The impact of multi-level anonymity in asynchronous online peer feedback for EFL writing in higher education

Online Peer Feedback (OPF) is a proven and effective peer editing tool in EFL writing classrooms. However, the level of effectiveness varies depending the relationship between peer editors and on the available peer editing tools. This study investigates the impact of multi-level anonymity in asynchronous OPF by addressing two key objectives 1) to compare the effectiveness of multi-level anonymity in asynchronous OPF with and without teacher feedback intervention; and 2) to evaluate the quality of multi-level anonymity in asynchronous OPF compared to traditional teacher feedback. The study utilized a randomized pretest-posttest control group design. 62 first-year English major students from a mid-sized university in Thailand were randomly assigned to a control group of 31, and they received triple-anonymity asynchronous OPF together with teacher feedback. The experimental group of 31 received triple-anonymity asynchronous OPF without any teacher feedback. All participants completed a narrative paragraph writing task, which was used for data collection and analysis. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations. Two key findings emerged: 1) There was no significant difference in writing skill improvement between the experimental and control groups. Triple-anonymity asynchronous OPF with or without teacher feedback intervention are both practical peer assessment tools in EFL writing classrooms; and moreover, 2) there was a moderate positive correlation between peers and the teacher feedback in the experimental group. This indicates reliability of peer feedback in the triple-anonymity asynchronous OPF group without teacher intervention. These results suggest that the incorporation of triple-anonymity asynchronous OPF into writing instruction can develop students' writing skills and can enhance assessment methods in higher education EFL classrooms.