Pen&paper, or e-feedback: Comparative study

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to research the process of providing individual written feedback to students’ assignments written in the essay format within LMS. The feedback was made by the Pen&Paper method (i.e. handwriting) and by the ICT-enhanced method (i.e. typewriting, called e-feedback) in the English for Specific Purposes online course. The process was structured into three phases: (1) downloading the assignments from the online course, (2) writing the feedback and (3) uploading the assignments back to the online course in LMS. Both methods were identical in phases 1 and 3; however, the phase 2 differed. Totally 62 assignments were used for this research. Both the Pen&Paper method and e-feedback were applied on each assignment; and time periods spent on each assignment were measured and compared. Data were processed by the NCSS2010 statistic software. The results did not show any statistically significant differences in the total time periods.