Student teachers' preferences and perceptions of screencasting and text-mediated feedback types in SLW course

Fast developing technological advances offer many opportunities and facilities to English Language Teaching. In this respect, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of screencast feedback, which is a technological advancement, and text feedback on students' preferences and perceptions. The preferences and perceptions of freshman college students about screencast feedback and text feedback were investigated by comparing screencast feedback with text feedback, which is a more classical mode of feedback. Two modes of feedback were given to 15 first-year teacher candidates at a state-run university in this process for their four journal reflections in the second language writing course. At the end of the semester, the data about the students' perceptions and preferences were collected through questionnaires, open-ended questions, and interviews. The data obtained were analysed by dividing into two headings and using the mixed methods. Firstly, qualitative data were analysed by coding technique, and secondly, quantitative data were analysed by using SPSS-23. The analysis shows that although screencast feedback has advantages, as compared to text feedback, in terms of clarity, future use, motivation, language awareness, and emotional intimacy, it also has weaknesses such as impracticality due to incompatible file extensions and slow upload problems. Despite these advantages and disadvantages, the freshmen's preferences and perceptions seem to be in favor of text feedback today although the difference is still negligible. Keywords: Second language writing, feedback, text feedback, screencast feedback, screencasting