Does Peer Review Really Contribute to the Quality of Students' Writing?

Abstract

Writing paragraphs or essays in a foreign language may bring students obstacles pertaining to the quality of the content, organization, cohesion and coherence, dictions, grammar, and mechanics. As a result, the students may be frustrated and discouraged. Therefore, the process of writing which provides students with the opportunities to write, review, revise, and edit their drafts should be given ample attention. Within the process, students have the chance to write the drafts by the help of their peers who read their drafts and spot the errors for them. This research investigated the effect of peer review on the quality of students' writing and to what extent it contributed to quality improvement. The study involved the intermediate-level of English Department of Universitas Lambung Mangkurat. The data was obtained from the scores of students' writing assignments. The findings showed that the difference on the mean score was significant (p value obtained was .000 which was less than the significance level .05). Furthermore, significant differences were found in the component of content, grammar, and mechanics. The study concludes that peer review brings positive effect on the quality improvement of students' writing as far as content, grammar, and mechanics are concerned. This implies that teachers should implement peer review in teaching EFL writing to help students develop their writing skills.