Copyright©2019

P-ISSN: 1978-8118
E-ISSN: 2460-710X

45

Lingua Cultura, 13(1), February 2019, 45-53
DOI: 10.21512/lc.v13i1.5058

MEASURING PEER FEEDBACK ON WRITING CLASS:
A STUDY ON THIRD-SEMESTER PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS

Didik Rinan Sumekto1; Heny Setyawati2

1English Education Department, Widya Dharma University, Klaten
Jl. Ki Hajar Dewantara, Klaten Utara, Klaten 57438, Indonesia

2Physical Education Departement, Sports Science Faculty, Semarang State University
Gedung F3, Lantai 1, Kampus Sekaran Gunungpati, Semarang 50229, Indonesia

1didikrinan@unwidha.ac.id; 2henysetyawati@mail.unnes.ac.id

Received: 12th December 2018/Revised: 19th February 2019/Accepted: 26th February 2019

How to Cite: Sumekto, D. R., & Setyawati, H. (2019). Measuring peer feedback on writing class:
A study on third-semester pre-service English teachers. Lingua Cultura, 13(1), 45-53.

 https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v13i1.5058

ABSTRACT

This research aimed to measure the contributions of students’ peer feedback set in the collaborative writing class. Of 144 
population, 55 undergraduate English education students were involved as the participants in a quasi-experimental research 
design which was conducted through a non-randomized five experimental and five control groups. There were 25 experimental 
participants attended in the regular classes with the collaborative writing class syntax, namely; genres selection, problem-
based learning, genres, and peer feedback practices, while other 30 control participants naturally attended in the same 
activity. Data were collected through the collaborative writing’s pre- and post-test, and peer feedback instruments within 
four weeks of the lectures. Data analysis used the Mann-Whitney U, and Wilcoxon signed rank tests. The findings show that 
the collaborative writing’s peer feedback positively contributes to students’ writing skills and learning awareness resulted 
in the post-tests. Peer feedback may correct students’ writing mistakes and contribute a significant difference between the 
experimental and control groups (Z=-2,471; p≤0,05). Peer feedback socially tightens students’ collaborative writing and 
promotes a mutual relationship among group members, and reduces lecturer’s feedback.

Keywords: peer feedback, collaborative writing, problem-solving competence

INTRODUCTION

A paradigm shift has changed in the second 
language (L2) learning where the focus is absolutely 
no longer on a lecture-based interaction, but rather than 
students’ interaction with peers. The interaction addresses 
students’ opportunities for conducive L2 writing practice, 
the feedback exchange to facilitate the peer assistance (Yu, 
2015), and to require an appropriate understanding of how 
the collaborative communication provides the L2 students 
with group works’ opportunity (Ciftci & Kocoglu, 2012) 
through the peer feedback. This feedback produces an 
active-constructive-interactive process and Vygotsky’s zone 
of proximal development concept (Lin & Yang, 2011) that 
have been critical to the enhanced learning, deep conceptual 
understanding (Comer, Clark, & Canelas, 2014), stimulated 
broad-mindedness, and cognitive maturity among students. 

Further, peer feedback substantially helps the writers 
to identify and avoid errors (Lei, 2017). The feedback 
can be contextually exemplified towards the genre-based 
paragraphs for its genuine interaction availability and 
function like providing more practices that stimulated the 

peer feedback of the collaborative writing. Sumekto (2017) 
have pointed out that collaborative writing accommodates 
any procedural problem-solving, enhances, and improves 
language use. It is expected that the number of poor writings 
is reduced and the flow of improved paragraphs increase 
(Chen, Chung, & Wu, 2013) after having collaboration. 
This confers linguistic acquisition abilities, including 
grammatical accuracy, lexicon, syntax, organization, style, 
and rhetoric strategies (Ahangari & Babapour, 2015). It is as 
well as the punctuation errors reduction and the identifiable 
thesis statements increases between a draft to a final 
submission (Leydon, Wilson, & Boyd, 2014).

