"It's Kind of Frustrating...": EFL Students' Affective Engagement with Supervisory Feedback

Despite the importance of supervisory feedback for students’ thesis writing, its effectiveness can be achieved only when the students actively engage with it. Focusing on students’ affective engagement, the review of literature revealed different patterns of engagement among students, which was caused by several factors. Studies on affective engagement with supervisory feedback within the context of thesis writing in undergraduate level were still limited. Thus, this study has been conducted with the aims to identify how EFL students engaged affectively with supervisory feedback and what might cause the engagement. Through case study that involved three participants, it has been found that all participants experienced various kinds of emotional responses, both positive and negative. What caused these responses include some problems due to participants’ expectations of supervisory feedback and their thoughts on supervisors’ expectations. Surprisingly, the participants highly appreciated and valued supervisory feedback despite their negative emotional responses and their expectations of feedback delivery. Their reliance on supervisory feedback, the value of thesis writing process, and the gratitude they had for the feedback were found out to be the factors underlying their attitudinal responses. The implications of these findings have been provided for both student writers and thesis supervisors.