The place of feedback in written assessments cannot be overemphasised. Several researchers have examined feedback in assessment practices from different perspectives (Clark 2012; Dornbrack & Dixon 2014; Elton 2010; Mathew & Sternberg 2009). Within these research papers is often a call for experts involved in the teaching of academic writing to contextualise their construction and dissemination of formative feedback such that it adequately supports student learning and retention (Clark 2012). In the same vein, there is also an urgent call for academic literacy experts to collaborate with discipline-specific lecturers in the construction of and dissemination of formative feedback during essay writing activities (Cauley & McMillan 2010). Those who hold this view often argue that a first-year student is at a critical point of transition (in the context of learning how to cope with university education) and therefore needs to be taught the new ways of being and doing things from a contextual perspective (Dall’Alba & Barnacle 2007). Paxton (2004) proposes the term interim literacies in an attempt to situate the typical first-year student’s writing competencies within a transitional frame.

This article adds to the discussion on supporting first-year students in coping with university education by focusing on the use of formative feedback during essay writing practices in a Health Science discipline. The article explores undergraduate students’ interactions with the formative feedback they receive from their lecturers during academic essay writing activities. Two categories of formative feedback emerged from the findings: one focusing on the students’ writing and the other on the feedback strategies employed by the participants. The research findings suggest that the students’ and lecturers’ engagements with formative feedback reflect different levels of transitions; thus interim literacies is used as a concept to understand their current competencies.

Academic writing in general and the ability of students to write an acceptable academic essay fall within the realm of academic literacies (Jacobs 2005; Lea & Street 2006; Paxton 2007). Even though writing an academic essay is widely regarded as a ‘high stakes’ activity in tertiary education (Dornbrack & Dixon 2014:1; Jacobs 2007:872), there is often insufficient support provided to students whose literacy competencies do not meet the requirements of the disciplines that they register in (McKenna 2010). Other researchers have pointed out that the instructions provided to students during essay writing activities are insufficient (Boughey 2008; Janks 2012). Still others think that there is insufficient integration of literacy courses¹ into specialised disciplines (Carstens 2013; Shay 2008) or that there is insufficient collaboration between academic literacy practitioners and discipline experts (Jacobs 2005).

An alternative line of argument comes from those who see students’ academic essays in higher education as representing an ontological stance (Barnett 2009; Dall’Alba & Barnacle 2007). As McKenna points out, students are expected to ‘write, talk, listen, and read in ways that conform to the dominant discourse of their practices’ (2004:12). Different disciplines that these students register for require an awareness and appreciation of the ‘customs and norms’ that they should acquire to understand and communicate the knowledge of their disciplines (McKenna 2010:24). Winberg et al. (2010) explain that specialised disciplines such as Engineering and Health Sciences often require students’ essays to meet specific requirements in terms of lexicon, grammar, textual organisations and social practices. They support the integration of literacy into the teaching of disciplinary subjects and the collaboration between literacy experts and discipline-specific subject lecturers as a suitable means of developing the student’s being within a competitive higher education landscape.

This paper explores how the use of formative feedback by both students and their lecturers indicate that their current academic writing competencies can be better understood as interim. Formative feedback² has been defined as feedback that is provided to a learner with a clear aim to ‘show the learner where there are gaps and how to improve on the learner’s work’ (Bloxham & Campbell 2010:291). Shute (2008:153) considers formative feedback as ‘information communicated to the learner that is intended to modify his or her thinking or behaviour (in order) to improve learning’. This means that formative feedback should be understood within the discourse of formative assessment, or ‘assessment for learning’ (Asghar 2013:19; Gardner 2006:2). Pryor and Crossouard’s broad view of the term formative highlights four key purposes: completing the task at hand, thinking about improvement, making sense of criteria and invoking learner identities (2010:266). Therefore, through formative feedback there is active learning interaction between the student and the lecturer with a clear intention to influence cognition (Black & Wiliam 2009:11). Clark adds that this is suitable for a ‘student-centered’ learning activity (2012:205).

