EFL Students’ Decision-Making and Criteria
Use in Peer Review: Influence of Teacher
Writing Beliefs
Jingjing Ma
Hang Seng Management College, HK majingjing79@163.com
Abstract
This exploratory case study examined one English teacher’s writing beliefs and classroom practice as well as the influence of such beliefs and practice on six selected Chinese EFL university students’ decision-making and criteria use in peer review. Data sources included semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, document analysis, think-aloud protocols and stimulated recall. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data revealed that the teacher’s instructional emphasis was consistent with his writing beliefs about important qualities for good English expository writing and the process of learning to write. Teacher beliefs and practice were found to affect the focus of students’ decision-making and criteria use during peer review by reinforcing students’ original beliefs, helping construct new ones, or directly drawing their attention to particular elements of peers’ writing. Drawing on the concept of rationality (Tudor, 2001), the effect of teacher influence is examined and pedagogical implications are also discussed.
Key Words: writing beliefs, decision-making and criteria use, peer review
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, peer review has been increasingly incorporated into EFL writing classrooms (e.g., Min, 2003, 2005), including the Chinese tertiary context where a product-based approach to writing is still prevalent (Zhao, 2010). In China, English writing teachers have also begun to experiment with criterion-referenced peer review, which requires students to evaluate peers’ texts based on teacher-provided assessment criteria and to offer written feedback on their texts. When writing teachers introduce the innovative activity of criterion-referenced peer review into their classrooms, they shoulder great responsibility in realizing change (Tudor, 2001). Given the important role of teacher beliefs in influencing classroom practice and students’ language learning (e.g., Allen, 1996; Yang, 2010), the impact of teachers’ writing beliefs and classroom practice on students’ learning during criterion-referenced peer review deserves special attention.
In peer review, it is generally agreed that a balanced focus (Hu, 2005; Min, 2005), including a focus on “higher order concerns” (Keh, 1990, p. 296) such as content and organization, may be more beneficial for peer-influenced revisions than an exclusive focus on language form. Students’ actual use of assessment criteria in this activity may also enable them to become familiar with standards of good work, which they may apply to their own work for self-evaluation and self-learning (Carless, 2011). If teacher’s writing beliefs and practice can exert a direct influence on students so that they display a balanced focus and utilize the assessment criteria provided by the teacher during peer review, such an influence might
be helpful for students’ learning. From the perspective of rationality (Tudor, 2001), teacher beliefs, as a form of teacher rationalities, may also interact with other types of rationalities (e.g., student rationalities or beliefs) in a teaching and learning situation to affect students’ decision making and criteria use during peer review.
This exploratory study aimed to investigate one teacher’s writing beliefs and classroom practice and how such beliefs and practice affected the focus of six Chinese EFL university students’ decision-making and criteria use during peer review. Information regarding the role of the writing teacher, especially that of his or her writing beliefs and classroom practice, may offer implications to maximize the benefits students can reap from criterion-referenced peer review. This is especially important in the Chinese EFL context, in which teachers enjoy an authoritative status (Wen & Clement, 2003) and exert a presumably powerful influence on student learning.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The significant role of language teachers’ beliefs in affecting their classroom behaviours has been well recognized (Riley, 2009). Within the field of L2 writing, the relationship between teachers’ writing beliefs and their teaching practice has been investigated in various contexts, including the Asian context (e.g., Lee, 1998, 2009; Yang, 2010). For instance, Yang (2010) found that the instructional focus of three experienced Chinese EFL writing teachers in her study was consistent with their beliefs about what should be emphasized in English writing instruction. In the study, the three teachers highlighted rhetorical organization and avoidance of language
mistakes, logical thinking, and rich content in accordance with their respective writing beliefs.
However, mismatches might also exist between teachers’ writing beliefs and their practice. For example, while the Hong Kong secondary school English teachers in Lee’s (1998) study regarded both grammar and textual coherence as being essential to writing instruction, in reality they focused more on grammar in teaching. Similarly, Lee (2009) identified ten mismatches between Hong Kong secondary school teachers’ beliefs about giving written feedback and their feedback practice, with the teachers attributing these mismatches to contextual constraints such as exam pressure and school policy. In fact, it has been pointed out that contextual factors may influence teachers’ “ability to adopt practices which reflect their beliefs” (Borg, 2003, p. 94). This can be demonstrated by one Hong Kong EFL teacher’s adaptation of the process approach to writing in her own teaching situation due to institutional and curricular constraints, despite her beliefs about the benefits this approach can bring to student writing (e.g., Tsui, 1996).
Teacher beliefs may also influence how teachers implement a certain pedagogical innovation (e.g., Shi & Cumming, 1995). Although not much research has been conducted to explore the impact of teacher beliefs about peer review on its implementation, studies have examined teacher beliefs or perceptions about peer review (e.g., Lee, 2010). For example, the Hong Kong EFL teachers in Lee’s (2010) study expressed positive views about peer review after experimenting with this activity. They thought that peer review turned their students into more critical and enthusiastic readers, enabled students to assist
each other and to take responsibility for their own learning, and helped improve student learning.
Moreover, research on beliefs about L2 learning has acknowledged the important role played by teachers as “significant others” in either reinforcing or helping construct students’ beliefs, with the affected student beliefs further influencing their language learning behaviours, as was the case of the Japanese EFL university students in Navarro and Thornton’s (2011) study. This kind of teacher influence can sometimes be traced to teacher beliefs and related classroom practice, as evidenced by Allen’s (1996) study, in which one Libyan ESL university student ended up acquiring beliefs about English learning similar to those of the teacher. The changed learner beliefs in turn affected the student’s language learning behaviours, strategies and perceived success in language learning. Notably, student beliefs newly shaped by teacher beliefs can be regarded as a type of “emerging beliefs” (Hosenfeld, 2003, p. 39), defined as beliefs that arise during the learning process, in contrast to pre-existent beliefs learners hold and bring to learning.
