Peer Feedback and its impact on university students’ writing performance

Introduction: This study addresses issues in students’ academic writing by proposing peer feedback as a strategy to improve university students’ advanced (B1 - B2) academic writing skills. The intervention took place over a sixteen-week course at a private university in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Method: An action research was conducted, integrating quantitative (pre- and post-tests) and qualitative (questionnaire) instruments to determine if sixty freshman university students would improve their writing skills in terms of structure, fluency, and accuracy. Results: Students demonstrated improvement in their writing, with a Cohen’s d = 0.39. Students’ feedback reported both benefits and challenges in providing peer feedback. Conclusions: Despite limitations for both students and the teacher, peer feedback can be considered a strategy to raise students’ awareness of their own writing errors at advanced level. Other EFL teachers and coordinators can gain new insights from this study.