The Relative Effects of Giving Versus Receiving Comments on Students’ Revision in an EFL Writing Class

Current research on the relative effects of giving versus receiving peer comments on students’ revision has produced inconclusive results due to researchers’ inattention to topic difference. The study is aimed to complement extant literature by exploring the role of writing topic difference in the actual changes triggered by the comments students give versus those they receive and how these changes contribute to their revision amount, type, and quality in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing class. Sixteen students participated in reciprocal peer review where they produced and reviewed different topics in three essay assignments. They received the same peer review training and instructions on responding to peer feedback during revision. The results show that students made significantly more macrostructure meaning changes based on the directives they received than on those they gave for the first and third assignments. They also made significantly more microstructure and meaning-preserving changes based on the directives they received in all three assignments. The average score of revision triggered by the directives students received was significantly higher than that triggered by the directives they gave for the first and third assignments. The results overall demonstrate that receiving peer feedback was more beneficial than giving peer feedback on students’ revision. Possible reasons include irrelevance of given comments to self-writing, students’ inability to see the relevance of given comments to self-writing, and authentic revising tasks for students as receivers.