Although an important goal of learner peer feedback is promoting critical thinking, little attention has been paid to the nature of the topic, particularly whether it is controversial. In this article, we report on a study where 52 English majors were asked to comment on essays written by their peers using the PeerMark module of Turnitin. Half of the essays were about controversial topics in the Saudi society (e.g., women driving and banning cigarettes), whereas the other half were less controversial (e.g., importance of sleep and respecting parents). Our results showed that the participants provided significantly more critical, global comments on controversial essays. At the same time, this increase in global comments did not come at the expense of local, language-related comments—in that the participants did not provide significantly fewer language comments on controversial essays. The participants also reported favorable attitudes toward this task due to the convenience and anonymity of online feedback, thus allowing them to express their opinions more freely on controversial topics. We therefore concluded that utilizing an online platform that permits double-blind peer review on controversial essays seems to have to the potential to stimulate critical thinking among language learners.

中文翻译：

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Turnitin 同行反馈：有争议的与无争议的文章

尽管学习者同伴反馈的一个重要目标是促进批判性思维，但很少有人关注该主题的性质，尤其是它是否具有争议性。在本文中，我们报告了一项研究，该研究要求 52 名英语专业的学生使用 Turnitin 的 PeerMark 模块对他们的同龄人撰写的论文发表评论。一半的文章是关于沙特社会有争议的话题（例如，女性开车和禁烟），而另一半则争议较小（例如，睡眠的重要性和尊重父母）。我们的研究结果表明，参与者对有争议的文章提供了更为重要的全球性评论。与此同时，全球评论的增加并没有以牺牲本地、与语言相关的评论——参与者对有争议的文章提供的语言评论并没有显着减少。由于在线反馈的便利性和匿名性，参与者还报告了对这项任务的积极态度，从而使他们能够更自由地对有争议的话题发表意见。因此，我们得出结论，利用允许对有争议的论文进行双盲同行评审的在线平台似乎有可能激发语言学习者的批判性思维。