Chinese College Students' Abilities and Attitudes for Peer Review

This study investigated Chinese college students' ability to review their peer's essays and their attitudes towards peer review. I implemented a quasi-experiment on two College English classes for ten weeks. A triangulated analysis combining quantitative measures, qualitative analyses, and field notes showed that the experimental class had the capacity for commenting on peers' writing and demonstrated positive attitudes towards peer review. An independent sample t-test shows that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control groups in several aspects of English writing. On the completion of the experiment, students in the experimental group were also found to have more positive attitudes and higher motivation towards English writing. The findings suggest that as an effective collaborative activity, peer review should be widely employed in English writing instruction to enhance motivation, foster collaboration, and improve English writing.