Research Digest
Research into Corrective Written
Feedback: An EFL Teacher’s
Perspective
Darby McGrath
Kwansei Gakuin University
This paper focuses on four important questions regarding written corrective feedback (CF),and to what extent the research can help us to answer these questions. The conclusion is thatthe research has yet to offer compelling reasons for writing teachers to adopt any particularapproach to CF, beyond a broad indication that some CF is better than no CF, and thatstudents are better served by feedback that identifies the type of error they have madethan by less direct feedback. Beyond this, we know very little about what kinds of written
feedback and how much feedback is most effective. There are two reasons for this. First, what
researchers mean when they talk about corrective feedback is so varied that it is difficult todiscern a consistent pattern of what approach to feedback works best. Furthermore, recent
research has become so limited in scope that it is of little practical value to teachers andstudents. For research into CF to inform teaching practices in any meaningful way, these
two factors will need to be addressed.
この論文では、添削に纏わる修正を促すフィードバック（CF）に関する4つの大きな疑問について、どの程度学術研究がこの疑問に答えてくれているのかについて論述しています。結論としては、学術研究は、これが最も有効なCFであるといったものを提示せず、ライティングの教師たちにCFをしないよりも、したほうが良い。また、学習者には間違えの場所だけを教える
よりも、どのような間違いをしているのかを提示するほうがいいといった広域な示唆を与える以外には、どのような添削を行えば良いのか、どれくらいのフィードバックが学習者にとって一番有効なのかといったことについてはあまりふれられていないのが現状です。これには二つ理由があります。一つ目は、研究者達がCFについて述べるとき、修正すべき間違えが多様すぎ、これが全ての間違えに対して一番有効であるといった一貫した方法を提示する

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ことが難しいということがあげられます。二つ目に、近年の研究では、ある一つのことに焦点を当てすぎており、実際の教室ではあまり実践性をもてないということがあげられます。実際に使える修正を促すフィードバック、CFを研究するためにはこの二つが改善される必要があるのではないのでしょうか。

Since Truscott’s (1996) paper calling for the abandonment of written corrective
feedback (CF), there has been disagreement over the efficacy of CF. At issue isthe question of whether CF has any positive effect on students’ long-term writing
accuracy. It is arguably one of the more important unresolved questions for EFL
writing teachers. Instructors in many contexts spend dozens of hours every year
giving CF with the assumption that it will be beneficial. Students are also asked
to devote substantial time attending to this feedback. As Truscott points out(1996; 1999), if CF is ineffective, this represents a tremendous waste of timeand resources. It is therefore in the interests of stakeholders that we develop agreater understanding of the following questions surrounding written corrective
feedback.

Is Some Corrective Feedback Better than No
Feedback at All?
In 1996 Truscott claimed that “None of the studies that purportedly support
the practice of grammar correction actually do so” (p. 341). This was based on
two issues. First, he makes the valid point that the early studies in support ofthe efficacy of CF made no effort to measure learning. These papers only lookedat the effects of CF on revisions of existing texts, not the extent to which CF
brought about gains in accuracy in new texts. Two examples of this are Fathman
and Whalley’s (1990) study of 72 U.S. university students and Haswell’s (1983)
study of 24 U.S. university students. In both studies the treatment groups showed
an increase in accuracy in revised drafts after receiving CF. The limitation hereis that this is uncontroversial and not particularly useful. Even Truscott (1996,1999) accepts that CF contributes to accuracy in revisions. The more interestingquestion is whether the effect lasts for any length of time. None of the early107

