Online peer feedback patterns of success and failure in argumentative essay writing

Abstract

In peer feedback literature, little is known about the patterns of success for peer feedback activities in online learning environments. This study aims to explore the peer feedback patterns of successful, less successful, and unsuccessful higher education students for argumentative essay writing. In this exploratory study, 330 higher education students were asked to perform three tasks in three consecutive weeks. In the first week, they were asked to write an argumentative essay. In the second week, students provided two sets of feedback on their peers’ argumentative essays based on the given criteria. In the third week, students were asked to revise their argumentative essay based on the received feedback. The findings revealed that unsuccessful and less successful students significantly received more affective and descriptive feedback from their peers, while successful students received more feedback related to the identification of the problem from their peers. Furthermore, descriptive and constructive features of feedback were predictors of students’ success in the improvement of argumentative essay writing. The findings of this study provide practical implications for the effective design of peer feedback strategies for improving students’ argumentative essay writing in online learning environments.