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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DETAILED FEEDBACK

ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF STUDENTS’ COMPOSITION

Utik Kuntariati, Malikhatul Lailiyah

University of Merdeka Malang

Adnyana.tareeutik@gmail.com, malikhatul.lailiyah@unmer.ac.id

ABSTRACT

This study was aimed at knowing whether the final product of composition

which is given detailed feedback (error correction) performs better than of that

given global feedback. The accessible population of the study was the whole

second year students of English Department of Islamic University of Malang,

academic year 2005/2006. The study used quasi-experimental, nonrandomized

control group, pretest-posttest design. This was so because the experiment was

conducted in classroom setting in which the classes had been organized into

classes D and E. The result of the study revealed that there was no significant

difference of the two groups – experimental and control group. The result showed

that the two groups had the same ability in writing paragraph. From the result

concluded that the final product of composition written by students which is given

detailed feedback (error correction) perform the same as of those given global

feedback.

Key words: Detailed Feedback (error correction), Composition.

Writing is a form of communication between the person who writes and

the person who reads the text(Byrne; 1979). The writer must be able to produce a

piece of writing with a specific target reader in mind. Therefore there are always a

minimum of two people involved, the writer and the reader. Susilowati (2001)

argued that the act of writing is an act of thinking and learning. As we write, we

mailto:Adnyana.tareeutik@gmail.com
mailto:malikhatul.lailiyah@unmer.ac.id

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also learn to think at least to deliver our ideas smoothly in order that others might

come to our intended messages.

Good writing skills are essentials for everyone, especially for college

students. College students must be able to write well to be successful in all

academic disciplines. And it will give great benefits to professionals in the

workforce when they possess effective writing ability.

It is known that writing, as a skill of output, is considered as the most

difficult of the four basic language skills to acquire, neither for L1 or L2 learners.

According to Richards and Renandya (2008) the difficulty lies not only in

generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these ideas into readable

texts. Further, they stated that the skills involved in writing are highly complex;

L2 writers have to pay attention to higher level skills of planning and organizing

as well as lower level skills of spelling, punctuation, word choice, and so on. The

difficulty becomes even more pronounced if their language proficiency is weak.

Therefore, writing should play a more prominent role in classroom-based studies

of second language acquisition.

Considering that writing is the most difficult skill for L2 learners to

master, it is usual for them to make errors on composing written texts, because

their L1 will definitely interfering in their L2. Richards (1974) points out that an

error was the result of interference in the learning of a second language from the

habits of the first language. However, making errors is a part of learning. Dulay,

Burt, and Krashen (1982; 138) argued that people cannot learn language without

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first systematically committing errors, as a matter of fact making errors is a part of

learning.

A large number of studies have shown the importance of corrective

feedback in writing process. Fathman and Wally (1990) compared groups who

received error feedback and those did not received feedback. They found out that

the groups obtaining error feedback did much better in grammatical writing than

those who did not received feedback. Further, Chandler (2003) has found that

students who received error feedback and are asked to act on those corrections are

less likely to repeat those same errors in subsequent assignment.

Heaton (1989) explained that there are two types of feedback, analytical or

detailed feedback and global feedback. In detailed feedback the teacher gives the

correction on the error make by students analytically which covers language use,

mechanical skills, treatment of content, stylistic skills, and judgment skills,

(Heaton, 1989; 135) by underlining, circling and giving arrows sign which placed

near errors in words and sentences. Whereas, global feedback is the impression of

the teacher for any error exist in students‟ composition, such as: fair, good, poor,

without giving any error sign.

The researchers believe that the teacher plays an important role in treating

students‟ composition. They considered that the teacher as the „expert‟ and

„evaluator‟ on students‟ writing. It means that feedback from the teacher is crucial

comparing with other kind of feedback, for example peer feedback. That‟s why

the researchers are interested in analyzing the errors in writing composition

written by the college students of Islamic University of Malang at the second

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semester. They compared students‟ composition which is analytically corrected

with those that is globally corrected. The researchers eager to know whether the

analytical feedback will be given to students‟ composition affect the quality of

composition written by the second semester students of Islamic University of

Malang.

The purpose of the present study is to determine the degree of

effectiveness of detailed feedback on the improvement of composition written by

the second semester students of Islamic University of Malang.

The null hypothesis (Ho) of the research may be formulated as follows:

“The final product of composition written by the students at the second semester

of Islamic University of Malang which is given detailed feedback performs the

same as of those given global feedback”.

METHOD

The study used quasi-experimental, nonrandomized control group, pretest-

posttest design. This was so because the experiment was conducted in classroom

setting in which the classes had already been organized into classes of D and E. of

these two classes, class D was used as the experimental group and class E as the

control group. Therefore, it was not possible for the researcher to assign subjects

randomly to groups (Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh, 1979). Since randomization was

not possible, every effort had to be made to employ groups that were as equivalent

as possible at the beginning of the study. Here, pretests on recognizing parts of

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paragraph were used as the covariate on the analysis of the data. Hence, the final

result (posttest score) would be used to determined whether or not the two

different treatments (detailed and global feedback) given to the two groups – the

experimental and the control group – differed significantly.

