The Impact of Peer Feedback on L2 Literature Review Writing: A Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

Research on how peer feedback affects second language (L2) writing in higher education has been limited. This study examines the impact of peer feedback on revision and literature review writing in learners of Chinese as an L2 at a university in mainland China. The study analyzed feedback, revisions, and writing performance of 30 students. The quantitative analysis revealed that revision-oriented feedback had significantly positive effects on revision. Adopted-feedback-revision explained the gain score in the writing performance. The qualitative text analysis demonstrated that students paid unbalanced attention to the genre-specific characteristics of the literature review and the concreteness varied accordingly. Students valued peer feedback for improving comprehension, thinking skills, and audience awareness, especially when it identified issues with specific revision suggestions. This study contributes to the field by addressing how Chinese language learners benefited from peer feedback when writing literature review in higher education, which also has practical implications.