Graduate Program
English
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Semester of Degree Completion
Spring 2026
Thesis Director
Terri Fredrick
Thesis Committee Member
Rachael Ryerson
Thesis Committee Member
Melissa Caldwell
Abstract
This mixed-methods study explores how multilingual international students experience peer review in U.S. college writing classrooms. While peer review is widely used in higher education, most existing research focuses on what these students do during these interactions rather than on how the students feel about them, what they believe, and how their identities as language users shape their participation. Guided by translingual and sociocultural learning frameworks, the study draws on a survey of 44 multilingual international students and in-depth interviews with six participants enrolled at a Midwestern University, and addresses three questions: what emotions and beliefs students report about peer review, how they perceive their multilingual repertoires in that context, and how their emotional experiences and sense of linguistic identity intersect. Findings are organized around five themes: the emotional experience of peer review, beliefs and practices around feedback, multilingual resources and practices, linguistic identity and sense of self, and navigating an unfamiliar system and growing through it. Across these themes, the study identifies a consistent pattern it terms the giving-receiving asymmetry — the finding that giving feedback is more emotionally costly for multilingual students than receiving it — rooted in a perceived lack of authority to critique peers, particularly native English-speaking ones. A related and equally robust finding is grammar hesitation: the tendency to withhold grammar-level feedback not because of limited knowledge but because of the belief that native speakers hold inherent authority over their own language. The study also finds that many participants actively draw on their multilingual resources during peer review.
Recommended Citation
Bobie, Daniel Osei, "A Mixed-Methods Exploration of the Multilingual International Student’s Peer Review Experience: Perceptions, Feelings, and Practices" (2026). Masters Theses. 5138.
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/5138
