Investigation of the contribution of automatic feedback system to the development of distance foreign language learners' writing activities

The subject of this dissertation is to examine whether automatic feedback contributes to the development of writing activities of those who learn English as a foreign language at a distance, and to take the opinions of learners and foreign language experts for the formative automatic feedback. In the study carried out with the participation of students who are studying or graduated from different programs at Anadolu University Open Education Faculty, the learners received regular feedback on their writing activities by an automatic feedback tool. The contribution of automatic feedback to academic writing success was observed by statistically comparing the grades of the learners for their writing tasks at the beginning and at the end of the process. In the second stage of the study, detailed data about learners' experiences were obtained by interviewing volunteer participants. At the same time, interviews were held with eight foreign language experts working in different higher education institutions to get their opinions about the use of the feedback provided by the automatic feedback tool in foreign language learning. The quantitative and qualitative findings of the study showed that automatic feedback contributed to the development of writing skills of foreign language learners at a distance. Interviews with learners and foreign language experts revealed themes such as effective learning process, contribution to foreign language development, motivation increase, effective and fast feedback, user-friendly learning environment, contribution to distance learning, affective support, support for individual learning as the strengths of automatic feedback. The interviews also included participants' suggestions on how to use automated feedback tools more effectively.