Praise in Written Feedback: How L2 Writers Perceive and Value Praise

ESL writing teachers face the challenge of providing written feedback that is both effective and motivating to students. Thus, many end up making use of praise (or positive feedback) before offering criticism. Only limited research has examined how students perceive praise, and few studies among the most recent have focused on praise above other types of feedback. Moreover, researchers have not accounted for the effect of person-focused vs. performance-focused praise. We developed an original survey to understand how L2 learners perceive and value person and performance praise in written feedback. A total of 106 adult participants from two language groups (Asian and Romance) and at two English ability levels (intermediate and advanced) rated six different samples of praise based on how clear, helpful, valuable, encouraging to revision, kind, and motivating they found praise comments to be. Ultimately, praise type appeared to be the most significant variable as participants showed preference to performance over person praise. These results can be useful for teachers as they consider how to word statements of praise, particularly in response to student writing.