Although the two studies mentioned above have identified teacher influence, especially the impact of teacher beliefs and pertinent classroom practice, on L2 students’ language learning beliefs and behaviours, few studies within the field of L2 writing have ascertained whether such teacher influence is present when it comes to L2 students’ learning to write, particularly in the case of their learning to write through a pedagogical activity newly introduced into the classroom, such as criterion-referenced peer review in the study. By focusing on the influence of teacher beliefs on students’ writing beliefs as well as their decision making and criteria use during peer
review, this study is an attempt to fill an important gap in the L2 writing literature. For the purpose of the study, writing beliefs are defined as views about writing and learning to write and they are seen as being contextual, social and dynamic in nature (Barcelos & Kalaja, 2003, 2011). A distinction can be made between beliefs that remain to be “content items” of knowledge that cannot mediate behaviours, and beliefs that are fully internalized or “appropriated” to the extent of mediating behaviours (Alanen, 2003). For instance, Navarro and Thornton (2011) found that one Japanese EFL student in their study displayed beliefs about a particular self-directed learning strategy initially acquired from her language advisor but did not put this strategy into actual use. The aforementioned researchers considered that such beliefs have not been fully appropriated to the extent of mediating learning behaviours. Later, through more written and oral interaction with the advisor, the student was then able to internalize beliefs about this learning strategy and applied the strategy in her language learning. The distinction between the two types of beliefs mentioned above is important in this study because a detailed examination of writing beliefs fully internalized by a teacher can facilitate a better understanding of the link between his/her beliefs and classroom behaviours, as well as how such beliefs and practices excert an impact on the students’ decision-making and criteria use.
This study further utilizes the concept of “rationality” (Tudor, 2001) in ascertaining the impact of teacher writing beliefs on student learning. This term is employed to highlight the central role played by “human perceptions and expectations” (Tudor, 2001, p. 22) in both language learning and teaching. Tudor (2001, p. 32) defines a rationality as “an internally coherent set of beliefs about the nature
and goal of language teaching” exhibited by various participants involved in a teaching and learning situation, including teachers and students in the first place, but also other participants such as originators of a certain “methodology” (e.g., instructional approach and associated pedagogical activity), educational or institutional authorities, and the broader community. As a result, five different types of rationalities are considered to be likely to influence language learning and teaching, that is, student rationalities, teacher rationalities, methodological rationalities, institutional rationalities and sociocultural rationalities. Hence, when a “methodology” is newly introduced into a writing classroom, one should not immediately assume that it can lead to a predictable set of learning outcomes as originally intended in theory. Instead, the five types of rationalities mentioned above are likely to interact with one another to affect student learning.
In the situation of learning to write through criterion-referenced peer review, students’ and their teacher’s writing beliefs can be regarded as student and teacher rationalities for learning and teaching writing respectively. The methodological rationalities of criterion-referenced peer review consist of views about writing and learning to write underlying peer review and criteria use respectively. For example, the methodological rationality of peer review reflects the assumption that writing is a process of discovering meaning and the significance of dealing with global issues in learning to write. Therefore, the methodological rationality of criteria use is underpinned by a view of learning to write that highlights the importance of applying criteria to peers’ texts, and a view of good writing as manifested by various qualities within the criteria.
Secondly, the institutional rationality is constituted by views about writing and learning to write embraced by the institution in which students’ learning of writing and teacher’s instruction take place. As members of a particular sociocultural group, teacher and students may also exhibit sociocultural rationalities in addition to individual ones. For instance, influenced by the exam-oriented Chinese educational system, students and teachers at secondary and tertiary levels in China may acknowledge the important role of language accuracy in their learning and teaching of English writing for high-stakes English exams such as the National Matriculation English Test and College English Test—Band 4 or Band 6 (Qi, 2007; You, 2004, 2010). These beliefs can be regarded as a kind of sociocultural rationalities held by the students and the teacher. From the standpoint of writing teachers, teacher rationalities may interact with student and methodological rationalities as well as institutional and sociocultural rationalities to impact on students’ learning to write through criterion-referenced peer review. If teacher rationalities are similar to the rest of the rationalities, the reality assumed by the “methodology” of criterion-referenced peer review might be unproblematic. However, if teacher rationalities differ from the other rationalities, the learning outcomes resulting from this activity might be different from what is originally intended.
THE STUDY
This exploratory study adopted a case study approach to gain an in-depth understanding of one teacher’s writing beliefs and classroom practice, as well as how such beliefs and practice affected the
students’ decision making and criteria use during criterion-referenced peer review.
Two research questions were addressed:
RQ1. What are the writing beliefs and classroom practice of the teacher in the study?
RQ2. How do the teacher’s writing beliefs and classroom practice affect the focus of six Chinese EFL students’ decision-making and criteria use in criterion-referenced peer review?
Participants and Context
The participants included one male teacher and six university students enrolled in his English expository writing course from a prestigious university in Mainland China. The teacher, Professor C, had over 26 years of English teaching experiences. In addition, Professor C, had the innovative spirit to incorporate into his writing course a process approach to writing when he first began to teach it two years before the start of the study, with criterion-referenced peer review being one important component. The adoption of a process approach and peer review was not a common practice among writing teachers in the institution in which this study took place, given the prevalence of a product-based approach in Chinese universities (Zhao, 2010).
To examine teacher influence on students with different levels of English writing proficiency (i.e., high, intermediate, low), six students were purposefully chosen from a total of eighteen students in the writing class based on their writing abilities, determined by the grades they obtained for the first writing task. Such grades were also consistent with their final grades for the writing course.
The background information on the student participants is summarized in Table 1. All of them were year-three university students and had from nine to fourteen years of English learning experience. They started to learn English writing officially in Senior Three in high school in preparation for the National Matriculation English Test. According to them, the English writing instruction in Senior Three was exam-oriented and placed a great emphasis on language accuracy. Among all the students, Tan and Yu had already taken TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) before the time of the study, obtaining a full mark (i.e., 30 out of 30) and 21 out of 30 respectively for Test of Written English (TWE), that is, the writing component of the TOEFL. While Tan prepared for the TOEFL by studying relevant reference books by herself, Yu’s strategy was to attend a cramming course in a tutorial school famous for preparing students for international English tests in Mainland China. Ding and Zhu had also attended the cramming courses there to prepare themselves for TOEFL, which they planned to take in the future. None of the students had experienced criterion-referenced peer review before.
