How do students cognitively process and use peer feedback?

Research shows that peer feedback, if used effectively, promotes learning. However, few studies have looked at the processing and use of peer feedback by learners, and most of these have relied solely on eye-tracking data and on feedback from a single peer, fictional essays and fictional peer feedback. This dissertation aimed to address this gap by exploring how higher education students process and use feedback from multiple peers to enhance a written essay. Four main research questions were formulated: (1) What factors influence learners’ implementation of feedback? (2) How do higher education students process and use (discrepant) peer feedback? (3) What are the strategies used by higher education students to process and use peer feedback on a fictional essay? (4) What are the strategies used by higher education students to process and use peer feedback on their own essay? To address these questions, a systematic literature review and three empirical studies were conducted. Eye-tracking data were collected for each empirical study, coupled with cued retrospective reporting data in the last two empirical studies. The results of the different studies enabled us to identify the strategies students use to carry out a high-quality revision. The findings from the three empirical studies also led us to create an integrative model of peer-feedback processing. This model helps to understand how students cognitively process peer feedback and use it.