Impact of learners’ attitude towards feedback on their English composition writing practice:A case of selected secondary schools in Dowa

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the impact of learners’ attitude towards feedback on their writing practice. In achieving this, the study addressed the following objectives; assess the type of feedback that teachers give learners on their English composition; examine learners’ attitude towards the feedback they receive on their English composition; and assess the impact of learners’ attitude towards feedback on writing practice in English composition. The study used an exploratory mixed research design to deeply understand the topic at hand in phases; qualitative and quantitative. In qualitative phase the study used document analysis method to solicit information on the type of feedback learners get. In phase two, a questionnaire was administered to students succeeded by an interview with their teachers in order to triangulate the information from the questionnaire. Four (4) schools and forty (40) marked scripts were sampled using simple random sampling. Systematic sampling was used for sampling 144 students to fill the questionnaire forms and four (4) teachers were sampled purposively for interview. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data and logistic regression was used to analyse the quantitative data. The study found that learners in this study received undeveloped corrective feedback which was unfocused, direct and in other aspects indirect. The study also found that learners had a negative attitude towards feedback and receiving feedback as a whole which affected their writing practice. Based on these findings, this study argues that learners’ negative attitude towards feedback is as a result of lack of motivation to practice writing, change of teachers and change of writing techniques/style. As such, this study recommends that apart from counselling learners on the role of English as a subject, teachers should create a conducive environment for teacher-students’ interactions.