These linguistic acquisition abilities are potentially 
stimulated through promoted collaboration. Unfortunately, 
the higher education students seldom gain an opportunity 
to write better since their large classes make the lecturer 
difficult to provide adequate peer feedback’s writing 
assessment (Arum & Roksa, 2011; Patchan et al., 2013). On 
a firm situation, peers are sometimes unwilling to be critical 
and unable to point out all errors found in writings (Liu & 
Chai, 2009). However, in this respect, the peer feedback has 
attempted to put in the L2 writing from the effectiveness 



46 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 13 No. 1, February 2019, 45-53   

perspectives and has exerted an increasing influence on the 
writing instruction (Lai, 2010), as the activity promises to 
encourage negotiation and construction as well as to help 
students develop new perspectives on the writing paragraphs 
(Lin & Yang, 2011).

In particular, Sumekto and Setyawati (2018) have 
empirically portrayed that well-formatted writing widely 
starts from the title which is displayed at the beginning of 
the writing part. The title shall be centered and commonly 
typed with a capital letter for the first letter. When writing 
a new paragraph, the first sentence is intended with three to 
five characters before writing the second paragraph with the 
double-space.

The constructive support for the use of peer feedback 
has transcended from relevant theories and experiences 
in collaborative writing. The peer feedback effectively 
allows students to construct knowledge (Taylor, 2014), to 
give students the sense of holding audiences, to encourage 
a collaborative dialog, and to be less formal and more 
accessible (Nguyen, 2012). It can be done by providing 
comments on others’ writing and catalyzing a social space 
for communication and discussion (Lin & Yang, 2011), clear 
guidelines, modeling, and frequent opportunities to engage 
in guided practice (Lenters & Grant, 2016), as well as 
creating a facilitation upon the interactive environment (Hu 
& Lam, 2010). Another support leads to creating a friendly 
and relaxed atmosphere in the collaborative writing classes 
that engage the language acquisition techniques (Ahangari 
& Babapour, 2015).

Peer feedback has been recognized as the basic 
element to support students’ interaction processes and 
involves a reciprocal communication process related to 
the performance and standards (Gan & Hattie, 2014). The 
peer feedback is welcomed by students (Nguyen, 2012) to 
develop the critical reflection (Ekşĭ, 2012), show sense of 
accountability, motivation, and responsibility (Bloxham & 
Boyd, 2007), promote learners’ writing accuracy, offer the 
opportunities to share ideas, give comments, and suggestions 
and maximizes motivation (Ahangari & Babapour, 2015). 
This feedback can be a substitute for lecturer’s feedback 
(Gielen et al., 2010;  Hu & Lam, 2010; Gardner, 2006) to 
enhance students’ independent problem-solving capacity.

Peers are convinced to yield improvements in the 
collaborative writing that are significantly higher than 
improvements for those who receive assessment from the 
lecturer (Kaufman & Schunn, 2011). This feedback can 
also reduce errors and it has positive effects on increasing 
students’ writing skills when received thoughtfully and 
positively, as well as being essential to the development 
and execution of self-regulatory skills (Topping, 2009). 
Alternatively, students have opportunities to involve 
themselves in the direct assessment activity and be more 
active participants (Philpott, 2009).

On the other hand, the theoretical gap on the peer 
feedback potentially leads to the over-emphasis on the 
added value for either the receivers or the providers since 
it might result in a limited understanding as a two-way 
process (Van Popta et al., 2017). Shortly, Wakabayashi 
(2013) has concluded that the peer negotiation as a part the 
peer feedback’s typical component may not be included in 
the procedure. So, the deviation between reviewing-peer-
texts and reviewing one’s own texts are differently rated. 
For example, the number of marks gained on drafts is 
0,812, the comments and marks accuracy are 0,720, and the 
proportion of groups’ specific comments are 0,173. All these 
aspects are not significantly different at the level of 0,05 

(Ruegg, 2014).
Further, peer feedback is not always being 

encouraged in the best interest of reflecting the intellectual 
capacity or seeking the truth to some minor peers (Roberts 
& Shambrook, 2012). Altstaedter and Doolittle (2014) 
have pointed out that students’ perception qualitatively 
has reported a more general aspect of feedback on the 
organization and idea development, rather than a particular 
aspect of feedback on grammar and mechanics. This 
performance, according to (McGrath, Taylor, and Pychyl 
(2011), empirically contributes that the writing feedback 
has significantly affected students’ perceptions that relate to 
the higher ratings of fairness and helpfulness, but it does not 
have a significant effect on their writing performance.

