Exploring Effective Written Feedback Strategies in Business Writing Education: Teachers’ Approaches and Students’ Views

,


INTRODUCTION
Universities are pivotal in preparing business students for workplace writing, but bridging classroom learning with real-world application presents challenges (Dias et al., 1999).Business writing is typically informational and transactional, aimed at informing and persuading diverse audiences in various professional contexts.Effective Writing across different purposes and audiences is crucial for academic success, career advancement, and societal participation.Current educational practices include integrating varied writing purposes into curricula and classroom organization (Yu et al., 2022), emphasizing feedback on student writing.For business students, especially English as a second language learners, developing comprehensive language skills and focusing on writing proficiency through feedback is essential.University writing instruction in business majors should extend beyond basic writing skills to encompass the diverse writing demands of the professional world (Yu et al., 2022).Feedback plays a crucial role in aligning student work with learning outcomes and targeting specific abilities (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) and is vital for measuring learners' progress and success.It serves multiple functions, including guiding, instructing, reinforcing learning, and orienting learners towards future assignments (Ellis, 2008).
In addition, Ellis (2008), Beuningen (2012), and Mahmud (2018), identify six feedback methods: direct, indirect, meta-linguistic, focused/unfocused, electronic, and varied.Sanavi and Nemati (2014) add reformulation, which has been shown to be effective in an experiment with Iranian English learners.These studies collectively highlight the diverse and impactful methods of feedback in enhancing business writing education for diverse student needs.Teachers must consider how students receive and prefer feedback on their Writing (Ferris, 2010).Effective feedback depends on students' ability to understand and engage with the teacher's comments.Scholars like Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006), Regan (2010), and Zacharias (2007) agree that learners struggle to utilize feedback that is vague or lacks clear directives for improvement.Understanding student perspectives on feedback has become a crucial research area, highlighting the importance of considering students' interpretations of teacher comments.
This shift recognizes that the mere provision of feedback is not enough for effective learning; rather, it's the student's active engagement with the feedback that is crucial.Feedback is most impactful when it extends beyond current tasks and "feeds forward," guiding future work and achieving broader educational goals.Therefore, fostering student engagement with feedback is key to enhancing its educational value.However, there is a gap in research regarding students' perceptions of the most effective feedback types, their emotional responses to receiving feedback, and the motivators for their active involvement in the learning process (Wiboolyasarin et al., 2022;Rashtchi & Bakar, 2019).Addressing these areas is essential for optimizing the role of feedback in the educational process.
Previous research on students' perceptions of teacher feedback in Writing has predominantly relied on student surveys (Zhan, 2016).However, student perspectives on written feedback for business correspondence assignments (like business letters, reports, and proposals) remain underexplored.Few studies have focused on the types of written feedback provided by teachers at the university level, particularly for business writing tasks such as emails and reports using online platforms.In the digital age, learning management systems and other software offer new ways for teachers to provide feedback and track student progress, replacing traditional instructional methods with immediate error correction.
Furthermore, this study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the types of written feedback given to university students' business writing assignments based on Ellis's (2008) feedback.It employs a combination of feedback document analysis on online platforms, questionnaires, and interviews to understand students' perceptions of teachers' feedback.The research has two primary objectives.1.) To explore the types of written feedback teachers, provide, examining their methods and styles in evaluating and guiding students' business writing tasks.This includes identifying and categorizing the diverse forms of feedback, understanding their usage, and assessing their relevance in writing education.2.) To investigate students' interpretations and reactions to this feedback, understanding their perceptions, comprehension, and responses.The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of feedback from the student's perspective, exploring how they integrate it into their learning process and its impact on the development of their writing skills.Overall, this study seeks to provide a holistic understanding of the dynamics of written feedback in educational settings, encompassing both educators' strategies and learners' responses, to better prepare students for their future professional careers in business environments.

