The effects of formative feedback : A quantitative study of the effects of formative feedback on written proficiency in the Swedish upper secondary school L2 writing classroom

Sammanfattning: This independent degree project investigates how formative feedback on written assignments affect Swedish upper secondary school pupils’ writing skills regarding form, what the effects are, and if the effects are the same for pupils in different ability bands. This was done by a time series analysis of tests where a collection of texts from pupils in different ability bands (E, C, and A) in two different classes was collected. All errors in the texts were counted and categorised, as well with the teachers’ highlighted errors on the pupils’ texts. The errors were further calculated into number of errors per 100 words due to different lengths of the texts. The results showed that there was a somewhat positive effect of the teachers’ feedback overall, and that pupils in lower ability bands processed feedback more effectively than pupils in higher ability bands. However, the results also suggested that in order to fully draw conclusions such as these, a statistical study is necessary to strengthen the results due to the low numbers in the results. The pedagogical implications found showed that teachers need to work differently with feedback for high-grade pupils. In order to do so, teacher education programs must emphasise this and address to teachers how to do this.