Some researches on writing’s peer feedback 
empirically have been carried out in the classroom. 
It measures students’ academic performance which 
accordingly resulted in pre- and post-test aspects, namely 
content, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics (Arslan, 
2014). However, the suggestive feedback is closely 
correlated to the collaborative learning engagement, 
where F(3,197) = 15,714; p<0,001 (Guasch et al., 2013). 
The feedback is effective and playing a positive role and 
attitude in stimulating and improving students’ academic 
achievement. Students who have low writing proficiency 
could enhance while collaboratively working with a peer 
and comment on the drafts through the discussion (Ghani 
& Asgher, 2012). A majority of students appreciate some 
comments regarding peer feedback (Chen, Chung, & Wu, 
2013).

Meanwhile, Chen et al. (2011) have reported that 
53% of writing’s feedback activity enables students to drive 
the appropriate responses. Peer-to-peer writing interactions 
through the forums and peer feedback enhance to understand, 
link to the learning objectives, and positively contribute to 
the learning environment (Comer, Clark, & Canelas, 2014). 
Peer feedback contributes to students’ autonomy in which 
they might write their final drafts relying on one another 
and without seeking for lecturer’s assistance at each stage 
(Ekşĭ, 2012).

The feedback elements might be an instructional 
strategy to promote active critical engagement with the 
scientific text and issues. The extensions of peer feedback 
have significant longer-term learning effects, in which the 
raters provide more useful feedback when informed to 
the test-takers’ questions and doubts beforehand (Gan & 
Hattie, 2014). Shortly, in a certain position of peer feedback 
groups, approximately 37 to 38% of the participants receive 
this feedback as assistance (Gielen et al., 2010). Hu and 
Lam (2010) have pointed out that after the drafts are revised 
on the basis of the peer feedback, the writing quality might 
improve significantly either in terms of overall quality or in 
terms of the language, content, and organization. Further, 
Yu, Lee, and Mak (2016) have recorded the diversity and 
individual differences in students’ beliefs and practices 
in peer feedback for L2 writing. Students share similar 
linguistic and cultural backgrounds and are situated in 
a similar learning context of classroom and group. These 
differences guide students to reflect on their participation in 
peer feedback.

Some of the peer’s expertise is not in language 
background. Their advice might be fully correct or incorrect 
and sometimes even misleading. Peers are not regarded as 
being knowledge authorities; consequently, they are reluctant 
to accept peers’ advice or vice versa (Strijbos, Narciss, 
& Dünnebier, 2010; Jiang & Yu, 2014). For instance, the 



47Measuring Peer Feedback.... (Didik Rinan Sumekto ; Heny Setyawati)      

scoring rubric that is used in the writing-based assessments 
might constitute the organization, mechanics, evidence, 
and sentence structure (Prastika, Setiawati, & Sumekto, 
2018). However, the ratio of peers’ correction acceptance 
is still very low because peers take part in non-correction-
oriented practices, such as casual social communication 
with others, usually expressed the appreciative words 
rather than put the correction-oriented notes like critical 
comments, clarifications, and constructive feedback (Liou 
& Peng, 2009; Jiang & Yu, 2014). Thus, peer feedback 
does not always lead students to rightly revise their writing 
because of the useful and effective feedback is not generally 
revealed (Tsui & Ng, 2000;  Jiang & Yu, 2014).

