theory and Interactionist theory of L2 acquisition are
from other fields.
Comments and implications
Positive aspects favoring online peer
feedback studies from ESL/EFL writing
The current review combines the studies on online peer
feedback from ESL/EFL writing in the past ten years, illustrating
the feedback’s specific gains from students’ writing activities.
As known to ESL/EFL learners, peer feedback acts as a helpful
vehicle for improving their writing ability. The literature review
shows that OPF overlaps with FFPF (face-to-face peer feedback)
but differs in some aspects from the perspective of facilitating
English writing.
To start with, both OPF and FFPF offer a chance for
students to undergo a shift in role that they become more
careful in providing revision comments to their peers (Ho,
2012). It is well acknowledged that teacher feedback as a
component of teacher-centered activity tends to ignore the
needs of students themselves, who act as a passive role in various
class assignments (Bredo,2012). By contrast, OPF and FFPF are
student-dominated activities, in which the students temporarily
experience the shift of role from “student” to “teacher”
in the writing tasks and therefore become more reflective
and responsible so that more revision-based comments are
generated in these activities.
Next, the complementarity of different students’ English
knowledge via OPF and FFPF improves their comprehensive
writing ability. As claimed by Collaborative Learning Theory
(Bruffee,1984), English knowledge and meanings could be
implicitly and explicitly acquired and constructed through
social communications among peers because different people
hold different perspectives according to their various cultural
backgrounds and previous experiences. OPF and FFPF create
a social learning environment where students can convey their
knowledge, enrich their horizons through peers’ cooperation
and then put their comprehensive thinking into their writing
(Saeed et al.,2018).
In addition, peer feedback helps students to establish good
habits, and a strict teacher’s eyes toward writing practice. Due
to the shift from a “student” to a “teacher” in OPF and FFPF,
students act in a more active role in making peer feedback, more
attentive and more responsible (Cassidy and Bailey,2018). As a
result, they will become more critical of peers’ writing and offer
as many suggestions and advice as they can for the peers.
Nevertheless, OPF is superior to FFPF in ESL/EFL
writing practice. First, OPF assists in hindering face-to-face
embarrassment so that peer feedback writing becomes more
relaxed. It can be observed that students are reluctant to
voice criticism and express disagreements because they fear
destroying the harmonious relationship and causing conflict,
even hurting their classmates, particularly in the Confucian
context (Pham et al.,2020). OPF enables students to be involved
in a more comfortable environment where they are willing
and bold to face critique (Ma,2020). For example, some
modifications or mistakes can be pointed out directly by OPF.
Second, more time and more ready preparations are
available for the participants when they are instructed to
provide OPF instead of FFPF. As it is, FFPF requires instant
assessments and comments by students, which is a great
challenge, particularly for those who are intermediate or
elementary in English proficiency (Yang and Meng,2013).
Opposite to FFPF, OPF does not compel students to give
opinions about their peers’ writing drafts right now. Rather,
it allows them to have enough time to think about how to
produce appropriate comments on the papers to be evaluated.
This is consistent with what has been discussed in the Gains from
Environment above.
Third, OPF breaks through the space restriction between
the writer(s) and the reviewer(s), therefore overcoming
potential cultural barriers. More often not, spacial immediacy
does not work (e.g., Cov-19 pandemic), and students are
forced to stay far away from each other to listen to the
class and participate in relevant learning activities (Rimmer,
2020). Under this situation, FFPF fails to come onto the
stage, and OPF becomes the only way to fulfill learning
exchange including ESL/EFL writing assessments. In addition
to it, OPF offers another opportunity to co-participate
in activities for people with various cultural backgrounds
in remote places (Bada and Olusegun,2015), breaking
through the potential cultural barriers related to space
restriction.
Some aspects to be improved for
future online peer feedback studies of
ESL/EFL writing
Apart from the above positive achievements in past studies,
this review reveals some aspects to be improved for further
OPF explorations.
Firstly, most of the studies (i.e., 34 articles) were empirical.
However, the fewest are theoretical (i.e., 3 articles), showing that
researchers prefer to use statistical data to explore OPF issues
(Saeed et al.,2018). At first glance, the data are very objective
and reliable, for they are rigidly collected and measured.