Formative feedback can be either synchronous, asynchronous, external or internal. The above types of feedback are described as formative because in all cases the student engages with a more knowledgeable other (MKO) with the desire to influence, change or improve cognition through that engagement (Black & Wiliam 2009:11). Synchronous formative feedback is feedback that is provided simultaneously as the student is actively engaged in the writing activity (Brophy 2004). During a writing activity, lecturers should create conducive spaces for synchronous formative feedback by using writing laboratories and providing immediate feedback on students’ drafts while they write. This method creates qualities of spontaneity and dialogue during the writing activity (Black & Wiliam 2009). The opposite of this method is asynchronous formative feedback. In this case, the lecturer waits for the students to complete a writing task before providing support and guidance (Clark 2012). The central difference between synchronous and asynchronous formative feedback is in the time difference between when the feedback is provided and when it is acted on. In the intervention reported in this article, we attempted to use both synchronous and asynchronous formative feedback. By doing this, we broke away from past practice in the department³ whereby only asynchronous formative feedback was provided to students by mainly writing centre staff when the students completed their essay assignments. Details of the intervention are provided later in this article.

The issue of time in the provision of formative feedback during writing is important. Therefore, in addition to synchronous and asynchronous formative feedback, there is ipsatic feedback, also referred to as feed forward. This method involves information of a specific nature being provided to students before they engage in a writing activity (Fisher & Frey 2009). This sort of information includes writing instructions, rubrics and referrals.

The notion of interim literacies was introduced by Moragh Paxton as a means to understand students’ struggles with undergraduate university writing assignments. Interim literacies is an emerging theme from her PhD research, which used linguistic and intertextual approaches to determine the connectedness between ‘academic discourses and student voice’ (Paxton 2007:45). Paxton coined the term interim literacies (2004) to represent an ideological look at first-year student writing competencies. With inspiration from the emerging discourses on academic literacies, Paxton (2012) made a contribution to our understanding of the transformations that occur through students’ engagement with writing conventions. It should be noted here that other researchers had highlighted issues around learning and the contestations of meaning between students and lecturers and how this leads to transformation (Canagarajah 2002; Clark & Ivanic 1997). With interim literacies, the student is situated within a period whereby they navigate the gap between pre-university education and their current university expectations.

In order to understand how the use of formative feedback during essay writing practices reflects first-year students’ interim literacies, we draw on two theories to interpret our data: activity theory and critical realism. Activity theory breaks away from constructivist theories in order to highlight the role of praxis ‘in a material and social world’ (Wheelahan 2007:191). We borrow from Engeström’s (1999a) depiction of an activity system to explain how students and lecturers interact with different types of formative feedback and observe specific roles and rules within a clearly defined setting, in order to achieve improved essay writing skills. Using this theory, we underline some of the inherent challenges or contradictions (tensions) within an activity system and explain how these contradictions can contribute to ‘change and innovation’ (Engeström & Miettinen 1999:9) or transformation within the system.

We also use critical realism [with emphasis on Archer’s (1995) morphogenetic realist social theory] to explain the ontological stance that students assume when engaging with formative feedback during essay writing practices and how this stance affects the object of the activity. Archer’s morphogenetic realist social theory is framed from the broader philosophy of critical realism, which according to Sayer (2000:78) is an ‘umbrella philosophy with a strong focus on ontology, not epistemology’. Archer emphasises this distinction when she states that critical realism as a philosophy bears affordances for social theory because it’s ontological strengths ‘[act] as both gatekeepers and bouncers for methodology’ (1995:22). The major premise in Archer’s morphogenetic realist theory is her conception of the morphogenetic cycle (Archer 1995). In it, Archer discusses the differences between agents and the social structures in which agents act. She indicates that the structures refer to previous interactions with agents and that this influences the ways in which new agents adapt to the new settings (Archer 2003). In the intervention reported in this study, spaces like the writing centre, the library and the classrooms are existing structures within the Department of Dental Technology. The agents within these structures are the lecturers, the academic support staff (academic literacy lecturers and writing consultants) and the students. The intense collaboration between specific students and their lecturers during the essay writing workshops is analysed using Archer’s morphogenetic cycle to represent agents acting on structures.

