Peer Review and IM

Jin, Li, and Wei Zhu. “Dynamic Motives in ESL Computer-Mediated Peer Response.” Computers and Composition 27.4 (2010): 284-303. Print.

Often, technology’s pedagogical effectiveness is examined in terms of the products students create (e.g., see my posting on Garrison’s article). Jin and Zhu are more interested in the process for this study. Their study explores how a tool like instant messaging (IM) affects L2 students’ participation in and their motives during and across three peer review sessions. L2 students and their interactions in peer review have received plenty of scholarly attention, but as Jin and Zhu note, these studies often focus on face-to-face interactions instead of computer-mediate ones. Their study attempts to examine both how L2 students interact in peer review activities mediated by IM and how these interactions and the mediating technology affect their motives and participation.

They relied on a case study design mediated by activity theory. Activity theory “provides a cultural historical view of human behaviors that result from socially and historically constructed forms of mediation through mediational artifacts in all human activities” (286). It is a means to explore how and why humans act as they do in a certain context or system and how certain tools/artifacts affect their actions and is quite well suited to explore how IM affects students’ actions in a peer review context. Jin and Zhu chose two students for their case studies who worked together on two of the three peer review tasks and whose technology skills represented two ends of a continuum: Anton, who had considerable computer and IM experience, and Iron, whose experiences with technology were somewhat limited. Jin and Zhu relied on multiple streams of data to collect their information: Web cams to capture their facial expressions and off-screen activities, transcripts of IM exchanges, observation, screen capture software, click-tracking software, and extensive interviews with the participants. Through these data, the authors discovered that the students both came in with the desire to improve their English skills, but these motives changed because of their first interaction. For example, Iron’s poor typing skills frustrated Anton. For the second session, Iron hoped to improve those skills, while Anton, who wanted to have fun in the IM sessions, became condescending and rude. In short, the artifact (IM) became a determining factor in how the students worked (or did not work) together.

Discovering and examining human motives is a complicated task, as the authors note. Utilizing a case study approach with its multiple streams of data and the researchers’ triangulation of that data to attempt to discover what the students’ motives might have been seems to be a sensible way to approach this issue. However, the limits of the approach are also apparent in terms of possible conclusions the researchers can suggest. Since they only addressed the experiences of two students, they are left with suggestions of what issues instructors might consider in terms of computer-mediated peer review. At the same time, this study does provide a number of variables for future researchers to consider, such as computer experience/skills. This in itself is a valuable element of this case study, despite the limited conclusions we can draw from it directly.