Despite a wealth of research on feedback practices in synchronous and asynchronous courses, little has been done to investigate such practices in hybrid writing pedagogy. How do instructors make choices about providing feedback when both instructional modes are operating in a course? A qualitative study conducted with fourteen instructors who teach hybrid writing courses at a large state university reveals how they navigate a series of choices about providing feedback on student writing. This study shows that instructional modality, use of the LMS, and labor conditions influence the decisions instructors make about how and when to provide feedback, especially on low-stakes work. While there is an emerging sense of thoughtful and critical decision-making around types of feedback and modality, this study finds that instructors do not yet have an integrated strategy when using the LMS to provide feedback in hybrid courses.

Writing instructors spend considerable time responding to student writing with the expectation that students will use that feedback to improve their writing. However, a number of studies have questioned the extent to which students apply instructor feedback to improve their writing or transfer it to new writing situations. Timing of feedback and students’ interest in feedback are frequently discussed in the literature on response as two factors that impact students’ ability to apply and transfer response. In this article I consider the relationship between the two factors and whether students’ behavior as they access feedback is related to when in the writing process feedback is provided. I report the results of a study using site statistics collected by a learning management system that compares students’ rates of opening instructor feedback on preliminary drafts and final papers. I also examine whether students’ rates of accessing feedback on preliminary drafts changed over the course of the semester from the first assignment to the final assignment. This study illustrates that the timing of instructor feedback significantly impacts students’ behavior as they access feedback and suggests that instructors prioritize feedback on preliminary drafts to encourage students to apply and transfer feedback.

The rapid increase in online learning programs has led to an increase in the number of students taking composition courses online. As a result, there is a need to develop teaching practices and approaches to feedback designed specifically for online learning environments, which serve a largely nontraditional student population. Addressing a current gap in the literature regarding approaches to feedback that meet the needs of nontraditional students, this quasi-experimental study used a process model of composition and post-positivist and social constructivist epistemological orientations to measure student perceptions and preferences when provided with text-only feedback or a combination of textual and audio-visual commentary. Results indicate that the majority of students, if given the choice, prefer a combination of audio-visual and text-based commentary to textual feedback alone because they consider it helpful and feel that it enhances their overall understanding of instructor feedback by providing more detail and by using auditory and visual modes of communication. Students also liked audio-visual feedback because they considered it a form of personalized and individualized interaction, and some felt that it helped them spend more time and effort on revision.