Some weaknesses of the peer feedback also rely 
on both the processes and outcomes that might not be 
immediately manifested but rather than emerged and 
intensified with experience as students’ fears of others’ self-
enhancing biases (Bamberger et al., 2005) and even have 
not enough trust to the peer’s accurateness, honesty, and 
explicitness (Ferris, 1997). Further, Ferris and Hedgcock 
(2005) have believed that peer feedback’s problems appear 
among students since they only specifically concern with 
the surface editing while ignoring the substantial revisions. 
Some possibly provide vaguely, complicate comments, 
besides being negative, sarcastic, overly critical, or unkind 
in the criticisms of their peer’s writing.

Lack of L2 formal schemata also address the 
inappropriate expectations regarding the content and 
structure of peers’ texts. This situation potentially leads to 
counter-productive feedback. Referring to this situation, as 
if students spend many times, energies, and efforts working 
with the peer feedback in order to gain their qualifications 
as better writers, whereas the satisfactory results have not 
been confidently progressed (Mooney, 2004). However, 
the gap of the peer feedback activity leads to some benefits 
and weaknesses when being implemented in collaborative 
writing in the classroom. Both benefits and weaknesses 
potentially contribute to undergraduate students’ academic 
and non-academic skills to support their peer feedback 
necessities.

Being conscious of the facts, this research objective 
aims to measure the contributions of students’ peer 
feedback that is designed in the collaborative writing 
class. This learning design mobilizes five members in a 
group of undergraduate students through the peer feedback 
practices that engage students’ academic and non-academic 
contexts. By measuring students’ pre- and post-tests of the 
collaborative writing, hence, this research puts the insightful 
peer feedback impacts and the collaborative writing lectures 
that facilitate how the undergraduate students in the small 
groups interact within the natural collaborative writing 
class.

Thus, peer feedback is analyzed in terms of the 
following research questions (RQs): RQ1 - Do pre- and 
post-tests influence the collaborative writing’s peer feedback 
significantly? RQ2 - Do the experimental and control group 
members perceive that peer feedback is helpful to bridge the 
learning awareness and encourage students’ collaborative 
writing skills?

 
METHODS

This research applies for a quasi-experimental 
design (Creswell, 2005) that conducted students’ pre- and 
post-test through the collaborative writing class. This design 

purposefully uses non-randomized experimental and control 
groups. Of 144 undergraduate English education students 
of Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa University, Yogyakarta, 
Indonesia, 55 third-semesters of the students are engaged to 
be the research participants. The participants are classified 
into five groups, and each group consists of five members. 
In this research design, 25 participants included in the 
experimental group by attending the collaborative writing 
class syntax, such as understanding genres selection, 
prioritizing problem-based learning, and practicing 
with genres and peer feedback. Meanwhile, the other 30 
participants participate as the control group.

The peer feedback procedure is started with the 
recount, narrative, and descriptive paragraphs which are 
connected with the problem-based learning. It approximately 
undertakes 20 minutes before ending the collaborative 
writing session. Participants are set in a permanent group-
in-stage of their learning circumstances to obtain the 
collaborative writing’s peer feedback preferences. The first 
stage involves students to work with the individual writing 
trials as a draft and then is followed by the reciprocal peer 
feedback and revisions. The second stage is begun with 
students’ revised writing (first and second draft), prior 
to implementing experiments, collecting and analyzing 
sentences into paragraphs, and finally writing complete 
paragraphs (e.g., recount, narrative, and descriptive).

These activities are then continued with the additional 
turn and cross of the peer feedback exchanges and revisions 
before the submission stage of individuals’ final best 
paragraphs are undertaken. The rubric was modified from 
Pappamihiel, Nishimata, and Mihai (2008). After receiving 
revisions and brief comments, each peer is rated a set of 
revisions and comments on other writings.

