Exploring Pre-Service English Teachers’ Feedback Literacy in Continuation Writing: A Qualitative Study

Recent years have witnessed increasing interest in teacher feedback literacy, yet little research has investigated the feedback literacy of pre-service teachers (PSTs). Given that pre-service training can serve as the foundation for their future feedback practice in educational settings, this paper fills this research gap based on a qualitative study of the characteristics of pre-service English teachers’ feedback on student writing and their feedback literacy changes. Drawing upon data from ten PSTs’ written feedback on 96 continuation writing drafts and three focal participants’ responses from three rounds of open-ended surveys and retrospective interviews, findings show that the PSTs tended to provide language-error-focused feedback and supplement it with positive and suggestive comments. Data analysis of the three focal participants revealed that individual PSTs’ feedback literacy was manifested in three dimensions (i.e., design, relational, and pragmatic), and it could progress, fluctuate, or decline in practice. Findings are discussed regarding PSTs’ feedback characteristics in continuation writing, and how their feedback literacy would change on a multi-dimensional continuum. This study concludes with implications for initial teacher education and research on teacher feedback literacy.