Frontiers in Psychology 09 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 10
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
Nevertheless, what the figures mean/imply is reliant on creative
thinking and philosophical speculation based on language
acquisition and educational psychology. On this account, OPF’s
theoretical studies ask for more space in both width and depth
to explain the potential benefits or gains from the peer feedback
of ESL/EFL writing activities.
Secondly, all the reviewed studies are uniformly based on
students’ experience, i.e., what they do as OPF(e.g., in terms
of questionnaires and interviews) (Pham,2020). Little evidence
was reported about the direction by teachers when students
were making diversified feedback. Although OPF is a student-
centered activity in ESL/EFL learning, teachers still play a
fundamental role in guiding and monitoring students in the
process of OPF (Zhan et al.,2022). However, no study of this
kind has come up to date.
Thirdly, ESL/EFL learners’ OPF is affected by their culture
they are in. Evidently, this is an important aspect in revealing the
diversity and discrepancy of OPF between learners of different
cultural backgrounds. Nevertheless, in the past ten years, only
one study (i.e., Pham et al.,2020) has dealt with the topic. How is
Asian culture (e.g., Confucian culture) different from European
culture (e.g., Bible-based culture) as students provide feedback
from ESL/EFL writing? How is non-English culture transferred
into English culture? Such questions merit further exploration
to reveal the similarity and diversity of OPF by ESL/EFL learners
across cultures.
Fourthly, the reviewed literature is restricted in
methodology. Specifically, all the studies used questionnaires
and interviews to collect data (Ma,2020). What if other methods
(e.g., text analysis and OPF comparison) were adopted in OPF
studies on ESL/EFL writing? More room is needed in this regard
to increase the validity and reliability of OPF research.
Fifthly, some gains from OPF were mentioned by previous
researches but not involved in this decade. However, these gains
from OPF mentioned in our study are very common in the
ESL/EFL writing activities. For example, the gains that OPF
could bring more revision-based comments was also found by
Liu and Sadler (2003) and Song and Usaha (2009). However,
only two articles in this decade explored this topic.
Pedagogical implications on online
peer feedback on ESL/EFL writing
Online peer feedback (OPF) is not confined to English
writing but functions as a regular practice in various pedagogical
activities. What follows focuses on the potential implications of
OPF from ESL/EFL writing.
First, the “student-centered” teaching strategy is to be
more accented. As shown in this review, OPF is to have
students enjoy more latitude in offering comments on the task(s)
they are given. That is, OPF instantiates the student-centered
pedagogical rationale, which contrasts with the traditional
teacher-dominated pedagogy, easily leading to the depressive
atmosphere in the classroom and the disharmonious tutor-
student relationship. Accordingly, teachers should attempt to
reduce the direct infusion of knowledge and offer students
more freedom by shifting their role from good listeners to
active participants in probing problems. In this regard, OPF
is a good choice, the efficient strategy increasing their activity
to learning, which as a pedagogical practice is supported by
Choice theory (Glasser,1998;Irvine,2015), claiming that
human has some basic needs to satisfy, such as freedom and
fun.
Second, students are encouraged to provide OPF based on
incremental knowledge. As known to all, acquiring knowledge
is a step-by-step process, in which students can only give
feedback on the given tasks in light of what they have already
known. As a consequence, an English teacher should instruct
the students to learn how to give comments on ESL/EFL writing
according to their competence. As mentioned above, their
feedback can start with local features (e.g., diction and grammar)
and move to global features (e.g., discourse coherence and
organization) as they progress in English proficiency and general
English ability (Li,2012). This is consistent with the review
literature that well-prepared and effective guidance prior to
the peer-feedback activities contributes to improving students’
attitudes and increasing the quality of students’ communication
(Chen,2016). This gradual feedback helps develop students’
confidence and self-esteem, the very important psychology in
education.
Third, OPF should be adopted regularly in ESL/EFL
study to help shaping their personalities and outlooks.
