Higher-proficiency students’ engagement with and uptake of teacher and Grammarly feedback in an EFL writing course

Research on the impact of feedback on students’ writing has grown in the past 20 years, including studies comparing the nature of teacher and automated feedback. Differential success in learners’ gaining from feedback has largely depended on their engagement with the feedback rather than the feedback itself. Studies examining the ways learners engage with different sources of feedback are relatively scarce. This study addresses this gap: it examines Hungarian university students’ behavioral engagement with teacher and automated feedback and their feedback uptake over a 14-week semester in an EFL writing course. Drawing on student texts and feedback from teacher and Grammarly, we identified the focus of feedback and analyzed the students’ revision operations in their revised texts. The results showed differences in feedback focus (the teacher provided form-and meaning-focused feedback) with unexpected outcomes: students’ uptake of feedback resulted in moderate to low levels of engagement with teacher and Grammarly feedback. Participants incorporated more form-focused feedback than meaning-focused feedback into their revisions. These findings contribute to our understanding of students’ engagement with writing tasks, levels of trust, and possible impact of students’ language proficiency on their engagement with feedback. The pedagogical implications from this study are discussed.