McGrathstudies points to a longer-term effect on written accuracy based on CF. Semke(1984), Robb, Ross, and Shortreed (1986), Kepner (1991), and Sheppard (1992)
all found no significant effect for written CF in new writing tasks. At this point
Truscott’s case looks conclusive: the evidence we have for an effect for CF on
written accuracy is only for text revisions, and there is no evidence for long-term
gains.
Proponents of CF, however, take a different view. Ferris (2004) and Bitchener,
Young, and Cameron (2005) point out the that studies showing no effect for CF
from this time all lack a control group. Without adequate controls as a point ofcomparison, it is difficult to draw any conclusions about what effect any feedback
technique has. The implication is that the pre-1996 studies indicating no longterm effects from CF were too flawed to inform any conclusions.
Truscott’s (1996) second point is that CF is inherently implausible as alearning tool. The primary reason he gives for this is that written CF is not andcannot be sensitive to developmental sequences in grammar acquisition. He
suggests that any learning that extends from CF is at best “pseudolearning.”
Truscott’s point here is intuitively appealing, but the important question is theextent to which later research supports his concerns. Since 1996, the research has
tended to be more rigorous. In that time, all notable studies bar one (Truscott &Hsu, 2008) have supported the efficacy of CF to some degree. This is significant,but much of the evidence is somewhat equivocal. Many of these studies still haveproblems with methodology or generalisability.
Guénette (2007) argued that it is often difficult to make sense of what thedata from CF research say because of the variations in methodology that are
employed. She makes four important points. First, the research has often failed
to account for student variation, in particular L2 proficiency. There is a leasta suspicion that L2 proficiency will play some part in a student’s capacity tointernalise CF. Second, it has often failed to make use of adequate control groups,
so we can not always be sure of what is being measured. In addition, research hasoften not controlled for variation between the classroom activities to which thetreatment and control groups are exposed. Finally, she also pointed to a need formore longitudinal research if we are to make claims about the long-term benefits
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of CF.
Ferris and Roberts’ (2001) study of 72 university ESL students founda significant effect for CF when students were asked to self-edit their texts.
However, while this study was bolstered by the use of a genuine control group,
it primarily investigated the relative merits of explicit and non-explicit CF on
revision, not new texts. As such, it lacked a longitudinal element and cannot
be said to provide any evidence of long-term learning from written CF. Ferris(2004) later reiterated Guénette’s concern that a lack of longitudinal studies had
undermined the research base.
Chandler (2003) investigated the effects of CF on the writing of 31 Asianstudents at an American conservatory. She found significant effects for CF on
new work written weeks after the treatment. Although this is promising, thestudy unfortunately lacked an adequate control group, which makes it difficult tobe confident of what was measured.
Bitchener et al. (2005) also found a significant effect for CF on both shortterm revision and longer-term learning. However, this study clearly contravenes
Guénette’s call to limit the variation in classroom activities between treatment
and control groups. In this study, the two treatment groups received either 20 or
10 hours of intensive instruction per week. The control group received only four.
Not only does this equate to a difference of nearly 200 classroom hours over the
12 weeks of the study, but because the students chose which class to attend, there
is at least a suspicion that less motivated students would have chosen the shorter,
4-hours-a-week class, and thus formed the lower-performing control group.
Truscott and Hsu (2008) published the one notable study since 1996 thatfinds no significant effect for CF on learning. However, Truscott makes theunsupported claim that there is no substantive difference between different typesof feedback. For this study, he and Hsu limited the feedback to implicit CF in theform of underlined errors only, an approach which places the onus on students
to both identify and repair their errors, and is seldom employed in recent CF
research. A second criticism that has been made of this study is that it likely
suffered from a ceiling effect, whereby there was very little room for students toimprove in their second piece of writing because they performed so well in the109

McGrathfirst (Bruton, 2009; Bitchener & Ferris, 2012).
Another study from Bitchener (2008) is among the first significant studiesof CF not to fall foul of Guénette’s (2007) objections. In a study of 75 students
at two New Zealand language schools, Bitchener (2008) found that the accuracyof the students who received CF outperformed controls and that “this level of
performance was retained two months later” (p. 102). However, this study has
a focus that undermines its value to teachers. Bitchener’s article signalled the
beginning of a trend of highly selective CF research that evaluated CF in terms of
its effect on only one language point. For example, Sheen (2007), Bitchener andKnoch (2008), Sheen, Wright, and Moldowa (2009), Farrokhi and Sattarpour(2012), and Shintani and Ellis (2013) have also published recent articles whichshow an effect for CF on accuracy in the use of a single language point. All fiveof these articles limited their investigation to students’ use of articles in writing.
From a teacher’s perspective, there is some question of how useful such a limited
focus is. Three of the papers (Bitchener, 2008; Bitchener & Knoch, 2008; Shintani& Ellis, 2013) also broadened the definition of CF to include metalinguistic
feedback. In the cases of Bitchener (2008) and Bitchener and Knoch (2008), thisfeedback even included extensive oral elements. This is not cause to doubt thefindings, but this is clearly leaving the realm of written CF and is perhaps moving
beyond what can be expected of most teachers in real-world contexts.
One recent piece of CF research was called by Ellis and Shintani (2014) “oneof the best studies carried out to date” (p. 268). Van Beuningen, De Jong, andKuiken (2012) investigated the effectiveness of CF on post-test accuracy in Dutch
high school students. Where this departed from many of the more recent studies
is that it investigated comprehensive feedback (i.e., CF for all errors), somethingwhich arguably adds to its real-world relevance. It also found a significant lasting
effect for CF on accuracy.
At this point we can say that the literature points at some effect for written CF
on accuracy in student writing. Since 1996, only one significant study (Truscott& Hsu, 2008) has contradicted this. However, some uncertainty remains overthe extent to which the research supports an approach to CF that is feasible inreal-world settings. A number of the studies are methodologically flawed, while
110Research into Corrective Written Feedback, OnCUE Journal, 8(2), pages 106-116

others limit the range of feedback to a degree that would not be useful in aclassroom setting. Some of the studies even purport to show an effect from CF
when in fact what they measure is CF plus extensive oral feedback. The issue isalso significantly more complex than simply a question of whether CF works. CF
takes many different forms, all of which can affect uptake in different ways.