The English expository writing course was a 16-week credit-bearing elective. Since the students in this university enjoyed a relatively higher English proficiency compared with their counterparts in other Chinese universities, preparing them for College English Test—Band 4 and Band 6 was not a top priority there. Therefore, the teacher was given great freedom by the institution to choose teaching approaches and learning materials considered to be appropriate for his writing class. The textbook, College English
Table 1
Background Information on Case Study Students
Name Age Gender Major Writing proficiency
Tan 20 Female Biology High
Yu 20 Female Journalism High
Ding 20 Male Biology Intermediate
Xiang 20 Female Optical Science and Engineering Intermediate
Chen 18 Male Mathematics Low
Zhu 20 Male Mathematics Low
Writing: An Autonomous Learning Edition, which was edited by the
teacher himself, was adopted.
There were four “writing cycles” in the writing course. During each cycle, the students were required to brainstorm ideas for writing topics, produce first drafts, read each other’s drafts for peer review, revise based on peer feedback, and then submit second drafts for teacher feedback and evaluation. It was optional for the students to revise further based on teacher feedback. An online learning platform was used for the implementation of the process approach and peer review.
Criterion-referenced peer review was introduced into the writing classroom at the beginning of the course. The students were presented with a peer evaluation form (Appendix), designed by the teacher based on his study of theoretical books and textbooks of English writing. According to the teacher, the form reflected the course assessment criteria and his opinions of the qualities of good English expository writing, and the students were told to evaluate peers’ texts in accordance with this form. The criteria encompassed various concepts within content, organization and language, and
accorded 30% to each category of content and organization and 40% to language. Such a weight seemed to indicate that students needed to display a balanced focus in applying the criteria to peers’ writing. The teacher explained in one or two sentences what each concept (e.g., creativity and interest, relevance) consisted of and no peer review training was conducted. Due to limited time in class, the peer review was conducted outside class at a time convenient for the students, who were divided into four groups. For each peer review task, the teacher would assign one student to be the reviewer of another student in the same group, while the latter student was assigned to evaluate the text of yet another group member. Therefore, the direction of the peer review was one way rather than bi-directional.
Different essay types were covered for different “writing cycles,” ranging from illustration essay (i.e., the first two writing tasks), to cause-and-effect essay (i.e., writing task three) and to comparison-and-contrast essay (i.e., writing task four). Data for this study were mainly drawn from writing task two (i.e., the second illustration essay) and three (i.e., the cause-and-effect essay) based on their potential for generating rich information. The second writing task required the students to use specific examples to illustrate that modern people are more gullible and superstitious than people in the Middle Ages, while the cause-and-effect essay asked them to explain why no single Chinese had won any Nobel Prizes. Each essay should not exceed 440 words.
Data Collection
A variety of methods of data collection were utilized, including semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, document analysis, think-aloud protocols and stimulated recall.
To answer RQ1, six semi-structured interviews were carried out with the teacher to gauge his beliefs about English writing and its instruction. Mandarin, a native language shared by the teacher and the researcher, was used in the interviews, which were audio-recorded. Classroom observation was conducted on a weekly basis for a period of ten weeks to examine the teacher’s classroom practice such as teacher instruction and provision of oral feedback. The classroom teaching was tape-recorded and notes were taken during observation and developed into full notes afterwards. Since teacher written feedback constituted an important aspect of English writing instruction, written feedback provided on student texts was also collected.
To address RQ2, think-aloud protocols and stimulated recall were utilized to gain an insight into the focus of students’ decision-making and criteria use while evaluating peers’ texts for the second and third writing tasks. After a training session, each student came to an office twice to think aloud while evaluating the illustration essay and the cause-and-effect essay respectively. The think-aloud sessions were followed by stimulated recall, with peer feedback inserted into student texts serving as stimulus. To elicit data from each student in a standardized manner, instructions were given before the think-aloud protocols and stimulated recall. To enhance the validity of data, the instruction for the think-aloud protocols reminded the students to avoid over explaining or justifying what they were doing in thinking
aloud, while the instruction for stimulated recall asked them to recall what they had been thinking during task performance rather than explain their thinking at the time of the recall. The students used Mandarin, their native language, and sometimes English for verbal reports. Both think-aloud protocols and stimulated recall were audio-recorded.
To ascertain teacher influence on students’ decision making and criteria use during criterion-referenced peer review, three types of semi-structured interviews were held with the students. First, baseline interviews were conducted to probe students’ past English learning experience and their beliefs about English writing. The second type of interviews was carried out before the think-aloud protocols, serving to elicit the students’ opinions concerning specific areas they would like to focus on in peer review. The last type was conducted after the stimulated recall to explore factors that might have had a bearing on the students’ decision making and criteria use. The student interview data were triangulated with data collected from teacher interviews, classroom observation and document analysis.
Data Analysis
All data were transcribed in full. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. To answer RQ1, a constant comparative analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was made of the teacher interviews and observation notes so that emerging themes about the teacher’s writing beliefs and classroom practice can be identified. Particularly concerning the teacher’s classroom practice, the recording of classroom observation (including teacher instruction, teacher oral feedback and student activities) was analyzed in terms of
instructional emphasis. Four categories of teaching focus were identified, including language focus, content focus, organization focus and management focus. The percentage of class time devoted to each focus during the 10-week observational period was then calculated (Table 2). To understand the teacher’s written feedback practice, teacher feedback was also analyzed to gauge its focus. Teacher feedback was divided into feedback points, including “symbols and marks in the margins, underlining of problems, and complete corrections, as well as more detailed comments and suggestions” (Hyland, 1998, p. 261). The teacher feedback points were then categorized into language, content and organization focus. The percentage of teacher feedback points reflecting each focus was calculated for each student’s writing for each task (Table 3).
To answer RQ2, quantitative analysis was made of the verbal-report data. Cumming, Kantor, and Powers’ (2002) coding scheme, originally developed to analyze raters’ decision-making behaviours in assessing ESL and EFL compositions, was adapted after being repeatedly applied to verbal-report data. Their coding scheme was adapted in the following ways: (1) Categories for examining interpretation behaviours were excluded, given this study’s focus on students’ evaluation behaviours. (2) The rhetorical and ideational focus of evaluation behaviours contained in the original coding scheme was divided into organization focus and content focus for the convenience of exploration. (3) Additional types of decision-making behaviours in evaluating student texts were included as they emerged from the data. The adapted coding scheme was employed to identify various types of decision-making behaviours displayed by students in evaluating peers’ texts (e.g., assessing sentence coherence, evaluating
quality of idea, considering vocabulary accuracy). The decision-making behaviours coded respectively from think-aloud protocols and stimulated recall were compared for triangulation.