Data collection uses the collaborative writing’s pre- 
and post-tests, and the peer feedback instruments to match 
with the assessment practice engaged in collaborative 
writing. Data analysis uses non-parametric statistics that 
focuses on the Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed rank 
tests using the IBM SPSS 20 software.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The 25 participants in the experimental group 
undertake the pre- and post-tests that corresponded with the 
recount, narrative, and descriptive paragraphs. As shown 
in Table 1, the paired-samples of these paragraphs show 
an improvement, where the mean increases from 70,51 to 
73,26 for the recount (M = 2,744; SD = 1,347; t = 1,347; p 
= 0,000), 71,58 to 74,35 for the narrative (M = 2,767; SD 
= 1,771; t = 10,249; p = 0,000), and 71,07 to 74,56 for the 
descriptive paragraphs (M = 3,488; SD = 1,594; t = 14,349; 
p = 0,000) with the correlation coefficients, r = 0,30; 
p<0,05. The statistical results analyze that the peer feedback 
conveys a broader facet after addressing a determination 
in the peer interaction by the raters. The reasons reflect the 
problem-solving among the participants and consider the 
creativity factors on learning behavior and difficulty level, 
and organization during the collaborative writing classes.

The peer feedback is conditionally adaptive, 
effective, and suitable to improve the collaborative writing 
skills with the instructional evaluation consequences. These 
consequences are filed in the Mann-Whitney U tests. The 
results show an improvement in both groups. Statistically, 
the experimental groups increase the recount (Z = -5,230; 
p<0,01), the narrative (Z = -5,232; p<0,01), and the 



48 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 13 No. 1, February 2019, 45-53   

descriptive paragraphs (Z = -5,230; p<0,01), whereas the 
control groups show that the recount (Z = -5,531; p<0,05), 
the narrative (Z = -5,433; p<0,05), and the descriptive 
paragraphs (Z = -5,631; p<0,05). The Z value does not 
show a different significantly between the experimental 
and control group when determining the peer feedback 
practices. This deals with the learning behavior, in which 
the collaborative writing and the social interaction affairs 
are referred to the constructive learning mechanism among 
the group members.

Further, the Wilcoxon signed rank tests summarize 
the learning objectives of the recount, narrative, and 
descriptive paragraphs (Table 2). The results indicate a 
significant correlation (p<0,01), which increase the writing 
skills after implementing the collaborative writing’s peer 
feedback.

On the other hand, the Mann-Whitney U tests 
correspond with the collaborative writing’s peer feedback 
setting. As shown in Table 3, both the experimental and 
control groups regard their feedback involvement and have 
an influence on the writing class environments. The peer 
feedback constitutes 11 items to be designed as the variables. 
Of 11 items, merely one variable determines that the peer 
feedback criticized the works and corrected mistakes (Z 
= -2,471; p≤0,05). It has a significant difference both the 
experimental and control groups when the peer feedback is 
implemented. 

Other 10 variables are: the peer feedback is fair 
enough (Z = -0,843; p>0,05), the students understand 
the learning measurement (Z = -0,519; p>0,05), the peer 
feedback motivates and creates esprit de corps (Z = -1,649; 
p>0,05), the peer feedback reduces lecturer’s subjectivity 
(Z = -0,054; p>0,05), the peer feedback accommodates 
self-responsibilitys (Z = -1,257; p>0,05), the peer feedback 
is more desirable than lecturer’s feedback (Z = -1,930; 
p>0,05), the peer feedback assists individual learner’s 
competence (Z = -1,009; p>0,05), the peer feedback is 
enjoyable, flexible, and relaxed to conduct (Z = -0,088; 
p>0,05), the peer feedback assists other peers in problem-
solving (Z = -0,516; p>0,05), and practice availability is 
short (Z = -1,247; p>0,05). All of them are not significantly 
different from both experimental and control groups in 
feedback’s involvement.

