2014 Volume 62 Issue 2 Pages 115-128
The present study examined relations between a teacher’s responses and students’ writing of a reaction paper (RP). Initially, a pilot study was conducted to develop a questionnaire measuring learners’ beliefs about the purpose of writing a reaction paper. Factor analysis of the data identified 4 factors: “memorizing”, “practicing writing”, “reporting self-understanding level”, and “communicating informally”. In the main study, students in 2 Japanese university educational psychology classes were assigned to 2 conditions. In the expectation condition, the students were simply told that other people would read their comments on a reaction paper. In the response condition, the teacher picked some comments from a reaction paper and provided a supplementary explanation. The results suggest that the teacher’s response decreased the number of lower-order questions that simply confirmed terms, and promoted higher-order questions that connected new information with prior knowledge. In addition, significant interactions were found with students’ beliefs about the purpose of writing reaction papers in that the teacher’s response had no effect on inhibiting lower-order questions of students who had a high belief in memorizing, whereas, on the other hand, higher-order questions were promoted except by those students who held extremely high communication beliefs.
