El contexto social y político de la región

In this section I aim to show how my research is informed by the previous research on the autonomy and to articulate the originality of this study. Particularly, I am interested in investigating whether the combination of online peer feedback and reflective practice can cultivate students’ autonomy in

33 writing. Although there are many studies that examine the implementation of a variety of tools for the enhancement of autonomy there are not many studies that combine peer feedback and reflective pedagogy that focus on academic writing. My research questions are close to Kennedy’s (2010) study who blends wikis and blogs and e-portfolios in a qualitative case study to enhance students collaborative writing skills, encourage peer-feedback, self-reflection, promote motivation and finally improve their composition skills. Kennedy investigated whether the specific technologies can have a real effect on students’ learning. Being confident with the use of technology, he designed an innovative blended curriculum for the composition class with emphasis on the mix of online and traditional pedagogy. I embrace his view on using a variety of tools in the classroom to compare and contrast the effectiveness of different technologies, however I could not implement his approach in my classroom due to time restrictions and the slow adaptation of my students in the use of innovative technologies in the writing class. Although Kennedy (2009) provides a detailed picture of the research design of the study he does not adequately present how he validated the quality of this study (peer debriefing, member checks, etc.). Also, the research question on whether students have developed their own voice after the end of the project is not answered satisfactory. Finally, Kennedy (2009) is mostly interested in actual learning while my emphasis is on autonomous learning.

Regarding data collection methods, I concur with Hashimoto (2012) who uses think aloud protocols to cover the deficiencies of interviews. Hashimoto (2012) explains that when students are asked to talk about their experiences and specifically to describe their learning strategies it is not always easy for them to recall their actions with accuracy. I similarly introduced spoken reflection through video to capture students in action reflections and avoid asking students to recall detailed information. Contrary to my study, all participants in Hashimoto’s (2012) research were familiar with the use of blogs. Hashimoto (2012) empowered students by giving them the freedom to write for topics of their interest and encouraged them to use their own resources. Similarly, although my students did not select all their essay topics due to syllabus

34 restrictions, they were given a variety of topics to select for their argumentative essay and I recommended them to use their own resources on condition that they share them with their audience. Regarding peer feedback technique Hashimoto (2012) had a team of 18 Japanese native speakers and teachers to support students with further feedback. The resources available to me limited adoption of the techniques used in this project. Finally, comparably to my research Google drive technology was used to monitor students’ portfolio.

Concerning students’ perceptions on peer feedback, I was sensitive to Cheng’s (2009) criticism that argues that language teachers should train learners and equip them with linguistic strategies. I trained students on giving feedback and we had many class discussions on the advantages and challenges of giving and receiving feedback. Cheng (2009) introduced 2 cycles of both online and face-to-face peer review following the writing process model pedagogy and enhance students’ interactions. Similarly, I used one cycle of group feedback in Google drive and a second cycle or online peer feedback for students’ second draft to enhance the quality of feedback and give students the opportunity to further discuss about their online interaction. I agree with Cheng (2009) that online feedback is not just another form of feedback, but students’ need time and training to adjust in an online environment. Cheng (2009) conducted focus group interviews to explore students’ experiences on peer feedback while I preferred one to one interviews. Although focus group interviews have potentials to empower participants and give them the opportunity to collaborate with the researcher so at to initiate change, I decided to conduct one to one interviews for three main reasons: First, being familiar with the attitude of my students I was aware that only few students will dominate the discussion while shy students will just wait for instructor’s intervention to take turn. Secondly, focus group discussion would be challenging for my class since 2 of my students are not fluent in Greek and would not feel comfortable listening to their peers. Thirdly, on a practical note, focus group discussions need a moderator to move things forward or to challenge participants and keep the discussion focused. The

35 presence of a moderator would not be possible in this research.

Finally, most researchers in the field of autonomy that are close to my study (Hashimoto, 2012, Kennedy, 2009, Cheng, 2009, Welch, 2015) have selected to analyze data using qualitative methods and particularly a case study approach which is suitable for exploring human behavior and experiences. However, I believe that the action research approach and specifically individual teacher action research is suitable for my study. Since the aim of my study is threefold: to explore students’ perceptions on online peer feedback and reflection, to investigate the impact of a technology rich environment on students’ autonomous writing and to reflect on my own practice, action research was selected as a flexible method for this study.