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Language Teaching Research Quarterly

European Journal of Studies in Management and Business

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New Challenges in Accounting and Finance

Language Testing in Focus: An International Journal

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Individual Differences in Language Education: An International Journal 

Feedback Research in Second Language 

Management Issues in Healthcare System

Language Teacher Education Research

Artificial Intelligence Knowledge Development

<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Georgia',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Written corrective feedback research in L2 writing has mostly focused on whether feedback improves learners&rsquo; written work. This type of research shows if learners revise their texts but does not explain how they read and think about feedback while revising. Feedback does not lead to learning on its own. Its value depends on how learners notice, understand, and use it during revision. This reflection paper, using a cognitive perspective and process-based approach, draws on eye-tracking studies to examine learner engagement with WCF. Based on the noticing hypothesis, it discusses how eye tracking can show where students look and for how long, in real-time, when engaging with the input. Research on peer, instructor, automated, and multimodal feedback suggests that students do not attend to all the feedback given equally but choose what to attend to. Patterns of attention differ according to the type of feedback. While immediate feedback enables students to make corrections faster, indirect feedback encourages deeper thinking. This paper also demonstrates how task characteristics, social factors, and learner attitudes influence engagement. Most importantly, it argues that eye-tracking data alone cannot fully explain thought processes, but studies combining eye tracking and think-aloud protocols are better positioned to offer a more comprehensive understanding of feedback processing.

frsl.2025.03.06.pdf

Review Article

frsl.2025.03.06.xml

The importance of understanding learners’ cognitive processing of written corrective feedback: Insights from eye-tracking research

This study investigated the effects of direct and two types of indirect comprehensive written corrective feedback (WCF) that differed in their degree of explicitness on students’ revision accuracy as well as short-term and delayed transfer effects of WCF on new writings over time. Feedback treatment was provided three times to test the durability of the effect of feedback. Participants were fifty-three intermediate level adult ESL students studying at a private ESL school in Canada. In order to explore the differential effects of explicit and implicit WCF on non-grammatical accuracy participants were randomly divided into four groups: direct, two indirect (underlining only and underlining+metalinguistic cues), and control group. Participants were asked to produce four pieces of narrative writing from four different picture prompts. They also had to revise those narratives over a three-week period. To find out the delayed effects of feedback on accuracy, all groups were asked to write a new narrative two weeks after the last WCF treatment. Findings demonstrated that both Direct and Underline only feedback groups made significant gains in non-grammatical accuracy in revision tasks. However, none of the feedback groups displayed any significant short-term and delayed non-grammatical accuracy improvements.

ltf.2024.09.01.pdf

Original Research 

ltf.2024.09.01.xml

Effects of direct and indirect comprehensive corrective feedback on non-grammatical accuracy in ESL students’ writing

This study investigated the effect of (a) direct written corrective feedback (WCF) and (b) opportunities for revision on the development of second language learners’ explicit and implicit L2 knowledge in an EFL setting. Twenty-six intermediate-level university students were randomly divided into three groups: two treatment groups (direct feedback, direct feedback + revision), and a control group (no feedback). In a pretest-posttest design, over the span of six weeks, participants completed picture-prompted writing tasks, timed grammaticality judgment tests and error correction tests. Participants also produced two new writings with members of the direct feedback + revision group being given an opportunity to revise their writing. The results for the direct feedback group indicated accuracy gains in posttests. There was also some evidence that these gains were dependent on the structure targeted. However, there was no comparable improvement in the direct feedback + revision group. Therefore, it was not possible to interpret these effects as strong evidence for development of learners’ L2 knowledge. Conversely, there was evidence that the direct feedback + revision group had benefitted from the opportunity to revise their writing.

ltrq.2022.30.03.pdf

ltrq.2022.30.03.xml

Effects of Focused Written Feedback and Revision in the Development of Explicit and Implicit Knowledge in EFL Writing

This study&nbsp;investigated the effects of direct and indirect WCF on students’ revision&nbsp;accuracy as well as on new pieces of writing over time. Intermediate level&nbsp;pre-faculty university students were divided randomly into four groups: direct,&nbsp;underlining only, underlining metalinguistic, and a control group. They produced two texts from two different picture prompts and revised these over a&nbsp;two-week period. They also produced two new texts three and four weeks after&nbsp;the last treatment. Both WCF significantly reduced learner errors in subsequent&nbsp;revision tasks. All three treatment groups also made significant reduction of&nbsp;errors after 3 weeks of CF treatment.

Should Feedback be Direct or Indirect? Comparing the Effectiveness of Different Types of WCF on L1 Arabic Writers’ Use of English Prepositions

ltrq.2019.13.06.xml