It takes a village: Feedback providers and multilingual graduate students’ writing self-perceptions

Despite the importance of feedback for writing development and academic socialization, little is known about multilingual graduate students’ experiences with different feedback providers during their early years of graduate study. This article charts students’ responses to various feedback providers and examines how students characterize the impact of feedback from different sources on their perceptions of themselves as academic writers. We interviewed 12 multilingual STEM graduate students over the course of their first year in a graduate program and continued interviewing three of the students in their second year. Inductive and deductive qualitative analysis revealed that students varied in the extent to which they received feedback from supervisors, disciplinary instructors, and peers. Many students felt dissatisfied that they lacked a “village” of feedback providers, leading them to elicit comments from GenAI tools. Students prioritized relationships, expertise, availability, and helpfulness in feedback providers, and they connected their reactions to comments with previous feedback experiences. This study illustrates the applicability of Social Cognitive Theory as a lens for understanding how both internal and external factors, including past performance, shape the relationship between feedback experiences and students' writing self-perceptions. Implications for L2 graduate writing education and mentorship are discussed.