To ascertain the students’ general orientations in decision-making, various types of decision-making behaviours enacted by each student for each task were first categorized into different foci, that is, language, content and organization. Then the percentage of decision-making behaviours reflecting the same focus (e.g., content focus) was calculated (e.g., Table 4). To examine the focus of each student’s decision-making within language, content and organization for each task, the percentage of each type of decision-making behaviours was also calculated, with the type of decision-making behaviours being further classified into language focus, content focus and organization focus (e.g., the percentage of clarity-related decision-making behaviours to the total, reflecting the content focus). An analysis revealed that the top two and sometimes the top three most frequently enacted decision-making behaviours within each category of language, content, and organization could best illustrate the students’ tendency to focus on specific aspects in decision-making for that category (e.g., Table 8). Based on the focus of students’ decision-making, their criteria use was then inferred.
In addition to the analysis of teacher beliefs and classroom practice mentioned earlier, a constant comparative analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was made of the student interviews. Categories were constructed and relations between categories were explored to infer the impact of teacher beliefs and classroom practice on the focus of students’ decision-making and criteria use.
Member checks and triangulation were utilized to enhance trustworthiness. In addition to seeking participants’ opinions on my interpretation arising from ongoing data analysis during interviews, two rounds of member-checking interviews were also carried out near the end of the course and one and a half years later respectively. Method triangulation (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), that is, data collected through a range of research methods, was also employed to contribute to the trustworthiness of this study. As a small-scale exploratory case study, the findings of this study cannot be generalized to other populations in other contexts. However, it is hoped that the readers can still make naturalistic generalization (Stake, 1995) depending on a comparison of the “sending and receiving contexts” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 316).
FINDINGS
In this section, I use data from the teacher and the six students to shed light on the two research questions. For the purpose of the study, I probe specifically into teacher and student beliefs about important qualities for good English expository writing and learning to write.
Teacher’s Writing Beliefs and His Classroom Practice
Although the teacher mentioned that his views of good writing were represented by the peer evaluation form, which accorded an almost equal weight to language, content and organization, one salient characteristic of his writing beliefs was the great emphasis placed on language for good student writing and learning to write, as evidenced
by the frequent mention of the sentence “Language is the most important for us Chinese learners of English.” in the interviews. Professor C explained:
In foreign countries in which English is the first language, it is reasonable to focus on content (in L1 writing instruction), because students have few problems with the English language, and then attention can be paid to the exploration of content. We are in an EFL setting, so the first thing to consider (in English writing instruction) is language .... In the Chinese EFL context, it is not groundless to say that it is more important to emphasize language than content, since one’s ultimate purpose is to learn English as a foreign language ... and the point is to improve one’s English language ability (also in English writing instruction). That’s the difference in focus due to different learning contexts. (interview 6)
Professor C appeared to believe in the crucial importance of language in English writing instruction because the top priority for Chinese EFL students was to learn the English language, and this was also the task of English writing instruction. Realizing that this focus on language in writing instruction differed from that in English-speaking countries (i.e., emphasis on content), he attributed this difference to different English learning contexts.
According to Professor C, accurate and effective language is equally important, but language accuracy was fundamental to good student writing and learning to write:
The basic requirement is language accuracy. It means that your grammar and vocabulary should be correct. This is fundamental. (interview 6)
At the same time, the teacher also believed in the important role of organization for good student writing and learning to write due to the difference in how Chinese and English essays are organized:
Chinese and English essays differ in organization. There are no strict rules or standard ways to organize Chinese essays while it is not the same case with English writing .... The students may not know this, so you have to sharpen their awareness of following a certain pattern, a certain way of organization in writing. If they follow the pattern, there won’t be any problems. (interview 6)
In addition, Professor C also mentioned that his views about qualities of good organization were represented by the “Organization” section of the peer evaluation form, which reflected the assessment criteria.
Regarding the teacher’s classroom practice, Table 2 presents the percentages of time allocated to language, organization, content and course management issues over the 10-week classroom observation. Almost equal weight seemed to be given to language and organization while less attention was directed to content. When it came to teacher written feedback, a far greater focus was on language, particularly language accuracy (see italicized percentages in Table 3), as embodied by grammatical and vocabulary accuracy, which corresponded with elements contained in “Language 3” section of the peer evaluation form. When we take into consideration both the teacher’s classroom instruction and written feedback practice, the results suggest that the teacher placed more emphasis on language and organization than content.
Table 2
Instructional Emphasis in Professor C’s Class
Focus Time spent (minutes) Time spent (percentages)
Language 285 37.2%
Organization 281 36.6%
Content 161 20.9%
Management 41 5.3%
Total 768 100%.0
Note. T1, Y1, D1, X1, C1 and Z1 respectively stand for teacher written feedback
received by Tan, Yu, Ding, Xiang, Chen and Zhu for the first illustration essay, while T2, Y2, D2, X2, C2 and Z2 stand for teacher written feedback received by them for the second illustration essay.
Table 3
Focus of Teacher Written Feedback on the Students’ Writing for the First Two Tasks
Focus of teacher written feedback T1 T2 Y1 Y2 D1 D2 X1 X2 C1 C2 Z1 Z2 Language % 85.7 90.9 100 83.3 100 92.9 100 90.9 100 91.7 94.7 100 Accuracy % 71.4 63.6 75 83.3 100 57.1 63.6 81.8 86.7 58.3 73.7 77.8 Organization % 14.3 9.1 0 0 0 0 0 9.1 0 8.3 0 0 Content % 0 0 0 16.7 0 7.1 0 0 0 0 5.3 0 Total number of teacher feedback points 7 11 4 6 9 14 11 11 15 12 19 27
In fact, classroom observations revealed that the teacher emphasized time and again that “Language is the most important.” in class. In almost every session, he devoted a considerable amount of time to “Language Awareness” section of the textbook to raise the students’ awareness of accurate and effective language use, covering various topics, including appropriate or sophisticated choice of
vocabulary, formality, common errors in English writing made by Chinese students, word variety, and so on. Teacher instruction covered all the concepts within “Language” of the evaluation form, except vocabulary range and sentence range. In particular, Professor C drew the students’ attention to language accuracy by providing them with examples of common mistakes made by Chinese students, including grammatical problems (e.g., article use, plural or singular form) and vocabulary problems (e.g., misuse of vocabulary). These issues corresponded with the components in “Language 3” of the evaluation form.
