Principal Investigator:

Prof. Lee Kit Bing Icy (Department of Curriculum and Instruction)

Co- Investigators:

Prof. Anne Burns (Aston University, United Kingdom) and

Mr. Lam Che Keung Ricky (Hong Kong Institute of Education)

        Feedback is a useful pedagogical tool to enhance the teaching and learning of writing. While research has yet to establish the most effective feedback strategies, there is growing evidence that casts doubt on conventional feedback approaches, such as teachers marking single drafts, focusing predominantly on errors, and responding to errors comprehensively. In Hong Kong, however, teachers have for years been adopting such conventional feedback approaches. They spend a significant amount of time marking student writing but there is a tacit awareness that their efforts are not generally effective. Students continue to make the same mistakes, become more reliant on the teacher, and their writing does not necessarily improve as a result of teacher feedback. With a paradigm shift in assessment that puts more emphasis on its relationship with teaching and learning, i.e. assessment for learning, there is a need to revolutionize conventional feedback approaches to bring improvement to the teaching and learning of writing.

        Much existing research, however, focuses on the act of feedback itself without addressing the issue of how effective feedback can be implemented in real contexts. Specifically, there is virtually non-existent research on teachers' readiness to implement change in feedback, how they can be supported to initiate change within the constraints of their work contexts, and how such innovation can impact the teaching and learning of writing. The study serves to fill these gaps.

        The project involves working collaboratively with six secondary English teachers in three different schools, relying mainly on qualitative methods including interviews, classroom observations, questionnaires, and analysis of student writing and teacher feedback. Through its collaborative action research design, the study will make a significant theoretical and methodological contribution to the research literature on feedback in writing. It will contribute to the local educational community by providing a highly contextualized picture of how innovation in feedback can be implemented, shedding light on the factors that facilitate and inhibit change, as well as the impact of innovative feedback approaches on the teaching and learning of writing. The study will also result in professional development seminars on effective feedback in writing in support of the government's education reform that promotes assessment for learning.