What Types of Corrective Feedback Should Be
Used?
There are two main considerations here. The first is reasonably straightforward:whether implicit CF (in which the student is made aware of an error, but not whatkind of error it is) or explicit CF (in which the type of error is identified) is more
effective. Of the major studies published since 1996, the only one which focusedentirely on implicit feedback was also the only study to find no effect for CF
on learning (Truscott & Hsu, 2008). One other study (Chandler, 2003) foundthat implicit feedback (underlined errors only) had a greater long-term effectthan explicit feedback (underlined errors with codes identifying error types). Allof the others looked at either explicit feedback only or compared explicit andimplicit CF and found explicit to be superior. On this point the research seems
clear: most of the evidence points to the value of explicit feedback over implicit
feedback.
Less clear is the question of direct feedback (in which the student is suppliedwith the correction) or indirect feedback (in which the student is given the error
type, but is expected to repair it herself ). Very little research has compared therelative merits of indirect and direct CF, with most researchers investigating direct
CF only. Of two studies that have made the comparison, the effect on learning isinconclusive. Chandler (2003) found that direct feedback had a greater effect on
both revision and new writing, while Ferris (as cited in Bitchener & Ferris, 2012)
found that direct feedback had a greater effect on the accuracy of revision, whereas
indirect feedback was more beneficial to long-term learning. One possible reason
for Chandler’s findings is that students sometimes have difficulty understanding
the codes often used by teachers in indirect CF (Hyland, 1998). The questionof which type of feedback is more effective is important, as indirect CF is much111

McGrath

more time consuming for teachers and students, but at this point there has notbeen enough research into the matter for teachers to make a confident decision
either way.

How Much Corrective Feedback Should Be
Given?
Although this question has not received much attention, it makes intuitive sensethat too much corrective feedback may be confusing and dispiriting for students.
On the other hand, if teachers elect to focus on a small number of language
points, how many are still too many? Additionally, how are teachers to decide
which are most useful to correct? The tendency in recent research has been to use
highly selective treatments.
Four recent studies have focused entirely on the treatment of articles in student
writing (Bitchener, 2008; Bitchener & Knoch, 2008; Farrokhi & Sattarpour,
2012; Shintani & Ellis, 2013). Although these studies seem to show an effectfor CF on learning, what they represent is so far removed from the classroom
reality that they are effectively useless for teachers. The suggestion of Ellis, Sheen,
Murakami, and Takashima (2008) that teachers simply treat a different language
point in each paper they set is no solution in contexts in which students only write
one or two papers a semester. For this reason, there is a need for more research
into comprehensive or semi-comprehensive CF that treats most or all tokens ofmany or all types of grammatical errors. Such treatments have been found, in the
Van Beuningen et al. study (2012), to have a significant effect. It is tempting toagree with Van Beuningen et al. when they state that “most important to us is
the fact that the comprehensive approach most closely resembles the correction
method used in actual teaching practice” (p. 6). In recent years, too little of theresearch has taken this approach.

Can Corrective Feedback Have a Negative Effecton Students’ Writing?
One of Truscott’s (1996, 1999) less examined claims is the notion that CF canbe counter-productive: that it can can have a negative impact on student writing.
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One reason he suggests this is that CF makes students fearful of making mistakes,
so they avoid complex language in which errors are more likely, and they write less.
Truscott makes reference to three earlier works which appear to provide evidence
for this (Sheppard, 1992; Semke, 1984; Kepner, 1991). However there has been
little investigation of this in the past 20 years. Chandler (2003) found no negative
effect for CF on written fluency, although her lack of a genuine control group
undermines the reliability of this claim. Van Beuningen et al. (2012) found noeffect for CF on grammatical complexity or on lexical complexity. This is the best
recent evidence we have for or against Truscott’s claim. We are left with on the
one hand an intuition that CF has a “chilling” effect on complexity in students’
writing, and on the other a single robust study indicating otherwise. There is aneed for further research to clarify this.

Conclusion
Since 1996 a majority of the research has suggested that some CF is probably
better than no CF at all, and that explicit feedback is probably more effective
than implicit. Beyond this qualified statement, little is settled in any meaningful
sense. Much of the early research was of questionable validity. The methodologyof recent studies has improved, but their practical usefulness often has not.
Beginning with Bitchener (2008), much of the research has been concernedwith the treatment of a single error type. Some of these later positive studies haveeven added metalinguistic training and oral feedback into the mix. While thesestudies are theoretically significant, this approach bears very little resemblance towhat teachers can do in real contexts.
To become more useful, the research needs to follow the example set by Van
Beuningen et al. (2012). Not only should it be rigorous to satisfy Guénette’s(2007) call for controls and consistency, but the parameters need to be sufficiently
inclusive as to include the kinds of feedback that teachers can and do use, andstudents expect. If these standards become established, we will begin to have amuch better understanding not only of whether written CF is effective, but alsoof how much and what kinds of feedback to provide. Until such time, we willcontinue to offer written CF with no clear idea of how effective it is.
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Author Bio
Darby McGrath is an Associate Lecturer of English at the School of Policy Studies,
Kwansei Gakuin University, Hyogo. He has a Master of Applied Linguistics(TESOL) and is currently working on his Ph.D. His research interests include
academic writing and the bilingual mental lexicon. darbymcg@gmail.com

Received: February 2, 2015
Accepted: April 4, 2015

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