Language accuracy was also highlighted in the teacher’s oral and written feedback on the first two writing tasks. Regarding oral feedback on the first writing task, except commenting on how students applied the newly taught concepts associated with organization (e.g., thesis statement, topic sentence, unity), the teacher mainly focused on various grammatical mistakes (e.g., subject verb agreement, article use, use of preposition) and vocabulary problems (e.g., inappropriate choice of vocabulary). For the second writing task, the teacher concentrated mostly on language accuracy again, pointing out problems associated with tense, sentence structure, choice of words, and so on. In terms of written feedback, a textual analysis of feedback points received by the six students for the first two writing tasks suggested that there was a predominant focus on language (Table 3). While the teacher pointed out various problems within language (e.g., unsophisticated choice of vocabulary and word variety), what attracted great attention from him was language accuracy, as represented by the percentages of written feedback regarding this aspect (see Table 3).
Classroom observation also indicated that Professor C emphasized organization by teaching various concepts associated with it in almost every session of the class, including sentence coherence, thesis statement, topic sentence, unity, paragraph and essay structure, as well as different rhetorical modes such as illustration, cause-and-effect and comparison and contrast. Notably, he covered all the organization-related concepts contained in the peer evaluation form. Teacher oral and written feedback also touched upon organization, including topic sentence, unity, essay structure, and so on, especially in teacher oral feedback, but not to such a great extent as his focus on language, particularly language accuracy.
Compared with the teacher’s instructional focus on language, especially language accuracy, and organization, relatively less attention was devoted to the content of writing. Although different qualities of content were listed in the peer evaluation form (Appendix), classroom observation indicated that the teacher mainly covered one element of the “Content” section of the evaluation form in teaching, that is, development (while other components such as clarity, creativity and interest were not taught). In the teacher’s oral feedback, little attention was given to the content of student writing, except students’ use of different forms of support (e.g., use of examples or statistics) for content development. As shown in Table 3, the teacher also attached little importance to content in his written feedback. Literally no feedback was provided in response to the students’ ideas, although they discussed such challenging topics as advantages and disadvantages of globalization and modern men’s gullibility and superstition.
In short, with both classroom instruction (including teacher oral feedback) and teacher written feedback taken into account, the teacher seemed to place more emphasis on language and organization than content in his classroom practice. This instructional emphasis was basically consistent with his writing beliefs but not consistent with the balanced focus on content, organization and language in the evaluation form.
Influence of Teacher Beliefs and Classroom Practice on Focus of Decision-Making and Criteria Use
An analysis of think-aloud and stimulated recall data suggested that all the students focused on language across tasks, as indicated by the percentage of language-related decision-making behaviours in Table 4, except Yu’s decision-making for the illustration essay (see the shadowed percentage for Y1 in Table 4). Within language, each student devoted the greatest attention to language accuracy (i.e. grammatical and vocabulary accuracy) across the two tasks (including Yu) (see the italicized percentages in Table 4). Judging from the students’ general orientations in decision-making, except Yu’s decision-making for the illustration essay, all the other students seemed to display an under-use of the other assessment criteria such as content and organization.
Due to the exam-oriented writing instruction the students were exposed to in Senior Three, all the students except Yu believed strongly in the importance of language, especially language accuracy, as a basic quality of good English expository writing. For example, Tan pointed out:
Table 4
An Overview of General Orientations in Decision-Making across Students Focus of decision-making T1 T2 Y1 Y2 D1 D2 X1 X2 C1 C2 Z1 Z2 Language % 61.7 81.3 46.2 78.6 70.5 84.4 55 53.5 69 75 74.2 51.9 Accuracy % 38.3 53.1 31.2 69.7 42.8 57.7 27 46.5 39.4 45.8 19.4 22.2 Content % 17.3 5.2 37.7 14.3 14.3 5.6 25 30.2 24 18.7 22.6 22.2 Organization % 21 13.5 16.1 7.1 15.2 10 20 16.3 7 6.3 3.2 25.9 Total number of decision-making behaviours 81 96 93 56 105 90 100 43 71 48 31 27
Note. T1, Y1, D1, X1, C1 and Z1 respectively stand for decision-making by Tan,
Yu, Ding, Xiang, Chen and Zhu for the second illustration essay, while T2, Y2, D2, X2, C2 and Z2 stand for their decision-making for the cause-and-effect essay.
As an English learner myself, I think the top priority is that there should not exist any wrong usage of words or sentence errors (in writing). (Tan, baseline interview)
Tan’s opinion was shared by Ding, Xiang, Chen and Zhu. These students also pointed out the importance of language, particularly language accuracy for learning to write. Viewed in this light, students’ writing beliefs about which aspect(s) assumed the greatest importance for good writing and learning to write seemed to exert a strong influence on their language-oriented decision-making, with the attention devoted to accuracy accounting for about half of language-related decision-making behaviours, as indicated by Tan, Ding, Xiang and Chen (Table 4). The students’ writing beliefs also contributed to
their under-use of the criteria associated with content and organization.
Since the teacher believed strongly in the crucial role of language, language accuracy in particular, and placed heavy emphasis on this aspect in teaching and feedback, such beliefs and practice also seemed to play a part. For example, Ding mentioned:
I think what Professor C emphasizes is still language ..., and he does not focus on content .... My feeling is that what we should focus on in providing peer feedback is not content, but language. (Ding, post stimulated-recall interview for cause-and-effect essay)
Xiang also acknowledged the important role of language accuracy:
Since this course accords the greatest attention to language accuracy, I will naturally pay the greatest attention to it in evaluating my peers’ texts. (Xiang, member-checking interview)
Ding and Xiang seemed to realize that their teacher valued language, especially language accuracy the most, which made them decide to focus on language and language accuracy respectively in evaluating peers’ texts, and they consequently demonstrated an under-use of the content-and-organization-related criteria.
Moreover, the students with a high (i.e., Tan, Yu) or intermediate (i.e., Ding) level of English writing proficiency all reported that teacher instruction and feedback sensitized them to the importance of particular element(s) of organization for writing. For instance, as revealed by the interview data, Tan originally held the
belief about the important role played by sentence coherence in constituting good English expository writing based on her test preparation and test-taking experiences of the TWE. Talking about teacher influence on this belief, she recalled:
Professor C also said in class that it was undesirable if one particular sentence was unrelated to the previous or the next one, so I was still reminded about its importance…When he commented on our essays in class, he would point out this problem if it occurred. (Tan, follow-up of baseline interview)
As shown by this quote, teacher instruction and oral feedback seemed to reinforce Tan’s belief associated with sentence coherence, since she “was still reminded about its importance.”
