Iranian EFL Teachers' Beliefs and Practices Regarding Written Corrective Feedback with a Focus on Teaching Experience

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find the Iranian less and more experienced EFL teachers' beliefs in marking students' errors in writing, their preferred types of written corrective feedback, the most useful kind of teachers' written error correction feedback, and the differences between what they believe and what they actually do in giving feedback. The study was done by the cooperation of 120 available university teachers (53 less experienced and 67 more experienced) teaching writing to EFL learners at different universities in Iran. A written feedback questionnaire was employed in this descriptive survey in which both quantitative (closed-ended questions and paper investigation) and qualitative (open-ended questions) ways of data collection were used. Descriptive statistics including frequency and percentage were estimated in the quantitative data analysis. The results revealed that in error marking and in finding the most useful kind of error correction, less and more experienced teachers had different preferences; and for pointing out the errors, they also had different ideas. The reviewing of the open-ended questions for the qualitative data showed no belief discrepancies in teachers' responses to the closed-ended items and open-ended questions of the questionnaire. However, the investigation of teachers' error correction on learners' actual papers indicated that both groups' beliefs were different from their actual paper correction. The implications of the study are for teachers, policymakers, and decision-makers in educational settings.