As stated above, OPF is an effective way to enhance
critical thinking and generate self-esteem through group
collaboration, so students can unconsciously strengthen
their sense of cooperation and increase their sense of
achievement. This collaboration-based pedagogy is favored
by Group dynamics theory (Dörnyei,1997) and Constructive
learning theory (Bada and Olusegun,2015), stating that
members in a community are complementary in the levels
of intelligence, ways of thinking and even cognitive styles.
Besides, group collaboration is conducive to members’
self-esteem (Bankston and Zhou,2002). In brief, ELS/EFL
learners are able to appeal to OPF to achieve comprehensive
understanding and generate ideas through mutual inspiration
and complement.
Fourth, OPF’s potential function is to be put into full
play with recourse to abundant internet-based vehicles.
To date, there has come up several learning tools based
on the internet, among which are Moodle (Shang,2022),
Facebook, and blog (Chen,2012;Wahyudin,2018).
However, these vehicles are not used as satisfactorily as
anticipated in the pedagogue aspect. Therefore, what
to do next is that teachers should reflect on how to
choose the vehicles and associate them with different
Frontiers in Psychology 10 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 11
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
assignments or tasks in order to maximize the effects of student-
centered approaches like the OPF by peers.
Author contributions
SC and SZ collated and analyzed the data and drafted the
first manuscript. TZ and YX revised the manuscript. YL and
TW evaluated the theories and provided comments on the
manuscript. All authors contributed to the study conception and
design, edited the final version of the manuscript, and approved
it for publication.
Funding
This work was supported with grants from the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.
2022061402546) and Humanities and Social Science Research
Projects by the Ministry of Education (No. 19YJA740068). The
funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis,
decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the
authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated
organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the
reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or
claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed
or endorsed by the publisher.
Supplementary material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be
found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/
fpsyg.2022.1035803/full#supplementary-material
References
Ahmed, R., and Abdu, A. K. (2021). Online and face-to-face peer review
in academic writing: Frequency and preferences. Eurasian J. Appl. Linguist. 7,
169–201. doi: 10.32601/ejal.911245
Aljumah, F. H. (2012). Saudi learner perceptions and attitudes towards the use
of blogs in teaching English writing courses for EFL majors at Qassim University.
Engl. Lang. Teach. 5, 100–116. doi: 10.5539/elt.v5n1p100
Alsuwaida, N. (2022). Online courses in art and design during the coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic: Teaching reflections from a first-time online instructor.
Sage Open 12:21582440221079827. doi: 10.1177/21582440221079827
Awada, G. M., and Diab, N. M. (2021). Effect of online peer review versus
face-to-face peer review on argumentative writing achievement of EFL learners.
Comput. Assist. Lang. Learn. 1–19. doi: 10.1080/09588221.2021.1912104
Bada, S. O., and Olusegun, S. (2015). Constructivism learning theory: A
paradigm for teaching and learning. J. Res. Method Educ. 5, 66–70.
Bailey, D., and Cassidy, R. (2019). Online peer feedback tasks: Training
for improved L2 writing proficiency, anxiety reduction, and language learning
strategies. Call-Ej 20, 70–88.
Bankston, C. L. III, and Zhou, M. (2002). Being well vs. doing well: Self-esteem
and school performance among immigrant and nonimmigrant racial and ethnic
groups. Int. Migr. Rev. 36, 389–415. doi: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2002.tb00086.x
Bell, J. H. (1991). Using peer response groups in ESL writing classes. TESL Can.
J. 8, 65–71. doi: 10.18806/tesl.v8i2.589
Berg, E. C. (1999). The effects of trained peer response on ESL students’ revision
types and writing quality. J. Second Lang. Writ. 8, 215–241. doi: 10.1016/S1060-
3743(99)80115-5
Bradley, L. (2014). Peer-reviewing in an intercultural wiki environment-student
interaction and reflections. Comput. Compos. 34, 80–95. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.
2014.09.008
Braine, G. (2001). A study of English as a foreign language (EFL) writers
on a local-area network (LAN) and in traditional classes. Comput. Compos. 18,
275–292. doi: 10.1016/S8755-4615(01)00056- 1
Bredo, E. (2012). “Philosophies of educational research,” in Handbook of
complementary methods in education research, eds J. Green, G. Camilli, and P.
