Handwritten vs. Digital feedback: Which Is the Most ‎Effective in Improving the Writing Accuracy of Kuwaiti ‎Undergraduate University Students?‎

Abstract

The current experimental study attempted to investigate which medium of providing indirect corrective feedback, digital /traditional handwritten feedback, could help Kuwaiti undergraduate university students improve their writing accuracy. Moreover, it attempted to examine Kuwaiti undergraduate students’ preferences regarding the aforementioned mediums of providing written corrective feedback. To reach this end, an amalgamation of qualitative and quantitative methods was utilized. The subjects of the present study were 75 Kuwaiti undergraduate students who were randomly divided into three groups, two experimental and one control group. While the control group received no feedback, each of the experimental groups received indirect comprehensive corrective feedback via different mediums. The first experimental group received indirect digital written comprehensive feedback via Google Classroom. On the other hand, the second experimental group was provided with indirect handwritten comprehensive feedback. In addition to completing an online survey, all the participants had to generate five writing tasks in twelve weeks. Error ratio was used to measure the short and long term accuracy gains. SPSS program was utilized to analyze the data. The findings of the current study showed that providing written comprehensive feedback digitally has a significant impact on improving the grammatical and the non-grammatical accuracy of the participants during the revision tasks. Regarding the short term effects, while providing digital corrective feedback was found effective in improving the grammatical accuracy gains, providing traditional handwritten feedback was found to have a significant importance in improving the non-grammatical accuracy gains of the understudies of the current study. Concerning the long-term effects, providing corrective feedback digitally was found to have a long term effect on the grammatical accuracy gains of the participants. Conversely, neither of the utilized mediums in providing corrective feedback had any long-term impact on the non-grammatical accuracy gains of the subjects of the current study. More importantly, the participants of the current study reported that the digital medium of providing feedback is more effective in enhancing their grammatical and non-grammatical accuracy gains than the traditional medium.