Screencast feedback may better facilitate feedback engagement and use because it is clearer and more explicit (Mahoney, et al. 2019), more workload sustainable and efficient (Dawson et al. 2018), and better enables uptake. Similar benefits may confer to peer screencast feedback, but the practice remains underexplored. Nevertheless, because many studies deploy screencast feedback as the one-way ‘transmission’ of feedback comments (Mahoney et al. 2018), this does little more than ‘replicate’ the provision of written feedback comments (Pitt & Winstone, 2019) within an obsolete feedback paradigm.

This study took an in-depth qualitative case study approach to help address and explore this gap, investigating the use of dialogic peer screencast feedback over a 16-week emergency online semester. Fourteen undergraduates at Seoul National University were encouraged to produce peer screencast feedback on a research essay and literature review. Eight students offered consent for their drafts (before peer feedback and after), reflective writing (mid-course), screencast data to be used as data for analysis and triangulation, and an in-depth qualitative survey was administered.

Three themes were developed through inductive thematic analysis. Screencast peer feedback was generally considered higher quality, more in-depth, and enabled students to expand on Google Doc comments in greater detail. Participants also confirmed that in comparison to written feedback, peer screencast feedback supported feedback givers in focusing on ‘global’ aspects of the essay, such as argument and criticality. Conversely, written feedback (Google Drive comments) better facilitated feedback at the sentence level. This was also confirmed through analysis of the peer feedback videos and student drafts. Google Doc comments also enabled further recursive collaborative development of the feedback comments, including in many cases, up to the point at which successful changes were made. The provision of peer screencast feedback, particularly the use of the camera for the feedback giver encouragement and sensitivity to the feelings of feedback receivers, helped learners process and mitigate the emotional impact of peer screencast feedback and develop a sense of community.

The findings have important implications for instructors working in forced online, online and blended conditions and for instructors who want to provide a social, caring, and connected learning experience. They also demonstrate how learners can be supported in understanding and using feedback while developing agency within the learning and feedback process in a way that does not place an additional burden on overworked feedback providers.