In fact, Tan consistently devoted the greatest attention to sentence coherence in her decision-making within organization across tasks (see Table 5). Given that coherence, which encompassed both sentence and discourse coherence according to the teacher’s explanation, was one component of the assessment criteria, Tan apparently also applied this concept to peers’ writing. Here Tan’s original beliefs about the importance of sentence coherence for good writing influenced the focus of her decision-making and criteria use. Moreover, the teacher’s instruction and feedback and his organization-related writing belief also played a role by reinforcing Tan’s original beliefs.
Like Tan, Ding also believed that sentence coherence was one important component of good writing. The importance attached to it could be traced to the TOEFL cramming course he attended in the
Table 5
Tan’s Focus of Decision-Making within Organization across Tasks
Illustration essay Cause-and-effect essay Sentence coherence: 8.6% Sentence coherence: 6.3% Organization: 21% Organization: 14.6%
tutorial school before the current writing course. Ding mentioned the respective influence of the cramming course and current teacher instruction on his view about sentence coherence:
Link between sentences was often stressed in the TOEFL training course about writing (in the tutorial school) .... That’s why I think coherence between sentences is important. On the other hand, Professor C has talked about this in our writing class, so I find it very important. (Ding, post stimulated-recall interview for the illustration essay)
According to Ding, the TOEFL cramming course and current teacher instruction played different roles in affecting his belief about the importance of sentence coherence. While the former helped to shape such a belief, the latter reinforced it, and he found it “very important.”
As shown by the percentages of coherence-related decision-making behaviours for Ding in Table 6, sentence coherence also became the most evaluated aspect within organization, which was one element of the assessment criteria. Similar to Tan’s case, Ding’s own belief about sentence coherence as well as the teacher’s beliefs and instruction appeared to impact on his decision-making and criteria use.
Table 6
Ding’s Focus of Decision-Making within Organization across Tasks
Illustration essay Cause-and-effect essay Sentence coherence: 5.7% Sentence coherence: 3.3% Organization: 15.2% Organization: 10%
Yu originally believed in the significance of good organization for English expository writing due to the mutual influence of her somewhat unsuccessful experience of taking TWE and news writing training she had received as a journalism major. Talking about current teacher instruction, Yu pointed out:
I think I know implicitly that it is the right thing to do to organize my English writing well, but I won’t apply it to my own writing. However, if someone (Professor C) emphasizes that again and again, you come to know that it is really the right thing to do. (Yu, member checking interview)
As illustrated by this quote, Yu acknowledged that she already knew the importance of good organization for writing, and the teacher’s repeated emphasis of its significance in class further confirmed and reinforced such a belief.
In Yu’s opinion, good organization encompassed well-organized overall structure and logical organization, with the latter being represented by the existence of the topic sentence, thesis statement, paragraph unity and thesis statement supported by topic sentences. Most of these components of good organization as believed by Yu actually corresponded with several organization-related
concepts in the evaluation form or assessment criteria taught by the teacher. For example, well-organized overall structure coincided with paragraphing while logical organization corresponded with topic sentence, thesis statement and paragraph unity. This could possibly explain why Yu’s belief was reinforced by the teacher’s organization-related instruction, which was closely linked with his writing belief.
It turned out that Yu attached the greatest importance to logical organization (i.e., topic sentence, thesis statement, link between the two and unity) and overall well-organized structure for the illustration essay and cause-and-effect essay respectively (Table 7), two aspects of good organization believed by her to contribute to good writing. Considering that all the components of logical organization (except link between topic sentence and thesis statement) and overall well-organized structure corresponded with particular elements of the assessment criteria, Yu seemed to have utilized part of the organization-related criteria in decision-making. Here Yu’s original belief about good organization appeared to affect her focus of decision-making and criteria use within organization. At the same time, teacher influence also seemed to play a role, in that the teacher’s instruction, possibly arising from his own beliefs, reinforced Yu’s original organization-related belief.
Xiang, the other student with an intermediate level of English writing proficiency, talked explicitly about the influence of teacher instruction on her decision-making:
If I remember it, I’ll pay attention to what the instructor has taught in class. For example, for this illustration essay, I cared a lot about whether there was
Table 7
Yu’s Focus of Decision-Making within Organization across Tasks
Illustration essay Cause-and-effect essay
Logical organization: 9.7% Overall structure well-organized: 3.6%
Organization:16.1% Organization: 7.1%
a topic sentence or thesis statement, so that’s the influence of classroom instruction. (Xiang, post stimulated recall interview for the illustration essay)
As illustrated by this quote, teacher instruction about the topic sentence and thesis statement seemed to bear a direct impact on Xiang’s decision-making for the illustration essay. It turned out that Xiang paid the greatest attention to topic sentences within organization for this essay while the thesis statement constituted the third most considered area (Table 8).
Xiang further used the word “internalize” to describe the impact of teacher influence:
I think I have also internalized the qualities of good English expository writing taught by the teacher. This just happens if I agree with what he says. (Xiang, post stimulated recall for the cause-and-effect essay)
In Xiang’s opinion, she absorbed what the teacher taught about good English expository writing as long as she identified with them. This seemed to be the most obvious in the construction of her views about the importance of organization. While its significance was not mentioned in the baseline interview, Xiang did articulate the importance of “basic elements” of organization before evaluating the
illustration and cause-and-effect essay respectively, such as link between sentences; the existence of the thesis statement and topic sentence; well-organized paragraph structure and good overall structure. Seen in this light, the teacher’s organization-related instruction, closely related to his writing beliefs, appeared to help construct Xiang’s beliefs about the importance and qualities of good organization.
As suggested by Table 8, the “basic elements” of organization attracted great attention from Xiang in her decision-making within organization. For the illustration essay, the top three most evaluated aspects within organization all belonged to the “basic elements” of organization. For the cause-and-effect essay, the limited number of aspects considered within organization was all listed in Table 8. As perceived by Xiang, except effectiveness of conclusion and link between thesis statement and topic sentence, the other elements also belonged to the “basic elements” of good organization. In fact, except paragraph structure, the “basic elements” of organization evaluated by Xiang all coincided with specific components of the assessment criteria, indicating Xiang’s partial use of the organization-related criteria in decision-making.
