EFL STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS ABOUT AI-GENERATED FEEDBACK ON IMPROVING L2 WRITING: COMPARING PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHER AND AI FEEDBACK

Abstract

EFL students often confront problems regarding organisation, content, linguistic accuracy and objectivity. Traditionally, teacher feedback helps them to address some of these problems. However, teachers handling large classes have constraints on workload and time to correct the students’ written works. This prevents effective feedback from teachers to students. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based feedback can solve some of the more complex problems. It offers scalability, speed and objectivity. However, AI feedback may not understand individual needs and sometimes provides misinformation or flawed feedback. Thus, both teacher feedback and AI feedback have advantages and disadvantages.

This study aimed to compare perceptions of the Saudi EFL students on teacher and AI feedback in improving L2 writing. This study employed a mixed-methods research design to investigate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ perception of AI-generated feedback compared to teacher feedback on their L2 writing. The research combined quantitative survey data with qualitative responses to provide a comprehensive understanding of student preferences and attitudes toward different feedback sources. For the survey, the study recruited 50 undergraduate students from a large public university in Saudi Arabia, who were attending English language courses. For interviews, 15 students were selected from them. Quantitative data were analysed statistically, and qualitative data were analysed thematically.

The findings and discussions of this study lead to the conclusion that AI feedback and teacher feedback provide different benefits in enhancing the L2 writing ability of EFL students. There is a mutual compensation effect between the two feedback types regarding their shortcomings in addressing the concerns of students about their L2 writing abilities. Therefore, a hybrid approach, judiciously combining both types of feedback, can be advantageous for addressing most concerns of students about their L2 writing capabilities.