The Effectiveness Of Indirect Focused And Indirect Unfocused Corrective Feedback In Improving The Accuracy Of First Year University Students Writing

The major objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of indirect focused versus indirectrnunfocused written corrective feedback in improving the accuracy of Ethiopian university level first yearrnstudents’ exemplification (expository) paragraphs. It also attempted to survey students’ and teachers’rnbeliefs about the importance of corrective feedback in improving writing accuracy, students’ preferencesrnfor receiving CF on their written grammar errors, students’ experiences of receiving CF, teachers’rnpractices of CF on their students’ written grammar errors, teachers’ beliefs about different CF types inrnimproving writing accuracy, and problems (if any) the teachers and students face when providing andrnreceiving CF on written grammar errors.rnTo achieve these objectives, data were gathered from questionnaires for both the students (N=60) andrntheir writing teachers(N=11) and from 3 paragraphs written by 52 students.rnResults from the students’ questionnaire indicated that all the students believed teacher CF to be of anrnimmense importance in improving the accuracy of their writings. To this effect, most of the studentsrnpreferred to have unfocused CF which they believed to be practiced most often by their writing teachers.rnBesides, a majority of the students preferred to have direct CF followed by a combination of direct andrnindirect CF and this again went in line with what they said was actually practiced by their writingrnteachers. It was also found that many students have been facing problems when they received theirrncompositions back with CF. The major problem was the fact that it has been difficult to understand theirrnteachers’ CF.rnResults from the teachers’ questionnaire also showed that the teachers greatly valued CF in improving thernaccuracy of their students’ writings. Most of the teachers believed that focused CF could be morerneffective than unfocused CF in improving the writing accuracy of their students. It was also found that thernteachers were most often employing focused CF. Moreover, it appeared that a majority of the teachersrnwere most frequently employing a combination of direct and indirect CF which they believed could bernmore effective in improving the accuracy of their students’ writings. Finally, it was indicated that all thernwriting teachers have been facing multi-dimensional problems when they were providing CF on theirrnstudents’ written grammar errors, the major problem being their students’ compositions were becomingrnfull of linguistic errors which has been frustrating for them even to start providing CF. The other problemrnindicated by the teachers was the fact that they were dealing with large class sizes; at times more than 70rnstudents in a class.rn2rnFrom both the questionnaires, it could be deduced that both the students and their writing teachersrnbelieved in the importance of CF on improving writing accuracy. However, there were some mismatchesrnin the students’ preferences and the teachers’ practices and in what the students perceived to be mostrnfrequently applied on their grammar errors and what the teachers themselves reported to practice. Forrnexample, the students believed that their teachers most often employed unfocused CF while the teachersrnreported that they most often applied focused CF. Besides, the students preferred to have unfocused CFrnwhere as the teachers believed that focused CF might be more effective.rnFrom the students’ compositions, it was found out that the students who received indirect focusedrnCF(IFCF) in the form of underlining errors and writing codes for that errors have shown a significantrnimprovement in their writing accuracy levels between the immediate post-test and the delayed post-testrnwhich were respectively written about a week and 5 weeks after the onset of the CF intervention process.rnIn addition, the students in this group have brought a significant improvement in their writing accuracyrnbetween the pre-test and the delayed post-test. Further, a comparison of the 3 means in the writingrnaccuracy levels of the students in this group has revealed that the IFCF has resulted in an overallrnsignificant improvement in the writing accuracy of these students throughout the CF intervention process.rnThe students in the unfocused CF group (IUFCFG), on the other hand, haven’t shown any significantrnimprovement in the accuracy of their writing between any of the writing occasions as well as across the 3rnwriting instances.

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