This chapter reports aspect of an in-depth study I conducted in a private university in Malaysia which sought to investigate lecturers’ beliefs about the value of feedback on their students’ written work and the extent to which the lecturers’ practices converged with their self-reported beliefs. The study adopted various procedures for data collection, but the specific focus of the chapter is the design and administration of questionnaires issued to the lecturers.

The value of teachers' feedback on students' writing has always been controversial, some researchers advocating various forms of feedback (e.g. Ferris 1995; 2009), while others (e.g. Truscott, 1996; 2007) deny its usefulness. It has long been recognized that what teachers do in practice is largely influenced by their beliefs and values (Clarke & Peterson, 1986), and one of the most vital aspects of this issue is the study of the contextual factors that shape teachers’ beliefs (Borg, 2006; Goldstein, 2005). While there have been wide-ranging surveys of aspects of teacher beliefs in some Asian educational contexts (Nunan, 2003; Littlewood, 2007), there is a lack of in-depth studies, and this is particularly true of tertiary education in Malaysia. In his comprehensive overview of studies of language teacher beliefs, Borg (2006) pointed to the need for more studies in areas such as second language writing. He also emphasized the need to examine to what extent teachers’ reported beliefs are actually put into practice and to relate these beliefs and practices with those of their learners.