The Effects of Multiple and Single Draft Feedback On the Writing Skills of Students

Abstract

This paper tries to check whether or not multiple draft feedback is
more useful than the single draft feedback in making students learn writing. To
achieve this objective, the researcher used two kinds of data collection
methods. In the experiment, 119 AAU students who were classified into
experimental (56) and control groups (63) were taught the same materials for
one semester. The former received multiple draft feedback and the latter single
draft feedback. To measure the difference in the effects of the two types of
feedback on students performance, pre-test and post-test essays were used.
Besides, a questionnaire was designed to supplement the findings of the
experiment. The overall result was that the EG, identified to be essentially
equivalent to the CG in the pre-test, performed better in the post-test at the
end of the experiment. Responses to the questionnaire also indicated that
students reread their essays and paid more attention to teachers and peer
comments on their multiple drafts (100%, 91%) of the process writing than the
single draft feedback on the respective end products (57%, 70%). Besides,
15% of the CG were reported to have ignored the single draft feedback, and
showed very limited attempt to understand it, whereas only4% of the EG said
that they ignored the multiple draft feedback. In the follow-up activities of the
process of feedback involving the revision of the first draft, the EG reported
that they added new points, developed ideas with examples, identified illo~ical
relations, used markers to connect ideas, dropped unrelated ideas, readjusted
introductions and restated central ideas in their conclusions. However, these
revision strategies were reported to be inapplicable to the CG. The responses
of both the CG (84%) and the EG (91 %) indicated that incorporating feedback
in rewriting essays two or more times was more useful to develop writing skills
than the single draft feedback. It is further recognized that self - correction was
activated in the multiple draft contexts