Elmore (London: Routledge), 3–31.
Bruffee, K. A. (1984). Collaborative learning and the “conversation of mankind”.
Coll. Engl. 46, 635–652. doi: 10.2307/376924
Cai, J. (2012). The contrastive study of OPF and online teacher feedback in
teaching English writing to Chinese college students. Foreign Lang. World 143,
65–72.
Carson, J. G., and Nelson, G. L. (1996). Chinese students’ perceptions of ESL
peer response group interaction. J. Second Lang. Writ. 5, 1–19. doi: 10.1016/S1060-
3743(96)90012-0
Cassidy, R., and Bailey, D. (2018). L2 students’ perceptions and practices of
both giving and receiving online peer-feedback. Multimed. Assist. Lang. Learn. 21,
11–34.
Chang, C. F. (2012). Peer review via three modes in an EFL writing
course. Comput. Compos. 29, 63–78. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2012.
01.001
Chen, K. T. C. (2012). Blog-based peer reviewing in EFL writing classrooms for
Chinese speakers. Comput. Compos. 29, 280–291. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2012.
09.004
Chen, T. (2016). Technology-supported PF in ESL/EFL writing classes: A
research synthesis. Comput. Assist. Lang. Learn. 29, 365–397. doi: 10.1080/
09588221.2014.960942
Cheng, Y. (2004). A measure of second language writing Scale development and
preliminary validation. J. Second Lang. Writ. 13, 313–335. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2004.
07.001
Cheng, Y. S., Horwitz, E. K., and Schallert, D. L. (1999). Language anxiety:
Differentiating writing and speaking components. Lang. Learn. 49, 417–446. doi:
10.1111/0023-8333.00095
Chiu, Y. C. J. (2009). Facilitating Asian students’ critical thinking in online
discussions. Br. J. Educ. Technol. 40, 42–57. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.
00898.x
Choi, J. W. C. (2007). The role of online collaboration in promoting ESL writing.
Ph.D. dissertation. Leicester: University of Leicester.
Ciftci, H., and Kocoglu, Z. (2012). Effects of peer e-feedback on Turkish EFL
students’ linguistic details. J. Educ. Comput. Res. 46, 61–84. doi: 10.2190/EC.46.1.c
Frontiers in Psychology 11 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 12
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
Daweli, T. W. (2018). Engaging Saudi EFL students in online peer review in
a Saudi University context. Arab World Engl. J. 9, 270–280. doi: 10.24093/awej/
vol9no4.20
De Guerrero, M. C., and Villamil, O. S. (2000). Activating the ZPD: Mutual
scaffolding in L2 peer revision. Mod. Lang. J. 84, 51–68. doi: 10.1111/0026-7902.
00052
DiGiovanni, E., and Nagaswami, G. (2001). Online peer review: An alternative
to face-to-face. ELT J. 55, 263–272. doi: 10.1093/elt/55.3.263
Djoub, Z. (2021). “Enhancing students’ critical thinking through portfolios:
Portfolio content and process of use,” In Research anthology on developing critical
thinking skills in students, ed. I. Management Association (IGI Global) 450–474.
doi: 10.4018/978-1- 7998-3022-1.ch023
Dörnyei, Z. (1997). Psychological processes in cooperative language learning:
Group dynamics and motivation. Mod. Lang. J. 81, 482–493. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-
4781.1997.tb05515.x
Ebadi, S., and Rahimi, M. (2017). Exploring the impact of online peer-editing
using Google Docs on EFL learners’ academic writing skills: A mixed methods
study. Comput. Assist. Lang. Learn. 30, 787–815. doi: 10.1080/09588221.2017.
1363056
Elboshi, A. (2021). Web-enhanced PF in ESL writing classrooms a literature
review. Engl. Lang. Teach. 14, 66–76. doi: 10.5539/elt.v14n4p66
Galloway, K. R., Malakpa, Z., and Bretz, S. L. (2016). Investigating affective
experiences in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory: Students’ perceptions of
control and responsibility. J. Chem. Educ. 93, 227–238. doi: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.