One commentator sees critical realists as people who interpret the social structures in terms of ‘systems of human relations among social positions’ rather than as individual responsibilities that should inform human activities (Porpora 1998:339). This view highlights some of the areas where critical realism can complement activity theory. Both theories analyse societies in abstract and descriptive terms (Wheelahan 2007). They are both opposed to positivism and the desire to isolate variables in order to understand our world (Sayer 2000; Tolman 1999). Both theories have strong roots in Marxism. To this regard, critical realism allows for the conceptualisation of the role of the self, whereas activity theory allows for the description of the self (Wheelahan 2007). This is how the individual student or lecturer (the self) relates to other staff and students in the department (the community). This shows the mutually explanatory energy of both theories. The students, the lecturers and the writing centre staff individually have different definitions of who they are within the academic set-up in the Department of Dental Sciences. Before this intervention, they were interacting with each other in a way that did not adequately improve the students’ learning of essay writing. During the intervention, the individuals through collaboration with each other developed new ways of defining themselves within the community, as well as their individual roles in the teaching and learning of essay writing skills.

The studies on formative feedback and writing practices cited above have focused mainly on the students’ essay writing skills and how such skills can be adapted to meet the expectations of their academic programme. The majority of these studies have explored different methods of providing feedback and have typically identified the student as a learner in transition, especially within the context of their programmes in particular and their universities in general. This study focuses on the relationship between the student and the writing activity as rules influenced and developmental and explores how the context of the students’ academic programme influences the interaction with formative feedback between the students and the lecturers. The notion of interim literacy is defined as the state of transition in a student’s literacy practices within their context of learning. Activity theory and Archer’s morphogenetic realist theory are employed to probe how engagement with formative feedback by both students and lecturers lead to certain types of transformations for them.

This study makes use of participatory action research⁴, which resides within the social constructivism approach in qualitative studies. This approach allows ‘subjective meanings of people’s experiences’ and directs them towards specific objects or things (Creswell 1997:8). Such meanings are manifested and realised socially and historically (Makoelle 2012). Galtung (1975:273), for example, encourages this kind of research when he indicates that researchers should consider conducting non-violent social research that abdicates from doing research ‘on people’, in favour of doing research ‘with⁵’ people. This study is therefore situated within the ‘participatory advocacy’ worldview (Creswell 1997:8; Neuman 2000:32), whereby the researchers immense themselves in the activities with the participants for the purposes of achieving social or ideological change.

The data for this article were sourced from a larger qualitative emancipatory action research project whose aim was to explore the design of academic literacies interventions for first-year students at a science faculty in a university of technology (UoT). Qualitative action research is supported by researchers who posit that action research is ideal as a ‘critical praxis’ in the field of education (Cohen, Manion & Morrison 2007:301; Makoelle 2010:36). It was adopted as a methodological framework in this research because at the heart of the research was the desire to see students who were involved in various collaborative learning projects enhance their use of formative feedback during essay writing.

Data reported in this article were collected from first-year students in the Department of Dental Sciences at a UoT. The class consisted of a small group of students (13) and four lecturers. For this project, three out of the four lecturers were conveniently sampled to participate in the study. All 13 students agreed to participate in the project. Participation of lecturers and students for this study was on a voluntary basis. The participants all completed a consent form and attended orientation sessions before participating in the study.

Cohen et al. (2007) warn that in action research, as employed in this study, ethical issues can arise because of the nature of the problem being reported and the tools used to collect valid data. Therefore, it was necessary to conduct an orientation session with all the lecturers and students who participated in the research in order to clarify all the possible ethical issues that this research posed, as well as to adopt an open and democratic approach towards solving those issues. This was in addition to observing the university’s protocol on ethics during research, such as obtaining authorisations, informed consent and the protection of participants’ identities.

