Relationships between teacher feedback and English writing proficiency in Chinese students: The mediating effect of writing self-regulated learning strategies

Teacher feedback and self-regulated learning (SRL) are crucial in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing and instruction. However, little work has explored how these two constructs jointly influence writing. This study aimed to examine the relationships between teacher feedback, students' use of writing SRL strategies, and English writing proficiency. Data were used from 691 EFL learners in five universities in mainland China. The results indicated that all types of teacher feedback did not significantly predict students' English writing proficiency but writing SRL strategies did. Besides, all types of teacher feedback significantly predicted writing SRL strategies. Writing SRL strategies mediated the relationships between four types of teacher feedback (i.e., verification feedback, directive feedback, scaffolding feedback, teacher praise)and English writing proficiency. After adding gender as a covariate, two SEM results yielded significant changes: teacher criticism did not predict writing SRL strategies ; writing SRL strategies were not a mediator in the association between scaffolding feedback and English writing proficiency anymore. The findings not only empirically support the social cognitive model of self-regulated writing, but inform us of the importance of using SRL writing strategies in addition to providing varied types of feedback information to enhance students' English writing proficiency.