Interaction and feedback on digital platforms for English speaking practice in higher education: an integrative review

The role of WeChat in supporting university-level English language learning: a systematic review on reading, translation, and learner motivation

Findings show that platforms like WeChat enhance reading engagement and comprehension through authentic texts, peer interaction, and multimodal input, and that learner motivation emerges as a cross-cutting outcome, driven by autonomy, social presence, and interactive environments.

Understanding oral corrective feedback in Chinese university EFL classrooms: a qualitative study of cognitive, affective, and relational processes

Oral corrective feedback (OCF) is widely recognised as a key pedagogical mechanism in the development of second language speaking proficiency; however, existing research has largely examined OCF in controlled settings or focused on isolated feedback types, offering limited insight into how feedback is interpreted, negotiated, and enacted within authentic classroom interaction. Addressing this gap, this qualitative study examines how cognitive, social, and affective processes shape teachers’ and students’ experiences of feedback in Chinese university English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. Rather than treating OCF as a purely technical corrective move, the study conceptualises it as a relational and context-sensitive pedagogical process. Drawing on interactionist and sociocultural perspectives, the study investigates the perspectives of 12 university English teachers and 24 undergraduate students across fluency- and accuracy-oriented speaking tasks. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews, non-participant classroom observations, and stimulated-recall sessions, and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings indicate that OCF is understood not merely as a technical response to linguistic error but as a relational pedagogical practice embedded in task demands, classroom norms, and interpersonal considerations. Teachers emphasised the strategic calibration of timing, explicitness, and scaffolding to support noticing and self-repair, while students foregrounded relational sensitivity, emotional safety, and face protection as conditions for meaningful engagement with feedback. Three interrelated tensions were identified: negotiating explicit correction alongside affective comfort, managing face and hierarchical relations during public feedback, and orchestrating teacher, peer, self-, and technology-supported feedback within everyday classroom activity. Overall, the study demonstrates that the effectiveness of OCF emerges from the dynamic coordination of cognitive, affective, and interactional factors rather than from isolated feedback techniques. The study contributes to EFL pedagogy in Asian higher education by offering a reconceptualised understanding of OCF as a relational, affect-sensitive, and contextually mediated process, with implications for designing task-sensitive and learner-responsive feedback practices.

Feedback in STEM Higher Education: A Systematic Literature Review

Feedback is widely recognised as a critical component of learning in higher education, yet its effectiveness in STEM contexts remains uneven in practice. This paper presents a systematic review of feedback research in STEM higher education, examining how students engage with feedback, the conditions that shape feedback literacy, and the role of emotional, cultural, and relational factors. The review identified 52 studies from 1999 to July 2025 through the databases IEEE Xplore, Scopus, ERIC, and EBSCOhost. The findings indicate that engagement with feedback is not a direct outcome of feedback provision, but a mediated process requiring interpretation, evaluation, and enactment. This process is shaped by interacting cognitive, structural, technological, and socio-cultural influences. Feedback literacy emerges as a central mechanism linking instructional design, learner capabilities, and learning outcomes, yet it is often assumed rather than explicitly developed. The findings further highlight a persistent gap between dialogic, learner-centred feedback models and their implementation in large-scale STEM environments. Structural pressures, assessment practices, and technological systems influence how feedback is experienced, often reinforcing evaluative rather than developmental use. Emotional, cultural, and identity-related factors further shape how feedback is interpreted and acted upon. This review contributes an integrated understanding of feedback engagement as a multi-layered and context-dependent process in STEM higher education, emphasising the need to support how feedback is interpreted, discussed, and applied within coherent learning environments.

From Platform Adoption to Pedagogical Design: Interaction, Feedback, and Access in Online Advertising Design Education

Research on online learning has not fully explained how studio disciplines can preserve iterative critique, peer visibility, and creative risk-taking online. This qualitative case study examined undergraduate Advertising Design teaching across two higher education settings in Gansu Province, China. Data comprised interviews with five lecturers, six focus groups with 30 students, five class observations, and course documents collected during one academic term in 2024. Theory-informed thematic analysis drew on constructivism, transactional distance theory, and Universal Design for Learning. Four findings were developed. Flexibility supported learning only when deadlines, checkpoints, and feedback loops were explicit. Interaction depended on task orchestration rather than platform presence. Multimodal feedback and process documentation were necessary to sustain iteration because product-only submission concealed design reasoning and encouraged cautious work. Access was both infrastructural and affective, involving connectivity, platform load, participation options, recognition, and belonging. The resulting framework connects a pedagogical foundation, task-aligned digital environment, staged activities, formative feedback loop, and cross-cutting learning support. The study does not establish causal effects or platform superiority; it shows how online studio quality depends on aligning tools with the relational and iterative practices through which design judgment develops.

