Comparative analysis of written corrective feedback strategies: a linear growth modeling approach

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the development of English article accuracy in second language writing following direct or indirect corrective feedback (CF). Participants were 56 middle-school-aged learners of English nested within four classrooms who were studying for the writing portion of the Secondary School Admission Test. In this longitudinal analysis, each student completed four essays, with a weekly gap between each assignment. On the measures of writing accuracy, adolescent students in the direct CF group demonstrated increasing trajectories of accuracy with English article usage compared to the indirect CF group. Additionally, there was a significant difference in improvement by proficiency level: for lower proficiency learners, but not higher proficiency learners, both indirect and direct corrective feedback resulted in improvement in English article accuracy. The findings suggest that CF treatments designed to enhance a learner’s accuracy can be influenced by the learner’s existing proficiency, at least among adolescents.