Feedback as a Vehicle for Promoting and Preventing Equity: A Motivational Perspective

• In Event: The Interplay of Feedback and Motivation: Perspectives on How Context, Student, and Feedback Characteristics Matter

Abstract

Academic feedback is powerfully and dynamically related to students’ academic motivation (Fong et al., 2019), or the process that “directs, energizes, sustains, and eventually terminates…” student behavior (Graham, 2020, p. 1). Scholars have often explored the motivational consequences of feedback in assessment contexts (e.g., Koenka et al., 2021; Lipnevich et al., 2021). However, feedback is pervasive in many other aspects of schooling experiences, from the policy level (e.g., mathematics tracking; Authors, in prep) all the way down to spontaneous interactions with key socializers (e.g., teachers, peers, family; Henderlong & Lepper, 2002). Moreover, there are concerning biases in the feedback process: minoritized students often receive inequitable feedback, which undermine motivation among these youth (Authors, under review; Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007). Despite these contributions, at least two critical gaps have prevented a nuanced understanding of how educators can leverage feedback to promote – rather than undermine – motivation. First, although it is clear that feedback is ubiquitous and takes many forms, no known work has synthesized these diverse forms of feedback and explored their motivational consequences. Second, little work has centered the feedback and motivational experiences of minoritized students. Addressing this gap is essential, especially given the above-mentioned feedback biases. Therefore, in the current research, we aimed to:
1. Synthesize the literature on the motivational consequences of feedback and present a model that captures feedback across levels and forms reflected in students’ schooling experiences;
2. Center the motivational and feedback experiences of minoritized youth.

To pursue these objectives, we integrated across (a) five social-cognitive motivation theories, which all position feedback as a key precursor to motivation (Wigfield & Koenka, 2020); (b) a situative approach to motivation, which emphasizes the inextricable link between motivation and context (Nolen, 2020); and (c) critical perspectives, which center the experiences of racially and other minoritized groups in an asset-based manner (e.g., Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). We conducted a narrative review (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1997), and focused on feedback across secondary school due to its powerful impact during adolescence (Koenka & Anderman, 2019).

Results revealed that secondary school students’ feedback experiences span four levels: (1) policy; (2); curriculum; (3) assessment; and (4) interpersonal (see Table 1 for a description of each level, an example of how it manifests, the resulting inequities that emerge from it, and the motivational consequences). Moreover, as Table 1 reveals, results indicated that minoritized students are disproportionately provided with inequitable feedback at each above-mentioned level, which produced inequitable motivational experiences and outcomes for these youth. We thus conclude that feedback is a critical mechanism for promoting or preventing educational equity, depending on how it is used. Taken together, this review makes timely contributions by producing the first synthesis and model of the dynamic relation between feedback and motivation that (a) encompasses feedback across levels of adolescents’ schooling experiences; (b) integrates across interdisciplinary perspectives on motivation; and (c) centers the experiences of minoritized youth. It also presents implications for fostering equity through feedback practices and provides a springboard for future feedback intervention research.

Authors

• Alison C. Koenka, University of Oklahoma
  Presenting Author

• Korinthia D. Nicolai, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Destini Braxton, St. Mary's College of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author

• Margaret Wallace, Washington University in St. Louis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Danielle N Berry, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sandra Graham, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author