Designing for semiotic alignment: integrating Gallwey’s Inner Game and edusemiotics in technology-enhanced formative assessment in EMI higher education

This study examines how student engagement in English-Medium Instruction (EMI) higher education is shaped by the interaction between technology-enhanced formative assessment, multimodal meaning-making, and learners' internal dialogue. Drawing on edusemiotics and Gallwey's Inner Game theory, the study proposes semiotic alignment as a conceptual lens for understanding how evaluative and intuitive sign systems influence participation. The purpose is not to test a predictive model, but to explore how digital feedback practices may recalibrate the symbolic conditions for engagement in linguistically demanding EMI contexts. An exploratory qualitative multiple case study design was adopted. Data were collected from four undergraduate EMI courses at a Taiwanese university using technology-enhanced formative assessment tools, including Microsoft Forms, Microsoft OneNote, and a CEFR-aligned mobile English test. Three contrasting student cases from engineering, medicine, and design were selected through maximum variation sampling. Data sources included interviews, weekly reflective prompts, digital artifacts, and an interaction frequency index. Thematic analysis combined deductive coding informed by edusemiotics and Inner Game theory with inductive pattern identification. Findings show that students' engagement was mediated by how digital tools functioned symbolically within the classroom. When feedback practices emphasized evaluation, accuracy, and exposure, students experienced semiotic resistance manifested, as silence, perfectionism, or modality mismatch. When tools supported anonymity, multimodal expression, and dialogic feedback, students demonstrated increased participation, symbolic risk-taking, and interpretive agency. Across cases, semiotic alignment emerged when classroom sign systems reduced Self 1 interference and enabled intuitive Self 2 engagement. The study proposes semiotic alignment as a tentative framework for understanding technology-mediated engagement in EMI. This study is exploratory and based on a small number of qualitative cases from a single institutional context, which limits generalisability. The findings do not establish causal relationships between technology use and learning outcomes. Instead, the study contributes conceptually by introducing semiotic alignment as an analytic lens for examining technology-mediated engagement. Future research should test and refine this framework across larger samples, diverse institutional settings, and longitudinal designs, and explore how semiotic alignment relates to measurable indicators of participation, affect, and learning performance in technology-enhanced higher education. The findings suggest that digital learning technologies function not only as instructional tools but also as symbolic resources shaping learner engagement. Educators designing technology-enhanced formative assessment should attend to how feedback formats, anonymity, and multimodal affordances influence students' internal dialogue. Practical strategies include using low-stakes digital reflections, multimodal submission options, and dialogic feedback routines to reduce evaluative pressure and support learner agency. These design considerations may help instructors foster more inclusive and supportive digital learning environments in EMI and other linguistically demanding contexts. As higher education becomes increasingly digital and internationalised, students face intensified linguistic, evaluative, and affective pressures. This study highlights how technology-enhanced assessment practices can either reinforce or mitigate these pressures through their symbolic meanings. By foregrounding semiotic alignment, the research points to the importance of designing digital learning environments that promote trust, participation, and interpretive agency. Such environments may contribute to more equitable access to learning opportunities for students operating in additional languages or in culturally unfamiliar academic contexts. This study offers an original conceptual contribution by integrating edusemiotics and Inner Game theory to examine technology-enhanced learning in higher education. Rather than focusing on tool effectiveness, it introduces semiotic alignment as a lens for analysing how digital formative assessment mediates learners' internal dialogue, engagement, and meaning-making. The value of the study lies in its theoretical synthesis and empirically grounded illustrations, which extend current understandings of information and learning technologies beyond functional use to their symbolic and affective dimensions. The framework provides a foundation for future research and design-oriented inquiry.

Flipped classroom methodology and its effect on english language learning outcomes in higher education