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Chapter Six  Conclusion

6.1 Major Findings

Guided by Schunn’s Persuasive Zone of Competence Theory, this study explored whether and how students of different proficiencies in the same class can benefit from peer comments. All the findings of the study are summarized as follows: 

Firstly, both the two lower proficiency learners have revised their writing through peer review activity. They received both high and low-level effective feedback. Inspired by those peer comments, they have made more or less revisions to their first writing drafts. However, their revision outcome was different. Although the mean score of each writing task and the mean score of each dimension have all been improved, Kenny’s difference between the two drafts was not significant, with the sig.= 0.111>0.05. And there was also no significant difference between the first and second drafts of the four dimensions. While Lucy’s total scores of the two drafts, especially the scores of language skills dimension, was significantly different, with the sig.= 0.004<0.05. Through their reflection journals and interview analysis, it can be explained that learners’ learning attitudes and self-recognition greatly affect their revision outcomes. If learners can clearly locate their own problems, think modestly about the peer feedback they received and make effective learning plans, they can definitely benefit from peer comments. 

Secondly, two high proficiency learners revised and benefited a lot at content level from peer review activity. Almost every assignment of Sandy got useful peer comments and he could also adopt them into his revision. The average score of his second draft and each dimension are higher than that of the first draft, which proved that Sandy has made effective revisions. The results of paired sample t-test showed that the total score of the first drafts and the revised drafts had a significant difference with sig. value of 0.049 < 0.05. The difference between the unity level and the coherence level was particularly significant, and the sig values are 0.033, less than 0.05. Peer review could always point out the key problems in his articles and promoted his effective revisions. Zara also received lots of effective peer comments. Her revisions triggered by peer feedback include all the four dimensions, and these revisions also contributed to the progress of her writing outcome. Like Sandy, her average score of the second draft is also higher than that of the first draft, and the difference is significant. Among them, only the difference at the support dimension is significant. It can be seen from her compositions that inspired by peer comments, she did make great changes to the content of the article. They said in their reflection journals and interviews that peer review opened their minds, prompted deep thinking and made them pay attention to problems they would not notice before. Undoubtedly, they benefited a lot from peer comments.

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