The Effect of Direct and Indirect Written Corrective Feedback on the Acquisition of Rule-Based and Item-Based Linguistic Features

One of the most important tasks for second language (L2) writing teachers is providing their students with corrective feedback (CF) on their writing (Hyland & Hyland, 2001). Teachers and students agree that written CF is both desirable and helpful (Goldstein, 2004). Recent research suggests that written CF has a positive effect on the acquisition of certain linguistic features. However, many questions related to written CF remain in need of further investigation including questions related to the impact of CF types on linguistic features. The current study investigated whether there exists a differential effect of direct and indirect CF on the acquisition of rule-based features (simple present) and item-based features (prepositions). It also examined one of the possible factors impacting the effectiveness of written CF, which is students preferences for CF types. Fifty students enrolled in an EFL writing class were divided into four groups. Each group received one of the following treatments: direct CF on simple present, indirect CF on simple present, direct CF on prepositions, or indirect CF on prepositions over three sessions. In this pretest/immediate posttest/delayed posttest design, students received written CF, revised writing tasks, and completed new tasks and tests. They also responded to a questionnaire exploring their preferences for different CF practices. Students accuracy scores in the writing tests were subjected to three-way mixed ANOVA to investigate whether there was a differential effect between direct and indirect CF on the target features. The questionnaire data were analyzed to examine the impact of students preferences on accuracy in writing. Results showed that simple present, a type of rule-based feature, responded better to indirect CF while prepositions, a type of item-based feature, responded better to direct CF. The analysis of the questionnaire data revealed that the students had different preferences in terms of how CF should be implemented, but no relationship was found between students preferences of direct and indirect CF and their performance in writing. The findings suggest that teachers should consider addressing different types of linguistic features through different types of CF and that teachers engage their students in discussion about the effectiveness of different CF types.