METHOD
This study employed a qualitative methodology to analyze teachers' written feedback on students' business writing assignments.As outlined by Ary et al. (2010) and Creswell (2009), qualitative research aims to provide a detailed description of various subjects, including people, events, and phenomena.The primary objective of this approach is to depict the reality of the subjects studied, offering an in-depth understanding of their characteristics and behaviours.Accordingly, this research combined observational and qualitative methods and incorporated learner perspectives through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to understand how students perceive and respond to teachers' written feedback.
The study was conducted at a university in Jakarta, within the Business Management program.Participants included two lecturers and 64 undergraduate students majoring in Business Management.The lecturers, both Indonesians, hold degrees in International Relations and English Education and have teaching experiences of eight and five years, respectively.The student participants completed questionnaires, and 12 of them, whose written assignments were visually presented for discussion, were interviewed.Data collection encompassed documentation analysis, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews.The primary data sources were 64 student assignments featuring instructors' written feedback, both in physical copies and as online files.Questionnaires gathered insights into the students' perceptions of the feedback, and interviews provided additional depth to these perceptions.The study aimed to explore the effectiveness of written feedback in a university setting, focusing on the impact of feedback on student learning and development.
This study utilized a questionnaire, based on research by Elwood and Bode (2014) and Hedgcock and Lefkowitz (1996) to assess learners' reactions to various types of feedback on their business writing assignments (emails, reports, and proposals).The questionnaire also explored the perceived benefits of teacher feedback on students' English writing skills.Responses were measured using a Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree or never) to 4 (strongly agree or always).This quantitative tool was complemented by semi-structured interviews, where learners were asked open-ended questions about their perceptions, feelings, and attitudes towards teacher feedback, focusing on its impact on their progress and achievements.
To address the research questions concerning the types of written feedback provided and students' understanding and responses to this feedback, data were collected from students' writing assignments and worksheets containing teachers' feedback, along with the completed questionnaires and interview responses.The data analysis followed several steps as outlined by Sugiyono (2009), including data classification, presentation, description, interpretation, and conclusion.This approach aimed to provide comprehensive insights into the effectiveness and reception of written feedback in a business writing educational context.

FINDING AND DISCUSSION
To answer the first research question asked by this study, the analysis of artefact worksheet documents derived from students' assignments was completed after the teachers provided feedback on the type of business writing assignments (email, report, and report).It has been agreed that the results of the different kinds of written corrected feedback were in line with Ellis's (2008) typology of teachers' written feedback.Ellis (2008) identified six strategies for teachers to provide written feedback on students' linguistic errors, including (1) direct feedback, (2) indirect feedback, (3) metalinguistic feedback, (4) focused and unfocused feedback, (5) electronic feedback, and (6) reformulation.As we can see in Table 1, in this research, there are only six types of written corrective feedback applied by the teacher: direct corrective feedback, indirect corrective feedback, focused feedback, unfocused feedback, electronic feedback, and small numbers of reformulation feedback.The table details the frequency of each type of teacher's feedback across three categories: business emails, business reports, and proposal writing.Direct feedback makes up 5% of the total, with 28 occurrences.Indirect feedback is more common, with 80 occurrences constituting 15% of the total.Metalinguistic feedback occurs 53 times and accounts for 10%.Focus feedback, with 35 occurrences, represents 7%.Unfocused feedback is given 95 times, amounting to 18%.Electronic feedback is the most frequent at 175 occurrences, which is 34% of the total.Reformulation feedback occurs 54 times, making up 11% of the feedback.
Moreover, the worksheet analysis proved that the teacher had used multiple options for providing written corrective feedback on each student's writing worksheet.
Occasionally, each worksheet contained one or two different forms of written corrective feedback, and it was classified as unfocused feedback.That is why unfocused feedback ranked second as the type of feedback that the teacher gave the most in this study.Then, direct corrective feedback is found as the third category of teachers' corrective feedback most given for students' business writing assignments.Small differences are found between this study and which describes direct corrective feedback in which the teacher typically crosses out an unnecessary word, phrase, or morpheme, inserts a lacking word, phrase, or morpheme, and writes the correct form above and close to the incorrect form, while in this study teacher wrote them in the comment box next to the assignments.The next feedback found in this study is electronic feedback.In this application used by the lecturer (Grammarly), the feedback can automatically be downloaded and sent to the students.
Then, focused feedback and reformulation feedback are the two final categories of corrective feedback provided by teachers for students' business writing assignments.Both methods provide corrective feedback to correlate students' Writing with rewritten text in a native context.This study determined that these two types of feedback were given by teachers to demonstrate correct grammar to students.This is in line with Zhan's (2016) research, which agreed that teachers should give feedback on organization, vocabulary, content, grammar, and mechanics.

