Analysis of Teachers’ Scaffolding Feedback in University Students’ Writing Activity

This study explores the effects of teachers’ scaffolding feedback on pre-teachers’ writing performance. 17 graduate students with a high level of proficiency in language participated in a summer class entitled ‘logic and writing’ for three weeks. Each student was required to produce a piece of writing on a given topic through a revision each week, producing three drafts. Scaffolding feedback was provided on each draft through a conference-based feedback activity. All comments on the writing were recorded, analyzed and submitted each week, leading to a total of 51 reflective diaries. Cohen’s analytic scoring rubric (1994) and Yoon and Lee’s scoring rubric for paragraph writing (2010) were adapted to evaluate students’ performance. Each comment provided as corrective feedback was analyzed and categorized according to themes such as mechanics, content, organization, lexical use, and learning strategies. The study found that the mean writing scores for each student were increased through several scaffolding guidance stages. Various types of scaffolding interventions were also analyzed and categorized for their effect on the development of writing competence especially adapted to pre-service teacher training.