Vietnamese First-Year Students’ Perceptions of Cultural Issues in Peer Feedback in Writing Classrooms

Abstract

Cultural issues should be considered when doing peer feedback in writing classrooms. However, there have been very few studies on these issues because researchers mainly focus on the effectiveness of peer feedback in writing teaching and learning. From this gap, the current study aims to explore the perceptions of Vietnamese first-year  students about cultural issues in peer feedback in writing classrooms. The participants of the study were 178 first-year students at the University of Finance - Marketing, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. They are non-English major students from four classes, two classes majoring in "Business Administration", and the other two majoring in "Finance - Banking". The researcher implemented peer feedback in these classes and then collected data by questionnaire and intervew. The finding revealed that most of the students had encountered some cultural issues during peer feedback activity, such as collectivism, high power distance, and the concept of face. However, most of them asserted that although these cultural issues had a great influence on their thinking, they did not generally constrain  much on peer feedback in their writing classes, and they could overcome these issues and benefit from peer feedback in learning writing.