Students' survey results regarding Types of Teachers' written feedback and the Frequency
The questions that were designed to determine the frequencies of students receiving the types of feedback outlined in Ellis's ( 2008) and Long's (2017) typologies can be seen in the figure below.The findings in Figure 1 showed that 63 % of participants often received direct feedback, whilst 24,6% always and 10,8 % sometimes received it from the lecturer.Furthermore, it also can be seen that 32,3 % of the participants received indirect feedback often, 6,2 % always, and 44,6 % of the respondents received it from the lecturer.They also received focus feedback with percentages of 7,8% always, 31% often, and 43,8 % sometimes.Moreover, 24,6 % of participants always received unfocused feedback, 58,5 % often, and 13,8 % of participants sometimes received unfocused feedback.80 % of participants still felt that they were receiving metalinguistics feedback.The results of this survey also showed that all participants were receiving reformulation feedback from the lecturer.
However, according to the results of the survey given to students, the type of feedback they receive most frequently is direct feedback (see Table 1 and Figure 1), and this difference between instructors' and students' perspectives must be highlighted.According to students, the most frequently received is directive feedback, whereas, from the point of view of teachers, it is indirect feedback.This difference in perception can also be seen in students' understanding of metalinguistic feedback.They think metalinguistic is self-reflection, which is a type of feedback when the teacher uses specific codes and abbreviations.In this study, no metalinguistic type was found in the evidence of worksheet documents that had been reviewed by the lecturers.Still, from the questionnaire results, the students felt they accepted it.
The research was continued with interviews, proving that the student's understanding was wrong; they thought metalinguistics was self-reflection.This is similar to the findings of Zhan's (2016) study, which discovered that students' and teachers' perceptions can differ.Indexicality can also impact students' ability to interpret teacher feedback as a semiotic resource.Comprehending the feedback as semiotic resources of the context of one's actions necessitates comprehending their conventional social meaning or indexical potential.That is why teachers who teach writing skills in a second language were advised to communicate more with their students about their feedback practices and be aware of their perceptions and preferences to improve the effectiveness of their writing instructions (Zimmerman, 1995).

Students' survey results on types of Teachers' written Feedback Regarding the macro and micro techniques of students' Writing
Concerning the focus on the micro technique of writing skills, the participants' survey results also show that participants received feedback related to lexical aspects, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics mistakes, content, organization, and structure, also encouraging words quite often from teachers like a well-done, good job, you can do it, great work, etc.The table shows that 67 % of participants often received feedback on lexical whilst 16,9 % always and 13,8 % sometimes received this lexical feedback type from the lecturer.Furthermore, it also can be seen that 66,2 % of the participants received feedback on grammar often, 18,5 % always, and 15,4 % of participants received this grammar feedback type from the lecturer.They also received structure, organization, and mechanics feedback with percentages of 24,4 % always, 68,8 % often, and 7,8 % sometimes.Moreover, 18,5 % of participants always received feedback about the content of the assignment, 58 % often, and 21,58 % of participants sometimes received this content feedback.All the participants also found that lecturers always, often, and sometimes give them feedback by writing encouraging words by using great work, good job, and keep up the great work.This finding concurs with what was written by Zhan (2016).The rules of giving feedback should help students see micro and micro aspects of their mistakes.The survey findings on students' perception research are shown in Table 3, and the summary shown in Table 4 revealed that most of the students preferred to receive directive and reformulation feedback on their writing assignments, with a percentage of 93,9 % for directive feedback, and 89,1 % for reformulation feedback.Then, students chose to get unfocused feedback at the LMS as much as 86,1 %.Students' impressions of the study's findings are consistent with those of Jinowat and Wibolyaasarin (2022), who discovered that students find directive comments to be the most beneficial.People who are learning a second language learn it through teaching instruction and support from others.Getting direct feedback from a teacher at home or anywhere else is the same thing for adolescents.They recognize that receiving direct criticism helps them become better writers and understand how to write successfully.This type of remark was also made.
To strengthen this survey results, this study continued by interviewing the students regarding their understanding and perception of receiving teachers' written feedback.Below is the opinion of students when receiving direct and indirect feedback:

When my teacher crossed out or circled my work but didn't tell me what the answer was, that's when I felt given the trust and autonomy to find the right answer for myself and decide for myself. The teacher's feedback made me know my mistakes in my English writing, and I just rethought the other formal words. Sometimes, I asked Google, thesaurus, or my friends. [Excerpt 5]
As for the participants, some thought that reformulation could lead to the same and uniform understanding so that the results of their Writing were similar to one another.
I do understand the teacher's correction, which not only gives corrective words but also writes a full sentence, but….Unfortunately, it turns out that many classmates receive the same corrective sentence, so everyone is the same.[Excerpt 6] The interview results show that focused feedback brings up two different points of view.Some people like it, but others do not.
Sometimes, it feels a little tense, but the lecturer's feedback is very focused, so you do not make the same previous mistakes.Easier for me to memorize the mistakes.