There were some variables in this study, namely; the independent variable,

the dependent variable, and the control variable. The independent variable was the

treatment given to the experimental group in the form of error correction. The

dependent variable was the students‟ achievement after the treatment shown by

the posttest scores. The control variable was the students‟ achievement prior to

treatment shown by the pretest scores.

The target population of the study was the whole second year students of

English Department of Islamic University of Malang, academic year 2005/2006.

These second year students were selected as the population of the study under the

consideration that at that time of the study the students were taking writing II

course which provided them with the ability to write a paragraph. The total

samples were 49 students who took Writing II course from class D and E, each of

which having 23 students and 26 students respectively. To select one out of the

two samples classes as the experimental group, a coin was flipped. And it turned

out that class D was to be the experimental group.

This treatment given to the subjects (students) was in the form of

providing error correction on students‟ composition. Therefore, each student was

required to write and identifying part of paragraph of his or her own in the first

session of the experiment, the assignment of writing were given immediately after

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the teaching and learning process in the classroom had been completed. The

topics of these assignments which were emphasized on writing a paragraph are

free. In the following session, however, the tasks of composing a paragraph were

given in the form of homework assignments. In either case, the students were

encouraged to use self-help resources such as their textbooks, dictionaries, and

grammar books as they write.

In this study, the effective leaning weeks were categorized into two

periods of time. The first period was the weeks before the administration of

midterm test (the first week up to the seventh week of the semester); and the

second period was the weeks after the administration of the mid-term test until

immediately before the administration of final test (the ninth week up to the

fifteen week of the semester).

As far as the administration of the treatment of this study was concerned,

the second period of the effective learning weeks (the ninth week up to the

fifteenth week) was taken. This means that the experiment – i.e. the

administration of error correction treatment – was started immediately after mid-

term test and was ended before the period of final test. This was done under a

certain circumstances.

In addition to this, the material and .other facilities used by both groups

were taken from the same source and based upon the same syllabus. The main

textbook used for both groups in this study was “Introduction to Academic

Writing” by Oshima (1988). And the objective of Writing II course was focused

on providing the students with the ability to write paragraph. Oth groups were

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taught within seven weeks or 7 sessions in the same time schedule since this

course is 2 (two) credits course.

In treating the students‟ composition of the experimental group, especially

the errors that might be found in their work, the researcher took the following

steps (1) underlying incorrect orthographic and morphological forms; (2) circling

an inappropriate word; (3) inserting an arrow [Ʌ] to indicate the missing word; (4)

placing a question mark alongside a confusing phrase or structure; and/or (5)

underlying a word and providing a written tip; (6) bracketing a misplaced word or

phrase and indicating its proper place in a sentence; (7) crossing out a superfluous

word; and (8) providing a correct form or structure of an incorrect word or phrase.

For the control group experienced the same teaching and learning process

in that they used the same materials, got the same number ad kind of composition

assignment, and the same time allotment. What differed of the two groups was the

treatment of their possible composition errors. In this case, the researchers applied

the technique of treating the students‟ composition whereby she merely gave

general comments and scores on the students‟ works. In other words, the

experimenters neither show the presence nor the location of the students‟ error in

their composition papers. The researchers only made their own notes on the

students‟ most commonly and frequently errors and discussed in class.

The attempt at investigating the effectiveness of error correction technique

employed in the teaching of composition reached after finishing the course (or

treatment). However, since this study employed quasi-experimental,

nonrandomized control group, pretest-posttest design, then the analysis of the

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students‟ achievement of both experimental and control groups prior to the

treatment was first of all employed. This was done to determine whether or not

the students of experimental group had different achievement from those of the

control group after the treatment.

The final result (posttest) of experimental group (class D) was compared

with the final result (posttest) of control group (class E) with eliminating the

influence of one extraneous variable as covariance. ANCOVA was implied in this

research, since the design of the research was quasi-experimental without

randomization. ANCOVA is combination between Analysis of Variance

(ANOVA) and correlation.

There are four steps analysis of ANCOVA. Step I is comparing dependent

variable data with ANOVA to get the value of SSt (sum of squares deviation of

each scores from the grand mean), SSw (sum of squares within groups), SSb (sum

of squares between groups), MSw (mean squares within groups), and MSb (mean

squares between groups). Step II is correlation analysis between covariate variable

data and dependent variable data to entire subject (rt) and to each group (rk). Step

III is adjusting the value of SSt, SSw, SSb, Msw, and MSb from ANOVA (step I)

with outing the influence of covariate variable toward dependent variable. Step IV

is hypothesis testing, if F value is lower than F critic (F value ˂ F critic) Ho is

accepted, if F value is higher than f critic (F value ˃ F critic) Ho is rejected. Ho

→µ1= µ2 = µ3 …, H1→µ1 ≠ µ2 ≠ µ3 …

The formulas of the steps are:

Step I: 1) ∑
(∑ )

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2)
(∑ )

(∑ )

Step II: 1)
∑

̅ ̅

where; √

∑

√
∑

2)
∑

̅ ̅

where; √

∑

√
∑

3)
∑

̅ ̅

where; √

∑

√
∑

Step III: 1) ( )

2) ( )

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FINDINGS

In the first place, the study was concerning the effectiveness of detailed

feedback (error correction) on the improvement of students‟ composition. As

stated before, this research conducted quasi-experimental design. The pretest

score was not used to check the balance of the two groups – experimental and

control group instead of as the covariate, since the two groups were not

comparable at the beginning of the research. In other words, the classes had

already been organized without the process of randomization.