5b00737
Gere, A. R. (1987). Writing groups: History, theory and implications.Carbondale,
IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Glasser, W. (1998). Choice theory: A new psychology of personal freedom.
New York, NY: Harper.
Guardado, M., and Shi, L. (2007). ESL students’ experiences of OPF. Comput.
Compos. 24, 443–461. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2007.03.002
Hanjani, A. M., and Li, L. (2014). Exploring L2 writers’ collaborative revision
interactions and their linguistic details. System 44, 101–114. doi: 10.1016/j.system.
2014.03.004
Hart, C. (2001). Doing a literature search: A comprehensive guide for the social
sciences. London: Sage.
Hayes, J. R. (2012). Modeling and remodeling writing. Writ. Commun. 29,
369–388. doi: 10.1177/0741088312451260
Henfernik, J. J. (1983). “The how and why of peer editing in the ESL writing
class,” in Paper presented atthe state meeting of the California Association of TESOL,
Los Angeles, CA.
Ho, M. C. (2012). The efficacy of electronic PF: From Taiwanese EFL students’
perspectives. Int. J. Arts Sci. 5, 423–428.
Hu, G., and Lam, S. T. E. (2010). Issues of cultural appropriateness and
pedagogical efficacy: Exploring peer review in a second language writing class.
Instr. Sci. 38, 371–394. doi: 10.1007/s11251-008- 9086-1
Huang, H. Y. C. (2016). Students and the teacher’sperceptions on incorporating
the blog task and PF into EFL writing classes through blogs. Engl. Lang. Teach. 9,
38–47. doi: 10.5539/elt.v9n11p38
Huang, J. (2016). Contribution of online peer review to effectiveness of EFL
writing. Am. J. Educ. Res. 4, 811–816.
Hyland, K., and Hyland, F. (2006). Feedback on second language students’
writing. Lang. Teach. 39, 83–101. doi: 10.1017/S0261444806003399
Iksan, H., and Halim, H. A. (2018). The effect of e-feedback via wikis on ESL
students’l2 writing anxiety level. Malays. Online J. Educ. Sci. 6, 30–48.
Immordino-Yang, M. H., and Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn:
The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind Brain Educ.
1, 3–10. doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2007.00004.x
Irvine, J. (2015). Enacting Glasser’s (1998) choice theory in a grade 3 classroom:
A case study. J. Case Stud. Educ. 7, 1–14.
Jin, L., and Zhu, W. (2010). Dynamic motives in ESL computer-mediated peer
response. Comput. Compos. 27, 284–303. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2010.09.001
Jones, A., and Issroff, K. (2005). Learning technologies: Affective and social
issues in computer-supported collaborative learning. Comput. Educ. 44, 395–408.
doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2004.04.004
Keh, C. L. (1990). Feedback in the writing process: A model and methods for
implementation. ELT J. 44, 294–304. doi: 10.1093/elt/44.4.294
Kitchakarn, O. (2013). PF through blogs: An effective tool for
improving students’ writing abilities. Turk. Online J. Distance Educ. 14,
152–164.
Li, H. (2012). The effects of OPF on vocational college learners’ acquisition of
English past perfect tense. Master’s thesis. Hunan: Hunan University.
Li, L., Liu, X., and Steckelberg, A. L. (2010). Assessor or assessee: How student
learning improves by giving and receiving PF. Br. J. Educ. Technol. 41, 525–536.
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00968.x
Liou, H. C., and Peng, Z. Y. (2009). Training effects on computer-mediated peer
review. System 37, 514–525. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2009.01.005
Liu, J., and Edwards, J. G. H. (2018). Peer response in second language writing
classrooms. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. doi: 10.3998/mpub.
