Exploring teacher interactive e-feedback on students’ writing through Google Docs: factors promoting interactivity and potential for learning

Abstract

Teacher feedback has been reported to be challenging for learners to understand and use productively in revising their writing, especially when it is provided in a monologic manner. There have thus been calls for teachers to ensure feedback is more ‘dialogic’ or ‘interactive’, encouraging students to become active respondents to feedback rather than mere receivers of it. However, teacher dialogic/interactive feedback in face-to-face settings may be time-consuming and demanding for teachers. This motivated us to think of how electronic (e-)feedback practices could be made more interactive through the use of technological tools. This study, based on the instructor’s written feedback on 10 undergraduates’ L2 academic writing for a course in language and linguistics in a Malaysian public university, identifies several factors clustered under three dimensions: teacher-related, task-related and learner-related factors that promote teacher–learner interactions in teacher e-feedback in Google Docs. Interactive feedback also contributed to students’ discussion of issues in their writing, engagement in accurate text revisions and negotiation of feedback. The study discusses pedagogical implications for instructors in promoting interactive feedback practices in writing courses.