2026 IJRSE – Volume 15 Issue 17
Available Online: 16 July 2026
Author/s:
Vifah, Wisdom Kofi*
University of Cape Coast, Ghana (wisdomkofi.vifah@stu.ucc.edu.gh)
Afful, Joseph Benjamin Archibald
University of Cape Coast, Ghana (jafful@ucc.edu.gh)
Abstract:
Written feedback on postgraduate research proposals remains an important yet insufficiently explored aspect of academic socialisation, particularly within L2 university contexts in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study examines the communicative functions of proposal readers’ written feedback comments on master’s students’ research proposal, a genre that occupies a transitional and analytically distinct position in postgraduate education. Using Holmes’ (2001) language functions and qualitative content analysis design, the study analysed written feedback comments drawn from forty (40) master’s research proposal drafts in an English Studies programme. The findings revealed four major communicative functions in the feedback comments: directive (56%), referential (32%), expressive (11%), and metalinguistic (1%). Directive feedback emerged as the dominant function, indicating a tendency for proposal readers to engage in dialogic feedback and guided inquiry, over simply be prescriptive in their feedback comments. Referential feedback indicated sustained attention to multiple dimensions of academic writing quality. Expressive feedback revealed a marked imbalance between disapproval and approval comments, which raises concerns about the motivational dimension of postgraduate feedback practices. Metalinguistic comments, although fairly limited in frequency, indicated problems of language clarity and suitable academic register. The findings show that written feedback on master’s research proposals is a complex and multifunctional communicative practice through which proposal readers perform evaluative, mentorship and academic socialisation roles concurrently. The study offers empirical evidence from an underrepresented African L2 postgraduate context and has pedagogical implications for supervisors, and proposal readers seeking to improve feedback quality and student writing growth at the postgraduate level.
Keywords: feedback comments, communicative functions, master’s students, postgraduate education, research proposals
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrse.2026.26300
Cite this article:
Vifah, W. K., & Afful, J. B. A. (2026). Beyond correction: The communicative functions of written feedback on research proposals. International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 15(17), 69-83. https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrse.2026.26300
* Corresponding Author