Three instruments were used to collect data: focus group interviews, photovoice⁶ presentations and document analysis. Focus group interviews were used to elicit deep responses from the three lecturers, with the focus of the interview being on the lecturers’ design and use of formative feedback during an essay writing activity. Photovoice presentation was used as it was an effective and suitable tool through which the students could articulate their experiences with formative feedback as they engaged with the writing activity. This was a suitable tool for this emancipatory⁷ research because the power of images allowed the participants to be more articulate about their writing experiences. Finally, in order to strike a balance between the often divergent voices of the students and lecturers as participants, we extracted data from selected documents that informed the participants’ engagements with formative feedback. These documents included extracts from the students’ draft essays, extracts from actual feedback that the lecturers provided, extracts from rubrics and assignment instructions.

The findings section reports on the intervention that was initiated whereby formative feedback was used as a tool through which to achieve the goal of improved essay writing skills. The focus of the analysis, however, is on the tensions that emerged through the research participants’ changing views of themselves and their academic writing practices within their discipline and how this represents their interim literacies. Using an activity system, we focus on the interaction between the subjects, tools and object and explore how the changing identities of who the subjects are re-enforces the notion of interim literacies.

Some first-year university students in the post-apartheid South African context, placed as subjects within an activity system, struggle to identify themselves within the institution as a whole and within their chosen discipline in particular. These students are constrained by the new rules of the game, and this often provokes tensions within the system. Figure 5a maps the main activity system whilst Figure 5b highlights where there is current tension caused by transition.

Change is often difficult to achieve. Enforced transition, caused by the need to apply the explicit and implicit rules of the university; as well as those of the discipline, leads to tension within the activity system. This tension is also reflected in the way the students interact with formative feedback as they seek to negotiate their literacies awareness in their new learning contexts.

A realist social theory depicts a socio-ontological stance in which physical things, human beings and their expressions, as well as the settings in which they operate, are seen as social constructs arising out of processes and connections (Fairclough 2005; Harvey 1996). The subject in the above activity system (Figure 5b) is seen as a student in transition. Placed within an ideological gaze, such a student is seen to be in a state of flux and exhibits qualities that indicate that they are partially conscious of their identity, as well as not being too sure of the new identities that they will take on as they progress within their discipline.

Our interest in this article has been twofold: to analyse how a small group of first-year students depict their interim grasp of essay writing, as well as to explore how a collaborative, formative feedback intervention enables students and lecturers to have meaningful dialogue during the completion of essay assignments. One of the lecturers noted as follows:

Lecturers in a health science discipline such as Dental Sciences might not be expected to have the skills to teach or assess language (Klein & Aller 2008), but they are expected to at least mediate in the students’ development of their rhetorical stance (Dornbrack & Dixon 2014). It is this realisation that puts the students’ (and sometimes, ‘lecturers’) literacies practices within the gaze of interim literacies.

Data from this research suggest that both the students and sometimes the lecturers are in a state of flux in terms of their literacies practices and that their engagements with formative feedback during essay writing practices demonstrate their interim literacies. Using activity theory as an analytical tool, we identified some of the tensions that emerge when the students and lecturers use formative feedback during writing practices. Tensions posed by institutional contexts, disciplinary requirements and lecturers’ assumptions have contributed in constraining the effective use of formative feedback during essay writing practices. There is a gap between students’ current writing competencies and the required competencies from a disciplinary and institutional context. There is also a gap between the lecturers’ perception of their formative feedback provided to the students and the actual interpretation of the feedback by the students. These gaps demonstrate why we see the students and lecturers literacies practices as interim.

Archer’s morphogenetic cycle was a suitable lens used to probe the roles and actions of the students and lecturers and re-examine the tensions that emerge due to their own assumptions within a system. We noted that within a community like the department of Dental Sciences, certain structures such as the writing centre exist, and lecturers, students and the formative feedback they use are agents acting on the structures. The relationship between the lecturers and students and the support services such as the writing centre evoke attributes that contribute to defining their identities. As such, their realisations of the challenges that they experience whilst engaging with formative feedback serve as enablers that propel them to seek solutions and improve on their practices. This realisation transforms the way the students and lecturers perceive formative feedback and above all how they define themselves within the system.