Dr.Hani Hamad - Questionnaire.docx

The current study aimed to examine the nature of WCF in the written output of learners in the EFL classrooms and the beliefs and attitudes of the learners to WCF. To this end, the study is quantitative in nature, and data have been collected in two forms: One, the nature of the WCF provided by EFL teachers in a Saudi university; and two, responses to a questionnaire that examines the learners’ preferences and beliefs towards the different types of WCF as tools in language improvement. Therefore, the written output generated for the study was not evaluated for its quality, and focus was diligently kept on the WCF.<br>The researcher identified a convenience sample of 92 First-Year EFL learners across three levels/ sections in the department. The writing samples were collected in two phases to ensure authentic output over a period of ten days. Assigning writing tasks to EFL learners is part of the language enrichment activities prescribed in the syllabus. This made the researcher’s task more accessible as the participants did not need to spare extra time for the writing samples, and their periodic writing output were used for collecting data on the teachers’ use of WCF. Thus, in all, the study comprised 184 writing samples duly coded to ensure teachers’ unbiased feedback. Copies were made of all the 184 samples, and three EFL teachers in two language departments at the university were given a set each for WCF in two phases. For this, prior written permission was secured from the Rector, and teachers were assured that the purpose of the exercise was purely research and was not to their evaluation in any way or form. Corrected copies were requested to be reverted at the end of a week to compile WCF patterns in each phase if any. The aim behind employing two phases was to ensure that all possible feedback choices formed the database.At the end of phase two, a five-point Likert Scale-based questionnaire on all possible strategy combinations used by the teachers was administered to the participants to identify their preferences in WCF in EFL.<i>Data Analysis</i><i></i>The researcher produced a rubric of all possible feedback combinations to classify the WCF generated in the two phases of correction. The researcher then carefully parsed each corrected script to identify every instance of WCF and recorded it in the rubric. T-test results showed no significant differences between the total occurrences of each strategy across the two phases. This upholds the assumption that there were no variations in the teachers’ use of WCF strategies in the two phases of data collection.