Being examined through the collaborative writing’s 
peer feedback accordingly, the experimental group’s 
recount, narrative, and descriptive paragraphs indicate its 
improvement through the pre- and post-test shown in Table 4.                                                                                                                          
The recount’s pre-test is 37,51 (Z = -1,077), post-test is 4,19 
(Z = -2,779), and its gain is 55,18 (-5,338). Then, narrative’s 
pre-test is 36,47 (Z = 1,455), post-test is 50,86  (Z = -3,741), 
and its gain is 53,73 (4,782). Meanwhile, the descriptive pre-
test is 36,16 (Z = -1,565), post-test is 47,03 (Z = -2,353), and 
its gain is 52,89 (-4,483). Conversely, the Mann-Whitney U 
tests indicate the experimental groups’ collaborative writing 

Table 1 Experimental Students’ Pre- and Post-Tests

Paired-Samples Peer Feedback
T-Tests

Mean N SD Pearson Correlation (r) Mean SD t Sig.

Recount Pre-test 70,51 25 2,711 2,744 1,347 13,361 0,000
Post-test 73.26 2,441

Narrative Pre-test 71,58 25 2,322 r= 0,30; p<0,05 2,767 1,771 10,249 0,000
Post-test 74,35 2,126

Descriptive Pre-test 71,07 25 2,685 3,488 1,594 14,349 0,000
Post-test 74,56 2,423

Table 2 Wilcoxon Tests upon Three Different Paragraphs

Genre Group
Rank Statistics

N Mean Rank Sum of Ranks Wilcoxon W Z
Recount Experiment 25 18,00 602,00 1187,500 -5,230

Control 30 21,00 835,00 -5,531
Total 55

Narrative Experiment 25 18,00 612,00 1142,000 -5,232
Control 30 21,00 715,00 -5,433
Total 55

Descriptive Experiment 25 18,00 603,00 1372,000 -5,230
Control 30 21,00 846,00 -5,631
Total 55

Note: Significance level at p<0,01; p<0,05



49Measuring Peer Feedback.... (Didik Rinan Sumekto ; Heny Setyawati)      

achievement through the content, organization, vocabulary, 
grammar, and mechanic components.

The discussion on the peer feedback is practiced 
to fulfill alternative feedback accountability associated 
with the problem-based solution. The experimental group 
of peer feedback is delivered in the regular classes. The 
learning management scenario is collaboratively designed. 
Each group consists of five members who conditionally 
work with this feedback. The group members individually 
assess and are assessed with oral and written peer feedback 

relating to the recount, narrative, and descriptive paragraphs 
as the substance of the problem-solving activities. This 
feedback relies on the assessment form which accomplishes 
the students’ equal performance, even it does not contribute 
to the rater’s final grade and has a qualitative output (Gielen 
et al., 2010).

In further, the peer feedback engages the reflective 
criticism of other students’ products and provides feedback, 
commonly using previously defined criteria through the 
rubric (Guasch et al., 2013). The contributing results 

Table 3 Mann-Whitney U Tests’ Peer Feedback Involvement

Variable Group
Rank Statistics

N Mean Rank
Sum of 
Ranks

Mann-
WhitneyU WilcoxonW Z

Peer feedback was fair enough Experiment 25 36,67 990,00 522,000 1425,000 -0,843**
Control 30 33,93 1425,00
Total 55

Students understood the learning 
measurement

Experiment 25 36,28 979,50 532,500 1435,500 -0,519**
Control 30 34,18 1435,50
Total 55

Peer feedback criticized the works 
and corrected mistakes

Experiment 25 29,44 795,00 417,500 795,000 -2,471***
Control 30 38,57 1620,00
Total 55

Peer feedback motivated and cre-
ated esprit de corps

Experiment 25 38,78 1047,00 465,000 1368,000 -1,649**
Control 30 32,57 1368,00
Total 55

Peer feedback reduced lecturer’s 
subjectivity

Experiment 25 34,89 942,00 564,000 942,000 -0,054**
Control 30 35,07 1473,00
Total 55

Peer feedback accommodated self-
responsibility

Experiment 25 38,06 1027,50 484,500 1387.500 -1,257**
Control 30 33,04 1387,50
Total 55

