ITL – International Journal of Applied Linguistics 168:1 (2017), 91–128. doi 10.1075/itl.168.1.04bon issn 0019–0829 / e-issn 1783–1490 © John Benjamins Publishing Company Comprehensive corrective feedback on low and high profciency writers Examining attitudes and preferences Marisela Bonilla López, Elke Van Steendam and Kris Buyse KU Leuven Tis study investigated the efects of comprehensive feedback on learners’ grammatical accuracy during text revision and in new writing tasks in light of profciency level. It also sought to determine to what extent learners’ profciency level plays a role in their feedback preferences and attitudes towards the feed- back. Te participants were 52 low profciency and 39 high profciency foreign language university learners, who were randomly assigned to a direct corrective feedback, a metalinguistic feedback with rule reminders, and a self-correction group. All learners wrote four compositions and completed a questionnaire afer the treatment to elicit their attitudes towards the feedback and their feedback preferences. Results showed that the treatment efectively enhanced both low and high profciency learners’ immediate grammatical accuracy and accuracy improvement. Also, a relation between profciency level and learners’ attitudes towards the feedback as well as an association between profciency level and learners’ feedback preferences were found. Keywords: direct corrective feedback, feedback attitudes, feedback preferences, high profciency learners, metalinguistic feedback, low profciency learners Introduction Despite arguments against written corrective feedback (CF) or error correction (e.g., Semke, 1984; Truscott, 1999), it still is an essential component for both teach- ers and students in the second language (L2) writing class (Ferris, 2010). For this reason, if anything, Truscott (1996) ignited more research interest in error cor- rection and its efcacy rather than a complete abandonment of the practice. Since then, various studies have provided evidence that demonstrates that corrective feedback (CF) increases learners’ grammatical accuracy during text revision (e.g.,