Exploring Individual Differences in Attitudes Toward Discrepant Peer and Teacher Feedback

• In Event: Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: Individual Differences in Feedback Perceptions, Use, and Effectiveness

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Framework
Research has examined the effects of various types of feedback on student outcomes (Lechermeier & Fassnacht, 2018; Lipnevich & Smith, 2022). Studies have also began exploring students’ individual characteristics that may explain differential uptake of feedback (Aben et al., 2018; Pekrun et al., 2014). Despite these advancements in the field, especially the processes that underlie the uptake of conflicting feedback received from different sources (i.e., peer vs teacher) remain unclear. This study seeks to examine students’ preferences when confronted with discrepant feedback from teacher and peers and how their personality traits and receptivity to feedback predict their emotional responses, perceptions of utility, and intentions to use of feedback for task improvement. The research questions are:
1. Are there differences in students’ responses to discrepant peer- and teacher-provided feedback?
2. Do students’ personality and receptivity to feedback predict their responses to discrepant peer- and teacher-provided feedback?
Method and Data Sources
The sample comprised 327 college students (84% female) from two universities in Spain.
The participants were asked to imagine a scenario wherein they received (discrepant) feedback from both their teacher and peer. We varied feedback as follows: Comment 1 included an evaluative, positive summary of performance that did not include any suggestions for improvement. Comment 2 included a range of suggestions for future improvement delivered in a neutral tone. Students were randomly assigned to two conditions (Table 1+2). After reading the two discrepant messages, the participants were asked to: 1) report emotions that would be elicited by this feedback, 2) rate the utility, helpfulness, and the intention to use the feedback. Students also completed the Big Five questionnaire and the receptivity toward instructional feedback instrument (Lipnevich & Lopera-Oquendo, 2022).
Results and Significance
The ANOVA revealed significant differences in participants' perceptions of utility, helpfulness, intention to incorporate feedback, as well as emotions (Table 4). Pairwise comparisons using Benjamini-Hochberg correction revealed that participants found teacher feedback to be more helpful than peer feedback, regardless of the quality of the information provided in the message.
Personality and receptivity to feedback influenced preferences and emotions elicited by discrepant feedback (Table 5+6), with individuals with high levels of extraversion, behavioral engagement, instrumental attitudes toward peer feedback, and experiential attitudes toward teacher feedback reporting reduced negative emotions when exposed to suggestive/neutral peer feedback along with evaluative/positive feedback from teachers. Similarly, those with high levels of neuroticism and instrumental attitudes toward peer feedback reported reduced negative emotions when receiving evaluative/positive messages from peers and suggestive/neutral feedback from teachers.
Moreover, cognitive and behavioral engagement with peer feedback positively predicted the intended use of peer comments when participants received suggestive/neutral peer feedback along with evaluative/positive teacher messages. In contrast, higher cognitive and behavioral engagement with teacher feedback increased preferences for and intended use of teacher comments under the same condition.
In sum, the results show intriguing patterns suggesting that students tend to place more value on teacher feedback, even if doesn’t include any suggestions for improvement. A range of theoretical and practical implications will be discussed.

Authors

• Carolina Lopera-Oquendo, City University of New York

• Anastasiya A. Lipnevich, City University of New York

• Samuel Parra León, University of Jaén

• Ignacio Mañez, University of Valencia