Peer feedback was more desirable 
than lecturer’s feedback

Experiment 25 37,61 1015,50 496,500 1399,500 -1,930**
Control 30 33,32 1399,50
Total 55

Peer feedback assisted individual 
learner’s competence

Experiment 25 37,22 1005,00 507,000 1410,000 -1,009**
Control 30 33,57 1410,00
Total 55

Peer feedback was enjoyable, flex-
ible, and relaxed to conduct

Experiment 25 34,78 939,00 561,000 939,000 -0,088**
Control 30 35,14 1476,00
Total 55

Peer feedback assisted other peers 
in problem-solving

Experiment 25 33,89 915,00 537,000 915,000 -0,516**
Control 30 35,71 1500,00
Total 55

Practice availability was short Experiment 25 35,78 966,00 546,000 1449,000 -1,247**
Control 30 34,50 1449,00
Total 55

Note: Significance level at **p>0,05; ***p≤0,05



50 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 13 No. 1, February 2019, 45-53   

address to students’ peer feedback involvements during 
collaborative writing. These involvements summarize the 
reflection upon the collaborative classes which describe 
the learning circumstance, such as comforts and openness, 
suitable writing skill tasks, and lecturer’s collaboration with 
students’ learning activities. This means that the feedback 
provides an accomplished condition to the students, as it 
might improve students’ posture toward writing and raise 
their writing confidence, as well as be an appropriate 
circumstance for independent learning (Ghani & Asgher, 
2012).

The collaborative writing, however, conveys an 
opportunity towards students’ assessment involvement that 
accordingly supports the learning behavior and paradigm. 
Students are participated in conducting this assessment; they 
are attractive and willing to do the real works in the group 
especially when revising others’ works which indicate some 
errors. The peer starts with a quick response, soon after the 
feedback tasks become peer ratings’ responsibility. The 
learning circumstance is not rigid, but more democratic. 

The group members work with the increased problem-
solving constructively. This situation corresponds with 
McConlogue (2012) idea, in which he believes that students 
have divergent or open responses. Tasks necessitate 
reasoning and problem-solving that could be approached in 
a variety of students’ perspectives and understanding about 
the writing assignments.

The collaborative writing’s peer feedback increases 
students’ problem-based learning and writing’s pre- and 
post-test, which impacts to students’ writing skills and 
social relationships, since this feedback ascertains the use of 
the logical framework. In this position, Gielen et al. (2010); 
Ciftci and Kocoglu (2012); Khorasani and Sadzadeh (2015) 
have agreed that the peer feedback has impacted the positive 
influences in the L2 writing class. This feedback puts more 
control and autonomy to the English education students to be 
actively involved during the process. The interaction gains 
a sense of meaningfulness, although the practices are not 
easily parted from the previous weaknesses. To eliminate 
these weaknesses, the peer feedback might be regularly 

Table 4 Mann-Whitney U Tests’ Collaborative Writing

Genre Group
Rank Statistics

N Mean Rank
Sum of 
Ranks

Mann-
WhitneyU WilcoxonW Z

Recount (Pre-test) Experiment 25 37,51 1388,00 685,00 1457,000 -1,077***
Control 30 43,07 1852,00
Total 55

Recount (Post-test) Experiment 25 48,19 1783,00 511,000 1457,000 -2,779**
Control 30 33,88 1457,00
Total 55

Recount (Gain) Experiment 25 55,18 2041,50 252,500 1198,500 -5,338**
Control 30 27,87 1198,50
Total 55

Narrative (Pre-test) Experiment 25 36,47 1349,50 646,500 1349,500 -1,455***
Control 30 43,97 1890,50
Total 55

Narrative (Post-test) Experiment 25 50,86 1882,00 412,000 1358,000 -3,741**
Control 30 31,58 1358,00
Total 55

Narrative (Gain) Experiment 25 53,73 1988,00 306,000 1252,000 -4,782**
Control 30 29,12 1252,00
Total 55

