The Effect of Direct vs Indirect Corrective Feedback on Writing by Dutch Learners of English

Abstract

There are various types of corrective feedback (CF) which teachers can use for correcting their pupils’ writing assignments. Previous research focused on the effectiveness of various types of CF. Some studies compared the effectiveness of direct CF and indirect CF on pupils’ writing, but found conflicting results. Moreover, the effectiveness of direct and indirect CF has not been studied within different educational levels. This study focuses on the effects of direct and indirect CF on the writing proficiency of Dutch VWO and VMBO-tkb pupils, which are the highest and third-highest levels of education respectively in the Netherlands. Participants were given a writing assignment which was corrected with either direct or indirect CF and then returned to them, after which they were instructed to read the feedback. Between one and two weeks after the first assignment, the pupils were asked to write a second writing assignment and the number and percentage of errors was compared to that in the first assignment. The results of this study suggest that there is a difference in the effectiveness of direct and indirect CF in general, since it seems that more VWO benefit from direct CF compared to indirect CF and compared to VMBO-tkb pupils, whereas more pupils in the latter group seem to make relatively fewer errors after being given indirect CF.