Palestinian University Writing Professors' Feedback Practices and Students' Reactions towards them

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to identify feedback practices Palestinian university professors frequently use and to assess whether they are aware or unaware of the soundness of these practices. The study also investigates Palestinian university students' reactions towards their teachers' feedback practices. The researchers prepared two questionnaires to gather the data; the first addresses teachers' use of feedback practices and the soundness or unsoundness of these practices, whereas the other collects information from students on the frequency of their teachers' use of feedback practices and if they liked or disliked these practices. Two different samples of 26 university professors and 310 English majoring students from different universities in Palestine were included. The results of the study showed that Palestinian university writing professors are aware of the educational soundness of the majority of feedback practices and use sound ones quite often. Their students mostly agree with their teachers' responses. Nevertheless, some discrepancies exist between teachers' responses and their students' reactions towards certain practices. Moreover, students indicated that they liked most of their teachers' practices, particularly the sound ones. Surprisingly, students sometimes showed that they approved certain unsound practices. Students’ gender proved to be an effective factor in their approval of their teachers' feedback practices..