An analysis of online peer feedbacks towards vlogs of speaking A students

This study was aimed at analyzing online comments/feedbacks made by peers towards the Vlogs of the students attending Speaking A course. More specifically, the peer comments/ feedbacks were analyzed to explore: (a) what aspects of Vlogs the pers commonly evaluated as online peer comments/feedbacks through the Schoology comment section and (b) how peers applied Sandwich method on their comments/feedbacks. The analysis was based on 6 aspects of Vlogs as suggested by Harley and Fitzpatrick’s (2009) (i.e., “use of physical setting or layout”, “manipulation of physical objects”, “body movement”, “video production techniques”, “speech and vocal gestures”, and “other sounds”), based on teacher’s guideline (Sandwich method, i.e., compliment-critique-compliment). The data were collected from 66 students attending Speaking A course at English Language Education Study Program of a private university in Surabaya. There were 525 online peer comments/feedbacks evaluating the Vlogs made by the students. Results showed that among 525 comments, the majority (41.14%) of the comments were concerned with ‘speech and vocal gesture’ and ‘body movement’ (28.76%), whereas the minority was concerned with ‘manipulation of physical objects’ (3.05%). With regard to the number of aspects of comments and the percentage of peers giving comments, it was found that the majority (39.39%) of peers gave comments on 2 aspects and 30.30% on 3 aspects, and the least (4.5%) on 5 aspects. None of them gave 6 aspects in their comments. Furthermore, about how consistently each peer gave comments in respect with the number of aspects of each individual Vlog, the result showed that none of the peers were concerned with giving consistent number of aspects in their comments for each individual Vlogs. Finally, concerning how Sandwich method was applied by peers in giving comments, it was found that the number of peers who applied the method consistently and those who applied it inconsistently was almost balanced (50% and 46.97% respectively), and the rest which was quite few (3.03%) did not apply the method at all. These findings suggest that giving comments/feedbacks should consider the aspects to be commented consistently for each individual Vlog and also the method to be applied consistently. Implications in improving peer comments/feedbacks and in giving instructions on how to give good comments/feedbacks are discussed