Summative Versus Formative Evaluation

Traditionally, assessment has been seen as a judgment on the final product, or summativeevaluation, as opposed to a constructive contribution to a work in progress, or formativeevaluation (see Boston, 2002; Collins, 2004; Sadler, 1989). According to Gibbs & Simpson(2004-2005), if feedback is to support learning, students must have the opportunity to act on it,while Wiggins (2004) maintains that feedback is more beneficial if given during rather thanafter performance. This supports the research into assessment for learning conducted by Blackand Wiliam (1998), which further suggests that feedback is more effective when it givesguidance on strengths and weaknesses without a grade being assigned. Process writing lendsitself to this approach since feedback on early drafts does not usually include a grade andstudents have the chance to act on feedback received to improve their essay and develop theirwriting skills (Carless, 2006; Ferris, 2003). Of course, formative feedback can be written on afinal draft when a grade is assigned (Collins, 2004), but students are not inclined to read it, asthey do not necessarily see how comments on one assignment might help them with anassignment on a different topic (Carless, 2006; Duncan et al., 2004). Once the final producthas been submitted and graded, it is seen as the end of the process rather than as another stepin a much longer process.

Peer feedback

It has been a long tradition that the agents in developing and assessing student writing to be writing tutors rather than student writers themselves. In the last two decades, peer feedback has been increasingly used in ESL/EFL writing instructions, which gives rise to the research on the provision and effectiveness of peer feedback for the development of EFL/ESL learners’ writing quality and ability. In the research literature on peer feedback, the following three issues were addressed:

(1) students’ choice between peer and teacher feedback;

(2) the provision and effectiveness of peer feedback relative to teacher feedback;

(3) the obstacles of implementing peer feedback

These three lines of enquiry are elucidated below.

（1）students’ choice between peer and teacher feedback

Ferris (2003) identified two benefits of the line of enquiry into students’ opinions about different types of feedback on their writing for language educators: (1) help us to be aware of what students may think and how they may react to pedagogical practices; and (2) assist us in a perceiving way in which our philosophies and practices and even our specific feedback techniques might be misunderstood by students (pg.93). She further pointed out that these two benefits could induce us to explain our decisions to the students and thus improve student motivation, help them understand instructors better and promote communication between teachers and students. Based upon these merits of asking students’ voice in peer feedback, a number of studies have been conducted in various contexts and the findings are consistent. Zhang (1995), for instance, asked this question to 81 Asian ESL college students who had full exposure to teacher-, peer- and self-feedback:

Giving a choice between teacher feedback and non-teacher feedback-that is feedback by peers or yourself-before you write your final version, which will you choose?

(Zhang 1995, pg. 215)

Students’ responses suggested that 76 (94%) of students preferred teacher feedback to peer- or self-feedback. Zhang, therefore, concluded that ESL learners unequivocally favored teacher feedback over peer feedback. He, however, cautioned that his study was designed to examine the relative appeal of the three types of feedback and therefore “it should not be misinterpreted to mean that peer feedback is detrimental to ESL writing or resented among ESL learners. It may well be that all three types of feedback are beneficial, although with varying degrees of appeal (pg.219)”. His assertion was supported by the studies of Carson and Nelson (1996) and Nelson and Carson (1998) of 6 ESL college students (including 3 from China), in which all participants prioritised teacher feedback to peer feedback given that teachers had richer experiences in writing and writing feedback than peers and thus they could provide higher quality feedback.