"Good Job, Everyone": Perceptions of Generalized Feedback and Perceived Competence of Undergraduate Students

• In Event: Feedback to the Future: Impacts of a Venerable Construct on 21st-Century Motivation and Learning

Abstract

Direct, personalized feedback plays an important role in students’ competence beliefs according to both social-cognitive theory and expectancy-value theory (Bandura, 1977; Usher, 2009; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). However, in the college classroom, students may not often receive effective, personalized feedback very often (Stern & Solomon, 2006). Instead, college lecturers may provide more generalized feedback to the class as a whole. However, in the complex environment of the classroom, even if teachers provide generalized feedback, it may not register with all students (cf., Perrenoud, 1998), or they may not interpret that feedback in the same way.

The current investigation examined the frequency of generalized feedback in college classrooms and its relation to competence beliefs. Two studies used multilevel modeling to examine the relation between perceived competence and (1) between-class differences in student-reported feedback (class effects), (2) within-class differences in student-reported feedback (individual effects), and (3) teacher-reported feedback.

In Study 1, 196 undergraduate students were asked to think about one of their lecture classes (N = 113), report their perceived competence in the class’s main topic area (e.g., science, history), and recall the frequency of generalized positive (e.g., “Everyone did a good job on the test.”) and negative (e.g., “This class is not performing up to my standards.”) feedback from the class’s instructor. Some instructors (n = 74) then reported how often they provided generalized feedback. There was substantial variation in student and teacher reports, even within the same classes. The relation between student-perceived competence and (1 & 2) student-reported and (3) teacher-reported feedback was examined. Using student reports of feedback, within-class differences in positive feedback predicted greater student perceived competence (γ = .10, p = .015), while negative generalized feedback both between-classes (γ = -.23, p = .008) and within-classes (γ = -.33, p = .011) predicted lower levels of perceived competence. Surprisingly, when teacher-reported feedback was included, negative feedback positively predicted perceived competence (γ = .10, p = .015).

Study 2 expanded these findings within eight summer courses (N = 98) while additionally measuring students’ initial levels of perceived competence. Results from student reports replicated the within-class relation between generalized negative feedback and changes in perceived competence (γ = .30, p = .006). There were also significant, cross-level interactions between initial perceived competence and between-class differences in feedback, such that students with low initial perceived competence showed higher perceived competence at the end of the semester in classes with more frequent generalized positive (γ = -.36, p = .045) and negative (γ = -1.20, p = .005) student-reported feedback.

These studies demonstrate that generalized feedback occurs in college classrooms and has a complex relation with students’ perceived competence. Positive generalized feedback tended to predict higher perceived competence and negative generalized feedback to lower perceived competence. Furthermore, the studies suggest that the feedback teachers provide and the feedback students remember as a class and individually compared to classmates are not only distinct but might have opposite effects on perceived competence, an important consideration in designing feedback-related interventions for competence beliefs.

Author

• Michael M. Barger, Duke University