The interplay between feedback literacy and feedback engagement in writing tasks for multilingual higher education students

Understanding feedback is critical for students to cope with the complexities of multilingual development and transfer across languages. While it is crucial that students possess feedback literacy (FL) as a tool for engagement growth in writing, little is known about the predictive relationships between L1 FL, L2 FL, and L3 FL and the relationship between them and feedback engagement (FE). Therefore, this study aimed to address these identified research gaps. Data was collected using a questionnaire from 262 Chinese higher education students who majored in French-English language dual programs. Data was analyzed using SPSS 27.0 and AMOS. The results revealed that L1 FL predicted L2 FL, but it did not predict L3 FL. The study also found that L2 FL predicted L3 FL. Furthermore, it was found that L1 FL and L2 FL did not predict FE, whereas L3 FL did. Students' ability to understand feedback and its application mediated their participation and FE in learning, rather than being completely determined by FL established in their L1 and L2. This difference highlighted that L3 FL, on its own, might specifically influence how engaged students were in their learning.