A Study of Comparing Synchronous and Asynchronous Computer-mediated Peer Review of EFL College Students

同步與非同步同儕互評運用在大學生寫作之比較

白家瑋(Chai-Wei Pai)

指導教授 ： 劉顯親

國立清華大學/人文社會學院/外國語文學系/碩士(2009年)

摘要

Over the decades, research on peer review in second language writing has yielded fruitful findings regarding its nature, characteristics and impact on students' writing. With the development of technology and increased use of computers in language classes, a growing body of research has experimented with a new type of peer review by applying the features of computer-mediated communication (CMC), giving birth to the term CMPR, which stands for computer-mediated peer review. CMPR is dichotomously categorized into synchronous and asynchronous modes depending on either instant or delayed response time required of the participant/recipient of the online feedback. Although researchers have not yet reached a consensus on whether CMPR in ESL/EFL writing classes always outshines face-to-face peer review, several pedagogical advantages CMPR brings to L2 writing have been reported in previous studies, including the flexibility for learners to carry out peer review and the reduced anxiety as motivational benefits for learners who are less confident in oral communication.
While most of the CMPR-related studies compared the characteristics or students' perspectives on peer feedback generated under the traditional face-to-face setting versus an either synchronous or asynchronous environment, little research has been done regarding a direct comparison of peer review conducted under the synchronous versus asynchronous mode. It is possible that different modes of CMC may affect types of suggestions provided, or reveal different qualities in subsequent revision changes. Such presupposition, though methodologically insightful for writing instructors to implement CMPR into L2 writing classes, needs empirical supports. Therefore, the purpose of the present study aims to examine (1) if there would be a difference of synchronous versus asynchronous peer review in terms of the function and the content of peer negotiations, (2) the influence of synchronous versus asynchronous peer review on subsequent revision text changes, and (3) students perspectives toward either peer review mode.
The participants were fourteen English-major freshmen who enrolled in a reading and writing class. They were grouped into seven dyads for peer review activities and the review tools they used were Google Docs (Google Documents) and Google Talk. These tools were chosen because they were free and available for anyone with a Gmail account; Google Docs further facilitated peer review process with its collaborative feature, in which a document could be easily shared with other users. Instructions of using technology were given to participants and peer review training sessions were also included to help them provide effective and qualified feedback. Participants experienced two cycles of CMPR activities, with each cycle containing two comparable writing tasks: one with Google Docs (asynchronous comments) and the other Google Talk (synchronous chats) as of peer review tools. Copies of comments and transcripts of chats from two cycles were analyzed to examine the types of function as well as content of peer feedback. Mendonça and Johnson’s (1994) categories of types of negotiations were modified for the present study to identify the function of peer feedback while Suzuki’s (2008) coding schemes, which thoroughly considered form- and topic-related episodes, were adopted to analyze the content of feedback. Students' first drafts and revised drafts from the four writing tasks were also analyzed to examine revisions with language-related changes (LRCs) (Suzuki, 2008), units of analysis that encompassed word-, sentence- and discourse-level text changes. At the end of the second cycle, an evaluation questionnaire was given to participants to elicit their responses regarding the two modes of CMPR.
The findings revealed that the synchronous peer review generated more feedback which served as the function of explanation, chat, and others (including general statements and task managements) while asynchronous peer review allowed more evaluations to take place. As for the content of feedback, it was found that the two review modes did not lead to significant differences on the amounts of feedback linguistically, and neither did they cause differences on the amounts of feedback related to the writing topics. Furthermore, whether it was the synchronous or asynchronous peer review mode did not seem to affect how students revised their essay; it was found that sentence-level revisions under the two modes both accounted for the largest proportion of the total revision changes, followed by word-level then discourse-level changes. Finally, the results from the evaluation questionnaire indicated that students generally held a positive attitude toward the incorporation of computer-mediated peer review, and found Google Docs and Google Talk useful review tools. However, when asked to choose either review mode that they preferred, the majority of students showed their preference for the “comment” function in Google Docs, saying that asynchronous peer review gave them more time to think and were clearer for the subsequent revisions.
The significance of the present study suggests that it is feasible to implement computer-mediated peer review into second language writing classes, and since the delayed response time was valued by most of the students who were inexperienced in peer review activities as seen the present case, asynchronous comments may be a good peer review starter for student writers.