9361097
Liu, J., and Sadler, R. W. (2003). The effect and affect of peer review in electronic
versus traditional modes on L2 writing. J. Engl. Acad. Purp. 2, 193–227. doi:
10.1016/S1475-1585(03)00025- 0
Long, M. H., and Porter, P. A. (1985). Group work, interlanguage talk, and
second language acquisition. TESOL Q. 19, 207–228. doi: 10.2307/3586827
Luo, Y., and Liu, Y. (2017). Comparison between peer feedback and automated
feedback in college English writing: A case study. Open J. Mod. Linguist. 7,
197–215. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2017.74015
Lv, X., Ren, W., and Xie, Y. (2021). The effects of online feedback on ESL/EFL
writing: A meta-analysis. Asia Pac. Educ. Res. 30, 643–653. doi: 10.1007/s40299-
021-00594- 6
Ma, Q. (2020). Examining the role of inter-group peer online feedback on
wiki writing in an EAP context. Comput. Assist. Lang. Learn. 33, 197–216. doi:
10.1080/09588221.2018.1556703
Mendonca, C. O., and Johnson, K. E. (1994). Peer review negotiations: Revision
activities in ESL writing instruction. TESOL Q. 28, 745–769. doi: 10.2307/3587558
Min, H. T. (2005). Training students to become successful peer reviewers.
System 33, 293–308. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2004.11.003
Min, H. T. (2006). The effects of training peer review on EFL students’ revision
types and writing quality. J. Second Lang. Writ. 8, 265–289.
Nunan, D. (ed.) (1993). Collaborative language learning and teaching. Glasgow:
Bell & Bain Ltd.
Peeters, W. (2018). Applying the networking power of Web 2.0 to the foreign
language classroom: A taxonomy of the online peer interaction process. Comput.
Assist. Lang. Learn. 31, 905–931. doi: 10.1080/09588221.2018.1465982
Pham, H. T. P. (2020). Computer-mediated and face-to-face PF: Student
feedback and revision in EFL writing. Comput. Assist. Lang. Learn. 1–37. doi:
10.1080/09588221.2020.1868530
Pham, T. N., Lin, M., Trinh, V. Q., and Bui, L. T. P. (2020). Electronic
peer feedback, EFL academic writing and reflective thinking: Evidence from a
Confucian context. Sage Open 10, 1–20. doi: 10.1177/2158244020914554
Pham, V. P. H., and Usaha, S. (2016). Blog-based peer response for L2 writing
revision. Comput. Assist. Lang. Learn. 29, 724–748. doi: 10.1080/09588221.2015.
1026355
Putra, I. G. K. M., Santosa, M. H., and Pratiwi, N. P. A. (2021). Students’
perceptions on OPF practice in EFL writing. Indones. J. Engl. Educ. 8, 213–231.
doi: 10.15408/ijee.v8i2.21488
Qiu, J., and Li, L. (2022). A comparative study of the effects of OPF and teacher
feedback on English writing. J. Lanzhou Jiaotong Univ. 41, 169–174.
Rimmer, W. (2020). Responding to the coronavirus with open educational
resources. Int. J. TESOL Stud. 2, 17–32.
Saeed, M. A., and Ghazali, K. (2016). Modeling peer revision among EFL
learners in an online learning community. Electron. J. Foreign Lang. Teach. 13,
275–292.
Saeed, M. A., and Ghazali, K. (2017). Asynchronous group review of EFL
writing: Interactions and text revisions. Lang. Learn. Technol. 21, 200–226.
Saeed, M. A., Ghazali, K., and Aljaberi, M. A. (2018). A review of previous
studies on ESL/EFL learners’ interactional feedback exchanges in face-to-face and
computer-assisted peer review of writing. Int. J. Educ. Technol. High. Educ. 15,
1–25. doi: 10.1186/s41239-017- 0084-8
Schön, D. A. (2017). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action.
London: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315237473
Sfard, A., and Kieran, C. (2001). Cognition as communication: Rethinking
learning-by-talking through multi-faceted analysis of students’ mathematical
interactions. Mind Cult. Act. 8, 42–76. doi: 10.1207/S15327884MCA0801_04
Shang, H. F. (2022). Exploring OPF and automated corrective feedback on EFL
linguistic details. Interact. Learn. Environ. 30, 4–16. doi: 10.1080/10494820.2019.
1629601
Siegel, H. (1989). The rationality of science, critical thinking, and science
education. Synthese 80, 9–41. doi: 10.1007/BF00869946
Frontiers in Psychology 12 frontiersin.org
fpsyg-13-1035803 October 26, 2022 Time: 16:54 # 13
Cao et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035803
Song, W., and Usaha, S. (2009). How EFL university students use electronic peer
response into revisions. Suranaree J. Sci. Technol. 16, 263–275.
