The Effects of Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback: A 30-Week Study

Abstract

This study addresses several challenges in written corrective feedback (WCF) research. First, scholars have expressed concerns that although studies of focused WCF may benefit some classrooms and may help advance second language acquisition theory, they may not represent ecologically valid methods where comprehensive feedback may be more appropriate. Second, many focused WCF studies only report on learner performance within a narrow list of linguistic features, making it impossible for others to determine any secondary benefits or detriments of the treatment. Finally, many research studies of WCF have been of limited duration, making it difficult to identify longer-term effects of various WCF methods. Therefore, this study is an attempt to address these issues by examining the effects of dynamic WCF over a 30-week period. In addition to analyzing linguistic accuracy, this study examined the effects of dynamic WCF on rhetorical appropriateness, fluency, complexity, and vocabulary development over a 30- week period. While improvements in linguistic accuracy were observed for the treatment group when compared to a control group, no other differences were found. Implications for pedagogy and future research are discussed.