Perceptions and Practices of Teachers’ Written Feedback Provision Strategies on Students' written Composition

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate teachers perceptions and practices of their written feedback provision strategies on the students' written composition of grade eleven students in four selected preparatory schools in East and west Wollega zones. In this study, descriptive survey design was used. The four preparatory schools were randomly selected from the two Wollega zones. The total population of grade 11 students at the specified preparatory schools was 2000. As a sample, 20% of the total number of students was used which accounts 400. These sample students were selected using random sampling technique as it gives an equal opportunity for all respondents to be part of the study. Since the total number of teachers is very few, all of them (21) were included with availability sampling technique. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from both the teachers and students respondents found in the two zones. To get the quantitative and the qualitative data on the teachers’ perceptions and practices, questionnaires and text analysis were used. The data collected through questionnaire was computed with descriptive statistics such as percentages, mean values and standard deviation and that of the text analysis was qualitatively analyzed in thematic form. Hence, the finding showed students and teachers perceived written feedback provision is highly significant for enhancing students’ composition. The data further revealed that teachers did not practice variety of written feedback strategies as frequently as possible. According to the finding, the reasons for the infrequent written feedback practice were the time consuming nature of feedback, large class size and the students’ low performance in producing good compositions. Besides, the finding showed that when written feedback is appropriately provided, students get insights into writing effective compositions. Furthermore, it was reported that feedback helps students to improve their writing, keeps them active and enhances their writing fluency. Therefore, it can be concluded that teachers did not make the required efforts of practicing varieties of written feedback provision strategies that could enhance students’ composition. Thus, it is recommended that teachers have to provide varieties of written feedback strategies thereby students come to write an effective compositions.