Spear, K. (1988). Sharing writing: Peer response groups in English classes.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Stanley, J. (1992). Coaching student writers to be effective peer evaluators.
J. Second Lang. Writ. 1, 217–233. doi: 10.1016/1060- 3743(92)90004-9
Sun, P. P., and Zhang, L. J. (2022). Effects of translanguaging in OPF on Chinese
university English-as-a-foreign-language students’ second language linguistic
details. RELC J. 1–17. doi: 10.1177/00336882221089051
Tai,H. C., Lin, W. C., and Yang, S. C. (2015). Exploring the effects of peer review
and teachers’ corrective feedback on EFL students’online linguistic det ails. J. Educ.
Comput. Res. 53, 284–309. doi: 10.1177/0735633115597490
Thompson, M. O. R. (1980). “Classroom techniques for reducing writing
anxiety: A study of several cases,” in Paper presented at the annual conference on
college composition and communication, Washington, DC.
Usaha, S. (2020). The effectiveness of the blog-based peer response for L2
writing. Int. J. Educ. Technol. 1, 27–44.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological
processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). “Thinking and speech,” in The collected works of LS
Vygotsky, Vol. 1, eds R. W. Rieber and A. S. Carton (New York, NY: Plenum Press),
39–285.
Wahyudin, A. Y. (2018). The impact of OPF on EFL students writing at
tertiary level. BAHTERA J. Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra 17, 1–10. doi: 10.21009/
BAHTERA.171.1
Wanchid, R. (2013). The use of self-correction, paper-pencil peer feedback
and electronic peer feedback in the EFL writing class: Opportunities and
challenges. Acad. J. Interdiscip. Stud. 2, 157–157. doi: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n
3p157
Warschauer, M. (1996). Comparing face-to-face and electronic discussion in the
second language classroom. CALICO J. 13, 7–26. doi: 10.1558/cj.v13i2-3.7- 26
Woodrow, L. (2011). College English writing affect: Self-efficacy and anxiety.
System 39, 510–522. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2011.10.017
Xu, Q., and Yu, S. (2018). An action research on computer-mediated
communication peer feedback in EFL writing context. Asia Pac. Educ. Res. 27,
207–216. doi: 10.1007/s40299-018- 0379-0
Yang, Y. F. (2016). Transforming and constructing academic knowledge
through OPF in summary writing. Comput. Assist. Lang. Learn. 29, 683–702.
doi: 10.1080/09588221.2015.1016440
Yang, Y.-F., and Meng, W.-T. (2013). The effects of online feedback on students’
text revision. Lang. Learn. Technol. 17, 220–238.
Yu, S., and Lee, I. (2016). Peer feedback in second language writing (2005–2014).
Lang. Teach. 49, 461–493. doi: 10.1017/S0261444816000161
YuekMing, H., and Abd Manaf, L. (2014). Assessing learning outcomes through
students’ reflective thinking. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 152, 973–977. doi: 10.1016/
j.sbspro.2014.09.352
Zhan, Y., Wan, Z. H., and Sun, D. (2022). Online formative peer feedback in
Chinese contexts at the tertiary level: A critical review on its design, impacts and
influencing factors. Comput. Educ. 176:104341.
Zhang, H., Song, W., Shen, S., and Huang, R. (2014). The effects of blog-
mediated peer feedback on learners’ motivation, collaboration, and course
satisfaction in a second language writing course. Australas. J. Educ. Technol. 30,
670–685. doi: 10.14742/ajet.860
Zhu, W. (1995). Effects of training for peer response on students’ comments and
interaction. Writ. Commun. 12, 492–528. doi: 10.1177/0741088395012004004
Zhu, W., and Mitchell, D. A. (2012). Participation in peer response as activity:
An examination of peer response stances from an activity theory perspective.
TESOL Q. 46, 362–386. doi: 10.1002/tesq.22
Frontiers in Psychology 13 frontiersin.org
Available via license: CC BY
Content may be subject to copyright.
