The Incorporation of Facebook-Based Peer Comments Into Writing Revisions: A Framework for Social-Network Peer Commentaries

Abstract

This study determined the degree to which students used peer feedback from Facebook to revise their writing papers and explored the students’ perspectives on a framework of using a social network for peer commentaries. The study enrolled two intact groups, 40 students in the control group and 32 students in the experimental group, at a university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The student’s initial and final drafts, peer reviews, and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. The results indicated that 45% of changes were made in response to peer reviews, while 55% were made solely on the basis of the student’s own judgments. Additionally, the overall number of revisions made by students was greater than the number of revisions caused by comments at higher levels such as “Clause,”“Sentence,” and “Paragraph.” Numerous previous studies refuted the current study’s results, raising questions for researchers/instructors considering using Facebook as a forum for their writing classes because the students become more responsible for developing their writing skills.