After the data was analyzed, it was found out that the average level of the

pretest score of experimental class was 55.78. the pretest score of control class

was 54.80. An analysis of data to describe the students‟ level of composition at

the end of the error correction treatment was intended to provide the evidences to

answer the research question and to test the hypothesis. They were all related to

composition level – a level indicating the students‟ ability in writing paragraph in

English.

The result of the posttest was used to find out the significant difference in

the application of different scoring technique; namely detailed and global

feedback (error correction and no error correction treatment). From the result of

the analysis, it was found that the averange score of those who got error correction

or experimental class was 63.15, and the averange score of those who did not get

error correction or control class was 63.69. ANCOVA was employed in this

research, because the study employed quasi-experimental design, non-randomized

control group, pretest – posttest design.

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Table 1 Summary of Analysis of Covariance with pretest as Covariate

Source of variance SS‟ df MS‟ F Remark

Between groups 68.2 1 68.2 0.87 Not

Significant

Within groups 3616.08 47 78.61

Total 3684.28

From the data above, it clearly shows that Ho was accepted. In conclusion,

the writing ability of the students who got error correction treatment (detailed

feedback) was the same as the ability of those who did not get any error correction

treatment (global feedback).

DISCUSSION

The previous part stated that the study has found out that the final product

of students‟ composition which was given detailed feedback (error correction)

perform the same as of those which was given global feedback (no error

correction). The interpretative reasons might be as the following.

First of all, it seemed that the control group was highly motivated. As we

all know, motivation plays a big role on students‟ success in education. Without

any motivation they would not be able to manage themselves the learning process.

Melton (in Skinner, 1984: 450) said that motivation is essential condition of

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learning. Learning will proceed best if motivated, Anderson (in Skinner, 1984:

450).

Secondly, the students of the control group might have desire in the

fulfillment of their need. As students and part of society they possessed the need

to comprehend English language. One of the signs that they comprehend it they

should be able to compose a good paragraph.

The last, from the different treatment of the two groups it seemed that the

control group had big interest in the mastery of English language. It can be

viewed from their attitude toward the material given in the class during the

activities. They were all interested in every topics offered, further more they

showed curiosity.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

This study is concerning the effectiveness of detailed feedback (error

correction) on the improvement of students‟ composition. The researcher

conducted this research for considerations that there is ambiguity in treating

students‟ work on composition. This study was aimed at knowing whether the

final product of composition which is given detailed feedback (error correction)

performs better than of those given global feedback.

From the result of the statistic analysis result can be concluded that the

final product of composition written by students which is given detailed feedback

(error correction) perform the same as of those given global feedback.

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The following suggestions are offered in relation with the finding of the

study. The process of teaching and learning should continuously be evaluated to

find out whether what has been done is effective and efficient. The effectiveness

and efficiency will eventually determine the success of the teaching and learning.

In conclusion, the two techniques are optional. Meaning that the existed

way on treating students‟ composition did not need to revise and refine. Since the

result of the study found that the application of detailed feedback on students‟

composition, remain the same as of those who got global feedback. Therefore,

teachers can use both detailed and global feedback on treating students‟

composition in the teaching and learning process.

Additionally, the present study studied the short-term effect of providing

detailed feedback on the improvement of students‟ composition. Future researcher

could survey the long-term effect of the providing detailed feedback on students‟

writing.

REFERENCES

Ary, D., Jacobs, L.C., and Razavieh, A. (2002). Introduction to Research in

Education (6
th

ed).Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.

Brown, H. Douglas. (1987). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New

Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.

Chandler, J. (2003). The Efficiency of Various Kinds of Error Feedback for

Improvement in the Accuracy and Fluency of L2 Student Writing. Journal

of Second Language Writing, 12, 267-296.

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Dulay, Heidi, Burt, Marina, and Krashen, Stephen. (1982). Language Two. New

York: Oxford University Press.

Fathman, A. and Walley. E. (1990). Teacher Response to Student Writing: Focus

on Form versus Content. In B Kroll (Ed.), Second Language Writing:

Research Insight for the Classroom, (pp. 178-190). Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J.C. (1974). A Non- Contrastive Approach to Error Analysis. London:

Longman Group Limited.

Richards, J.C., and Renandya, W.A. (2002). Methodology in Language Teaching:

an Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.