[Excerpt 7]
It feels like not just making another mistake.So, if the lecturer just circles the wrong grammar, I think my content is correct, but it turns out that it's actually still wrong.I found out that this was wrong when I finalized it.Apparently, it was still not final; something was still wrong.
The lecturer marked some of our mistakes in our business report assignment when checking.Then, in the comment column, he provided input and improvements by mentioning several categories, such as grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, content, and structure.Usually, these categories correspond to those in the rubric, right?We are always introduced to the rubric from the start of the assignment.[Excerpt 9] When researchers queried students about metalinguistic feedback during interview results, it was discovered that they did not comprehend its meaning.One of them believed it was a form of feedback similar to giving students time for self-reflection.
I like self-reflection because we feel we are not being patronized; we can think freely but still learn from our mistakes.It's even better if you find your errors; it's easier to improve.[Excerpt 10] I don't think I've ever received feedback given certain abbreviation codes.So far, my lecturer has given feedback by marking mistakes.Sometimes, they give answers below, but sometimes, they don't give answers right away, so we think and study first.

It would be nice if you corrected it while writing down the correct answer because, for me, the most difficult thing was finding the formal version of the sentences I wrote in my Writing. Especially email, it's difficult. [Excerpt 12]
Then, students also expressed their understanding about receiving feedback from Grammarly: A file is attached to our LMS under the feedback he wrote.We know it comes from the Grammarly application because some of our friends have Grammarly premium accounts.Very helpful because the feedback is very complete.We learn a lot from the file.[Excerpt 13] Students' understanding and response to the focus of teachers' written feedback on their writing tasks.
Table 5 demonstrates how students feel or perceive the importance of receiving focused feedback on seven areas of writing skills in response to research question two.Positive opinions toward getting those seven areas of focus in second language writing acquisitions are revealed by the findings.Providing feedback on sentence structure, such as punctuation errors, sentence fragments, comma splices, and runs-on, will improve my writing skills.
27,7% 67,7% 4,6% 0,0% If the lecturer gives feedback on the content of my Writing regarding the ideas and information that I write on my writing product, it will make me more proficient at Writing.

31,3%
67,2% 1,6% 0,0% I like the words of encouragement and praise given by the lecturers for their feedback, such as great work, great job, good luck, etc.
46,2% 50,8% 3,1% 0,0% The feedback that I received from the lecturers helped me better understand what was targeted in my writing assignment.
33,8% 64,6% 1,5% 0,0% The feedback I received from lecturers made me understand better how to write informative and concise business writing as needed.
32,8% 65,6% 1,6% 0,0% The students agreed and strongly agreed that teachers should provide feedback on all seven areas of Writing.97 % of respondents indicate a positive attitude toward receiving feedback on their writing skills in seven different areas, namely language, organization/structure/mechanics, vocabulary, content, grammar, conciseness, and writing goal.This finding aligns with the findings of Sanu's (2016) investigation that revealed a predilection among Indonesian students for the receipt of the accurate version over the erroneous form.Moreover, it is also supported by Black and Nanni (2016), whose study on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Thai students demonstrated a preference for direct feedback accompanied by metalinguistic commentary, underscoring the overarching significance accorded to precision in language accuracy by the students.