關鍵字

同儕互評 ； 寫作 ； 電腦為媒介之溝通

並列摘要

同儕互評運用在第二外語寫作上的研究成果豐碩，多數探討回饋意見的本質，特色，及其對於後續文本修改的影響。隨著電腦科技在教學上的普及，許多研究開始把電腦為溝通媒介 (CMC) 的元素加入同儕互評中，造就了新的互評方式－電腦為媒介的同儕互評 (CMPR)。不少文獻指出運用電腦為媒介的同儕互評在第二外語寫作教學上的優點，包括了學生在進行互評時有較多彈性，以及對本身口說能力缺乏自信的學生在互評時減少焦慮感。
以電腦為媒介的同儕互評有兩種模式：同步與非同步的訊息傳遞 (synchronous and asynchronous CMC)，而劃分同步與非同步的標準取決於訊息發送者與接收者是否擁有允許延遲回應的時間。過去有關電腦為媒介之同儕互評文獻多半比較以電腦為媒介產生的回饋意見(或為同步或為非同步)與面對面所給之回饋意見的特色，以及學生對此二種模式的觀感，極少研究直接比較電腦為媒介同儕互評在同步與非同步情境下的不同。然而，不同的訊息傳遞模式有可能影響回饋意見的種類，甚至影響文本修改的方向。如此推想雖然具教學意義，仍須進一步證實。因此本研究的目的在探討：一、同步與非同步的電腦為媒介同儕互評是否會對回饋意見本身在功能上與內容上造成差異？二、同步與非同步的電腦為媒介同儕互評是否會對接續的文本修改造成差異？三、學生對此二種電腦為溝通媒介的同儕互評觀感又為何？
本研究共有十四位大一外語系學生參與，他們隨機配對成七組，並使用免費的線上軟體Google Docs 及其中的「評論」功能與 Google Talk 分別當作非同步與同步的互評工具。Google Docs 提供了方便的「分享」功能，讓學生能輕易的觀看同儕的文章，所有學生一開始都接受了軟體使用與進行同儕回饋的訓練課程。本實驗流程包括兩次寫作，每一次學生須完成兩篇作文並進行各一次的同步與非同步電腦為媒介同儕互評提供回饋。第一次首篇作文採用非同步的模式，接著第二篇為同步的模式。第二次順序顛倒。最後學生填寫一份有關進行電腦為媒介同儕回饋的問卷。
研究發現，同步的訊息傳遞模式的確會在數量上造成某些功能的回饋意見較多，例如解釋(explanation)與聊天(chat)，而非同步的回饋則較多的評論 (evaluation)。然而模式的選擇則並不會對回饋意見本身針對的內容產生影響，學生的回饋中針對字詞等級的意見占了最大宗。此外，同步與非同步的模式不會對學生進行互評後文本修改內容造成不同，大多數的修改則是針對句子。問卷結果則發現多數學生對於同儕互評抱持正面的觀感，也肯定以電腦為媒介的互評方式帶來的便利性與幫助。此外，絕大部分的學生在二選一的情況下偏好非同步的互評方式，歸因於可以擁有較多時間思考如何下評論。以及就此互評軟體介面而言，學生能清楚的看到回饋意見進而方便修改。本研究結果對於提倡電腦為媒介的同儕互評給予正面的肯定，並提出針對初次進行同儕互評的學生，可以嘗試非同步的方式為佳。

並列關鍵字

peer review ； writing ； CMC

參考文獻

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