"It Makes Me Aware": Undergraduates' Perceptions Toward Using Automated Corrective Feedback Program (Grammarly) to Improve Their Writing Skills

Maha Saad Alotaibi

Abstract


This research aims to investigate undergraduate students' perceptions of using Grammarly's automated corrective feedback to improve their academic writing skills. A qualitative approach was used to thoroughly investigate their perceptions; therefore, online semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Saudi EFL undergraduate students. To analyze the data, the researcher followed Braun and Clarke's (2006) approach to thematic analysis technique by using QDA Miner Lite program to code and theme the information. The findings revealed that the participants viewed Grammarly positively because it played a role in raising their awareness of their common writing issues, ensuring their writing confidence, and developing their grammar and sentence structures. The participants were also aware of Grammarly's limitations and considered them. This study suggests that new technologies (e.g., Grammarly) can bridge the gap between students' current abilities and what they need to be accomplished with the assistance of a more capable entity, which is known as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), to take the students to the level where they are supposed to be.


Keywords


Grammarly; automated corrective feedback; writing skills; perceptions; Saudi EFL undergraduate students

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