Descriptive (Pre-test) Experiment 25 36,16 1338,00 635,000 1338,000 -1,565***
Control 30 44,24 1902,00
Total 55

Descriptive (Post-test) Experiment 25 47,03 1740,00 554,000 1500,000 -2,353**
Control 30 34,88 1500,00
Total 55

Descriptive (Gain) Experiment 25 52,89 1957,00 337,000 1283,000 -4,483**
Control 30 29,84 1283,00
Total 55

Note: Significance level at **p≤0,05; ***p>0,05



51Measuring Peer Feedback.... (Didik Rinan Sumekto ; Heny Setyawati)      

well-practiced and increasingly used it in instructional 
settings, beyond the specific focus on the collaborative 
writing’s feedback (Nelson & Schunn, 2009). Thus, the 
greatest advantage of receiving peer feedback, according 
to Kim (2015), is that students continually increase their 
understanding of how their written works are readable and 
acceptable from the reader’s viewpoint.

In the meantime, the peer feedback emphasizes 
along with the inter-raters’ preference through its rubric 
criteria, which needed more detailed scrutiny, conciseness, 
and comprehension on the rubric measurements, such as 
analytic rubric and checklist instruments. This emphasis, 
according to Lin and Chien (2009);  Ciftci and Kocoglu 
(2012), has improved students’ analysis skills, assisted them 
to raise confidence and language skills, and encouraged 
them to focus on ideas development. So far, this research 
contributes to meaningfulness as alternative feedback for 
either assessment for learning or assessment of learning. 
The supervision responsibly needs some criteria of the 
participation, punctuation, honesty, ideas, creativity, 
commitment, and maturation as shown by members in 
each group. This research shows the empirical evidence in 
which peer feedback reflects students’ collaborative writing 
skills. The considerable reason supports an exchange of 
conventional learning into the constructivist learning model.

CONCLUSIONS

This collaborative writing’s peer feedback 
corresponds with the pre- and post tests increase of the 
recount, narrative, and descriptive paragraphs. The results 
show improvement through each mean of these genre 
paragraphs. The leverage of the recount increases up to 
2,75 points, 2,77 points for the narrative, and 3,49 points 
for the descriptive paragraphs. This means that pre- and 
post-tests achievements definitely influence collaborative 
writing practices. Based on the classroom experience, 
both experimental and control groups perceive that this 
peer feedback practice aims at assisting them to address 
collaborative writing skills.

The feedback directly contributes the individual 
students’ writing skills in content, coherence, cohesion, 
punctuation, and grammar, whereas non-cognitive 
achievement constructs the social skills, such as involving 
negotiation and verbal communication skills, giving, 
and accepting criticism skills naturally. These lead to 
problem-solving competence, as well as being aware of 
more sustainable alignment, elaboration, and development 
procedure increase during the collaborative writing activity.

In further, the peer feedback foremost emphasizes on 
the formative assessment patterns to evaluate the processes 
and outputs of students’ collaborative writing skills, to 
assess the collaborative writing’s pre- and post-tests, and to 
understand and use the problem-solving procedure through 
the inter- and/or intra-group. The group members participate 
in the peer feedback practice since this feedback variously 
conducts students’ learning behavior in the classroom. 
Students’ writing skills can be supervised by the learning 
coaching mechanism. The peer feedback conditionally 
becomes the substitute for the conventional assessment 
practices, in which it has feasibility, adaptability, and 
availability contribution.

However, the research implication upon this peer 
feedback conditionally takes a longer preparation and 
reflection to gain better practice and output through the 

collaborative writing’s assessment for the learning process. 
Due to its limitation, this research is also aware of being 
constant when the effectiveness of both practice and 
output become the target since the third-semester students’ 
familiarity, and knowledge on using the writing rubric have 
not been appropriate yet. Last but not least, the readability 
of the modified and applicable rubric demonstrated in 
the collaborative writing’s feedback instruments can be 
continually developed in accordance with the need analysis 
of the formative assessment in both guided and academic 
writing in the future research.

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