Written feedback to Doctoral Students

Previous research on written feedback has taken place mainly in field-based settings. Written feedback to non-native English-speaking online doctoral students is under-researched. The purpose of this study is to explore the attitudes perceptions and actions of Non-native English speaking (NNES) online doctoral students towards the written feedback that they receive from their native English speaking (NES) doctoral research supervisors. This research will address questions about these students'' attitudes and perceptions regarding written feedback and the feedback providers. Furthermore the investigation''s research findings point towards practical application by doctoral research supervisors. The Social Presence Transactional Distance and Second Language Activity theories frame the interpretation of the findings. The survey respondents lived on different continents and represented the first seventeen distinct languages namely Afrikaans; Arabic; Chinese; Croatians; Dutch; French; German; Italian; Malaya; Malayalam; Mandarin; Portuguese; Romanian; Russian; Spanish; Swedish and Turkish.