Palestinian University Writing Professors' Feedback Practices and their Students' Reactions towards them

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to identify feedback practices Palestinian university professors frequently use and the extent to which they are aware of the soundness or unsoundness of these practices. The study also investigates Palestinian university students' reactions towards their teachers' feedback practices. For this purpose the researchers prepared two questionnaires to gather the data; the first addresses teachers' use of feedback practices and their soundness or unsoundness and the other is assigned to collect information from students on the frequency of their teachers use of feedback practices and if they like or dislike them. Two different samples, i.e. 26 university professors and 310 English majoring students from different universities in Palestine are included. The results of the study showed that Palestinian university writing professors are aware of the educational soundness and unsoundness of the majority of feedback practices and use sound ones quite often. Their students mostly agreed with their teachers' responses; however some discrepancies occurred between teachers' responses and their students' reactions towards certain practices. Moreover, students indicated their liking of most of their teachers' practices, particularly the sound ones. Surprisingly, students sometimes showed their liking of certain unsound practices. Regarding students gender role in the students' preference or approval of teachers' feedback practices, a number of differences existed, particularly in nine items; five items were in favor of males and the other four items were in favor of female students.