Effectiveness of Using Screencast Feedback on EFL Students’ Writing and Perception

This mixed-methods research was carried out to investigate the effect of screencast video feedback on the writing of freshmen, studying academic writing course at a university in Egypt, and explore their perception towards receiving screencast feedback. Two classes of 63 students were chosen to participate in this study and were assigned into two groups; an experimental group (33 students) and a control one (30 students). While the control group received written comments, the experimental group received video feedback to the higher order concerns of writing (content, organization and structure) and written feedback to the lower order concerns (accuracy) of their writings. Two writing tests were administered to the two groups before and after the experiment. To investigate the perception towards screencast feedback, an online questionnaire was applied to the experimental group after the experiment. Results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the higher order concerns of writing as well as the overall writing skill in the writing posttest. Findings also revealed that the majority of students in the experimental group perceived screencast feedback positively for being clear, personal, specific, supportive, multimodal, constructive, and engaging. However, they reported few challenges such as slow loading time and inability to download videos to their computers. The research concludes with implications for practitioners and researchers.