To sum up, Xiang’s case shows that the teacher’s organization-related beliefs and instruction helped shape her beliefs about the significance and qualities of good organization, which impacted on the focus of her decision-making and criteria use within organization across tasks.
Unlike Xiang, Chen and Zhu, the two students with a low level of English writing proficiency, were not so explicit about teacher influence on the focus of their decision-making within organization.
Table 8
Xiang’s Focus of Decision-Making within Organization across Tasks
Illustration essay Cause-and-effect essay Topic sentence: 5% Thesis statement: 4.7%
Paragraph structure: 3% Overall structure well-organized: 4.7% Link between sentences: 3% Link between sentences: 2.3%
Thesis statement: 2% Effectiveness of conclusion: 2.3%
Link between thesis statement and topic sentence: 2.3%
Organization: 20% Organization: 16.3%
However, it is worth noting that they evaluated a limited number of organization-related aspects across tasks, as indicated by Tables 9 and 10 respectively. In Chen’s case, despite the small amount of attention paid to organization across tasks, all the elements he considered within it had been taught by the teacher before his evaluation of peers’ writing. In Zhu’s case, except his evaluation of whether ideaswere fully supported for the cause-and-effect essay, which was probably related to his belief about the important role of appropriate support for good writing, the other aspects evaluated within organization had also been taught in class. Since the two students did not express their beliefs about the importance and qualities of good organization in the baseline interviews, and organization was rarely emphasized in high school English writing instruction as reported by Chen and Zhu, it was likely that the teacher’s beliefs and instruction associated with organization impacted on their organization-related decision-making. Given that all the aspects evaluated by Chen within organization coincided with particular components of the assessment criteria and that thesis statement and topic sentence evaluated by Zhu
corresponded with specific elements in the criteria, it appears that the two students applied part of the criteria associated with organization. In this sense, organization-related teacher beliefs and practice also appeared to affect the two students’ criteria use in evaluating peers’ texts.
Table 9
Chen’s Focus of Decision-Making within Organization across Tasks
Illustration essay Cause-and-effect essay
Link between sentences: 2.8% Link between body paragraphs: 4.2% Thesis statement: 1.4% Thesis statement: 2.1%
Overall structure well-organized: 1.4% Topic sentence: 1.4%
Organization: 7% Organization: 6.3%
Table 10
Zhu’s Focus of Decision-Making within Organization across Tasks
Illustration essay Cause-and-effect essay Thesis statement: 3.2% Effective introduction: 7.4%
Effective conclusion: 7.4%
Topic sentence: 7.4%
Ideas not fully supported: 3.7% Organization: 3.2% Organization: 25.9%
DISCUSSION
This study explored one teacher’s writing beliefs and classroom practice as well as the impact of his beliefs and practice on the focus of six Chinese EFL students’ decision-making and criteria use during
criterion-referenced peer review. With reference to the first research question, although the teacher claimed that his beliefs about good writing were embodied by the peer evaluation form, he seemed to believe more in the crucial significance of language, especially accurate use of grammar and vocabulary, and the importance of organization for good writing and learning to write. This contradiction in his writing beliefs could possibly be explained by the distinction between beliefs that have been fully internalized to the extent of mediating classroom actions and those that have not (Alanen, 2003). When we take into consideration the teacher’s instructional emphasis, his claimed beliefs about good writing as reflected by the peer evaluation form seemed to remain to be “content items” of knowledge that could not mediate his classroom actions (Alanen, 2003), while his beliefs about the importance of language and organization seemed to be fully internalized to contribute to his instructional focus on these two aspects. Since the second type of writing beliefs (i.e. beliefs about the significance of language and organization) mediated the teacher’s classroom behaviours, it was not surprising that his instructional emphasis was consistent with such beliefs. The consistence between the two supports Yang’s (2010) finding about the correspondence between instructional focus displayed by the Chinese EFL writing teachers in her study and their respective writing beliefs.
With reference to the second research question, the teacher’s language-and-accuracy-oriented classroom practice, congruent with his writing beliefs, contributed to all the students’ except Yu’s tendency to focus on language across the two writing tasks as well as their under-use of the other assessment criteria such as content and organization. His beliefs and practice related to organization were
found to influence the students’ writing beliefs by either reinforcing their original beliefs (i.e., Tan, Yu, Ding) or helping them construct new ones (i.e., Xiang), with the affected beliefs impacting on the focus of their decision-making and criteria use. Teacher beliefs and practice also directly influenced the focus of students’ decision-making and criteria use (i.e., Chen, Zhu). In particular, how teacher beliefs and practice affected student beliefs corroborates previous research findings about the key role of teachers as “significant others” in reinforcement or construction of learner beliefs (Allen, 1996; Navarro & Thornton, 2011).
From the perspective of rationality (Tudor, 2001), teacher rationalities interacted with rationalities exhibited by the students and the “methodology” of criterion-reference peer review in the local context of the study to affect the students’ decision-making and criteria use. However, the institutional rationalities did not seem to exert a great influence because helping students to raise test scores of CET-4 or CET-6 by emphasizing writing accuracy was not a top priority of the university in which the study was carried out, and the teacher was given great autonomy to carry out his teaching. At the same time, the individual student rationalities regarding the great significance of language accuracy also seemed to be of a sociocultural nature. This was because the shaping influences on such rationalities could be traced to (1) the exam-oriented English writing instruction received by the individual students, and (2) the exam-oriented Chinese educational context the students were situated in (Qi, 2007). In this sense, teacher rationalities interacted with both the students’ individual rationalities and their sociocultural rationalities to impact
on the latter’s decision-making and criteria use. Such interaction was manifested in the study in several ways.
