The Effectiveness of Revision Without Access to Corrections on Learning Development

Abstract

Revision following feedback can lead to pushed output (Shintani, Ellis, & Suzuki, 2014), which helps learners to notice grammatical forms that they might otherwise not attend to (Swain, 1995). However, there have been no studies investigating the effectiveness of revision in promoting learning development when learners cannot refer back to the feedback. To address this gap, this study used a pre-test, treatment, post-test, and delayed post-test design to examine the effectiveness of revision groups who do not have access to the feedback (direct CF plus revision, metalinguistic explanation plus revision) compared to non-revision groups (direct CF, metalinguistic explanation) on a complex linguistic structure, the English simple passive voice. A hundred EFL learners performed three writing tasks. The findings revealed that the non-revision groups had greater accuracy in the immediate post-test, but that the accuracy of the revision groups was retained over a longer period of time. The results suggest that revision without access to corrections can be an effective way to improve learners’ accuracy in the long term. Furthermore, it provides insights into the cognitive processes involved in revision, suggesting that learners who revise without access to corrections are more likely to engage in deep processing of the feedback.