Students' attitude towards teachers' written feedback on their writing tasks
To continue answering the second research question, a survey was conducted regarding student attitudes regarding types of teachers' written feedback, as shown in Table 6 below.This table shows that 29.2% of participants strongly agreed, and 69.2% agreed that written feedback from teachers helped them revise and finish their writing tasks faster.The second data set showed that 21.5% of respondents strongly agreed, and 73.8% agreed they could talk to their teacher through feedback.This information showed that everyone who replied to the teachers' written comments liked them and thought they were helpful and valuable.This result agrees with what other researchers (Alamis, 2010;Chen et al., 2016;Kim et al., 2020) have found.They say that written feedback helps students get better at Writing.Students learn their skills and weaknesses as writers by reading what their teachers have written about them.Moreover, similar results also happened in Putra (2022) and Rasool et al. (2023), who found that students experience demotivation and a sense of despair when confronted with intricate feedback conveyed through loops, underlining, and a lack of corrections and constructive input by the teacher.The preferred approach among students invariably centres on instructional techniques that involve clear explanations.
Then, the table also showed that 24,6 % of participants strongly agreed, and 72,3 % of participants agreed that by the lecturer's feedback, they could understand their strengths and weaknesses in Writing.The finding also revealed that teachers' written feedback is also helpful for students in managing their time to finish the writing assignments, as can be seen that 28,1 % of participants strongly agreed and 60,9 % agreed that written feedback from lecturers is always given on time so they have enough time to improve their business writing assignments.The data above are supported by some students reported during the interview: Yes, always fast, never a week later.So, at the next meeting, I often like to ask directly about the written feedback I received.[Excerpt 14] Overall, Tables 5 and 6's data showed us that all the students responded to the lecturer's written feedback positively, and they also felt that it was helpful to improve their writing skills.As Zimmerman (1995) noted, self-regulation, which includes the management of time, is an important part of the learning process.Having positive reactions to feedback is crucial to help students grasp the task better, and it gives students clear instructions to improve their learning.Having positive responses to feedback is also vital to help students improve their learning.
In the interaction between students and lecturers, lecturers often need to motivate students with encouraging statements in student work papers.One student gave his expression when asked about how impactful the encouragement statement from the teacher was to their writing assignment.
Personally, I think that my teacher had written helpful feedback regarding my work and my friends' work.If the feedback is rather negative than positive, he has some encouraging words to try better next time.He also points out the part that the students should pay more attention to.Encouragement expressions made us positively accept the feedback and avoid making the same mistakes in the future.[Excerpt 15] During the interview, all 12 participants mostly explained their feelings that are positive towards the teacher's written feedback.The effect is I could know where I answered wrong so I could improve in the future.In fact, the most effective part is when receiving feedback.We know how to improve our writing assignments in the final process.This is the same as receiving study material.We go to all sources to find the right answer.[Excerpt 19] However, there also appeared to be a negative response toward teachers' written feedback, but only because of the problem with the internet.
Well, the problem is in the internet connection because almost all of our work and feedback is posted to the LMS.If the internet connection in my house is down or objectives through rubrics.Since the age of students in this study are already adults, in turn, they should be granted autonomy and opportunities for independent thinking, collaboration, and communication when incorporating teacher feedback into their revised assignments (the final version of their writing assignment), both offline and online.This study's results contribute essential principles for effective feedback practices, addressing cognitive, behavioural, and motivational aspects of second language learning among university students.It is necessary to conduct further research on broader feedback techniques such as peer feedback and electronic feedback other than Grammarly.Moreover, this research is also limited because it is only based on the LMS online platform where students submit assignments.Further research and analysis need to be carried out to analyze corrective written feedback that is directly written by the teacher's handwriting on student assignment papers (offline document).

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Survey results of types of teachers' written corrective feedback.

I
feel quite joyful after being given the teacher's written feedback.After I have received the feedback, I plan to review my work and think about how I could improve it next time.[Excerpt 16] Yes, I enjoy the teacher's written feedback because it is very helpful in improving my work in the future.I particularly enjoy detailed comments on my work.The reason behind it is, based on his feedback, I can work on the part that I am lacking in.[Excerpt 17] I think the feedback is very useful for me to evaluate my paper.I enjoy receiving the teacher's feedback because I know where I answered wrong, and usually, after receiving the feedback, I plan to do a review of my answers.By this, I feel I am learning something.Considering that the time we get in class for this course is very short, only 100 minutes, this feedback is also a lesson for us.But it's a pity the lecturer is taking up his time for us.Hopefully, we can meet the expectations of our lecturers.[Excerpt 18]

Table 1 .
Teachers' Frequencies of types of feedback

Table 2 .
Types of Teachers' Written Feedback Regarding the Micro Technic of Student Writing and the Frequency

Table 3 .
Students' perception of receiving the teachers' written feedback on their writing tasks.

Table 4 .
The summary of students' preferences to types of teachers' written corrective feedback.

Table 5 .
Student's perception of receiving writing skills-focused feedback

Table 6 .
Students' attitude when receiving teachers' written feedback on their writing tasks.