Firstly, teacher rationality associated with language, particularly language accuracy, interacted with student rationalities on the one hand and with methodological rationalities on the other. Since the accuracy-related writing beliefs held by all the students except Yu were similar to those held by the teacher, the interaction between the two was that of a correspondence. This could possibly explain why the students (e.g., Xiang, Ding) found it necessary to focus on language, especially language accuracy, in their decision-making, and their under-use of the other criteria. On the other hand, there seemed to be mismatches between the teacher and methodological rationalities. As mentioned earlier, although the teacher designed the peer evaluation form, which he claimed to reflect his own opinions of good writing, in-depth interview and observational data revealed discrepancies between his beliefs and related classroom practice on the one hand, and the views about good writing underlying the methodological rationality of criteria use on the other. The teacher’s beliefs about the importance of language accuracy for learning to write also differed from the methodological rationality of peer review, which underscored the significance of content and organization for learning to write. The mismatch among teacher, student and methodological rationalities described above could account for the gap between the intended learning outcomes, i.e. a balanced focus on content, organization and language in peer review (Hu, 2005; Min, 2005) as well as appropriate criteria use, and students’ actual behaviours.
Secondly, there seemed to be interplay between teacher and student rationalities related to organization on the one hand and between teacher and methodological rationalities on the other. When student rationalities (i.e., Tan’s and Ding’s beliefs about sentence coherence and Yu’s beliefs about good organization) resembled teacher rationality, the interaction between the two led to a correspondence or even teacher reinforcement of student beliefs. This could possibly explain why Tan, Yu and Ding underscored the organization-related elements in decision-making, which were considered to be important by both themselves and the teacher, and used the criteria partially. However, even when student rationality (i.e., Xiang’s original beliefs which did not highlight the importance of organization) differed from teacher rationality, the latter would interact with the former in such a powerful way that we witnessed the construction of “emerging beliefs” (Hosenfeld, 2003, p. 39) similar to teacher rationality. This interactional impact could account for why Xiang attended to elements associated with organization emphasized by the teacher in her decision-making and used part of the organization-related criteria. For Chen and Zhu, teacher rationality also interacted with the two students’ rationalities to help shape “emerging beliefs” related to organization, which then affected their decision-making and criteria use. However, precisely because of the emerging nature of such beliefs, only Xiang was able to articulate them explicitly. On the other hand, there appeared to be a match between teacher and methodological rationalities related to organization. As suggested by the interview and observational data, the teacher’s beliefs and classroom practice associated with organization were consistent with views about good organization
underlying the “methodology” of criteria use. The correspondence among teacher, student and methodological rationalities mentioned above could possibly explain certain similarity between the intended learning outcomes, i.e., actual criteria use, and the students’ partial use of organization-related criteria.
The ways in which teacher rationalities interacted with student and methodological rationalities, as discussed in the above, indicate how teacher beliefs (and related classroom practice) could contribute to the students’ decision-making and criteria use. For instance, due to the mismatch among teacher, student and methodological rationalities, all the students except Yu displayed an over-focus on language in decision-making, which also reflected an under-use of the other criteria. This mismatch not only led to the gap between the intended learning outcomes and students’ actual behaviours, but also led to insufficient benefits for both student writers and student reviewers. For student writers, their reviewers’ over-focus on language might not be helpful for subsequent peer-influenced revisions. For student reviewers, an under-use of the other criteria in evaluating peers’ texts might not be able to prepare them for effective self-evaluation. In contrast, owing to a certain degree of correspondence among teacher, student and methodological rationalities concerning organization, the students’ partial use of the organization-related criteria was likely to enable them to become familiar with these criteria for self-evaluation. As one can see, when discrepancy among teacher, student and methodological rationalities existed, teacher rationality seemed unable to maximize the benefits of criterion-referenced peer review. When teacher rationality was compatible with student and
methodological rationalities, however, criterion-referenced peer review was more likely to reap maximum benefits.
Therefore, it is important to examine the compatibility among teacher, student and methodological rationalities. To do this, the teacher needs to compare his rationalities with methodological rationalities on the one hand, and student rationalities and methodological rationalities on the other. For example, the teacher needs to dialogue with his students to understand student rationalities thoroughly, such as the priority given by them to language accuracy, and to compare student and methodological rationalities to identify any disparity between the two. If any mismatch among the three types of rationalities is revealed, there might be a discrepancy between the intended and actual learning outcomes. The ideal solution seems to lie in the teacher’s efforts to achieve compatibility among the three. The dynamic nature of beliefs as demonstrated in this study suggests the possibility of doing so. That said, it can be argued that mismatch among rationalities is bound to exist in reality and it might not be easy to reconcile the incompatibility. Seen from a critical perspective (e.g., Liu, 2008), the mutual influence of the rationalities held by both the teacher and the students suggests that they can use their writing beliefs to exercise agency and negotiate with the methodological rationalities. When a teacher introduces a new pedagogical activity into his/her classroom such as peer review, he/she should consider the role of teacher and student rationalities, be open-minded about his/her own negotiation as well as his/her students’ negotiation with peer review based on their respective rationalities, and finally find ways to capitalize on teacher’s and students’ agency (as a function of their
beliefs) to facilitate the students’ learning to write through peer review.
CONCLUSION
This study explored one teacher’s writing beliefs and classroom practice as well as the impact of his beliefs and practice on the focus of six selected Chinese EFL students’ decision-making and extent of criteria use in peer review. The teacher’s beliefs and practice constituted an important source of influence on the students’ decision-making and criteria use by reinforcing their original beliefs, helping shape new ones or exerting a direct influence. From the perspective of rationality (Tudor, 2001), the compatibility among teacher, student and methodological rationalities emerged as an important issue to consider with regard to the effect of teacher influence on students’ learning to write through criterion-referenced peer review and on the full realization of its theoretical potential. In implementing criterion-referenced peer review, writing teachers may embrace the idealism of achieving compatibility among teacher, student and methodological rationalities. Yet, from a critical perspective (e.g., Liu, 2008), it is also important for teachers to take into consideration local realities by seeking ways to utilize teacher and learner agency stemming from teacher and student beliefs. Therefore, when it comes to teacher’s implementation of peer review, a balance between idealism and realism seems to be very much needed (Casanave, 2009). This exploratory case study represented an attempt to understand teacher influence, particularly teachers’ writing beliefs and practice, on students’ “learning outcomes” in criterion-referenced peer review
from the perspective of rationality (Tudor, 2001). Future studies may examine teacher influence on students’ learning to write in other newly-introduced pedagogical activities in other contexts and from alternative perspectives.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jingjing Ma received her PhD degree from the University of Hong Kong. She is currently teaching at Hang Seng Management College, HK. Her area of interests includes second language writing and formative assessment.
