What Do Teachers Need to Know about Students’ Preferences for Feedback in Contemporary Classrooms?

• In Event: Assessment Literacies in a Post-Pandemic Digital Age: An Exploration Through Six Systematic Reviews

Abstract

Carless and Boud (2018) define feedback as “a process through which learners make sense of information from various sources and use it to enhance their work or learning strategies.” Feedback effectiveness depends on the quality of the feedback message and on the students who receive the feedback. Students must appreciate the feedback process and their role in it, make judgments about the quality of their work and the information in the feedback message, manage their own affect, and take action based on the feedback. This learning regulation process begins when students first perceive their feedback.
Van der Kleij and Lipnevich (2021) provided a scoping review of 164 studies of students’ perceptions of feedback published between 1987 and 2018; however, only one of the articles in the review discussed digital feedback. Feedback options now include inserting comments or tracked changes in student writing, video or audio comments tagged to student work, handwritten and then scanned feedback sent to students as a pdf, and so on—digital feedback options that were not discussed in most prior research studies. This paper will present the results of a systematic review of literature on students’ preferences for feedback where digital feedback of some sort was one of the feedback options investigated. The systematic review is in the beginning stages and will be completed for the conference. Highlights of studies read so far include the following.
Findings differ on whether students prefer digital (electronic) or non-digital feedback. In studies where students were given that choice, sometimes they preferred digital feedback (ElShaer et al, 2019; Ryan et al., 2019; Xu, 2010) and sometimes non-digital feedback (Budge, 2011; Pentucci & Laici, 2023) by a small margin, but typically students strongly affirmed both kinds of feedback (or expressed equal preference, Edeiken-Cooperman & Berenato, 2014). Preference profiles vary by discipline (ElShaer et al., 2019). Electronic annotations in Google Docs were a favorite because of the level of detail the comment and comment history features provide and because Google Docs generates an email when a comment is made, so students could view it immediately if desired (Chong, 2019). Students prefer feedback that is individualized, timely, detailed, understandable, and useful for improving work and/or self-regulation (Budge, 2011; Chong, 2019; Edeiken-Cooperman & Berenato, 2014; Lee & Cha, 2022; Pentucci & Laici, 2023; Ryan et al., 2019), although they also want feedback that shows their grades (Ducasse et al., 2023).
The discussion will be organized as a summary of findings and implications for what teachers need to know as they begin or continue to teach with increasing digital resources. Online classes, of course, necessitate digital feedback; in addition, teachers at all levels and in all subjects are making more and more varied use of digital resources (e.g., Google Docs) in face-to-face classes, as well. Feedback that maintains student engagement and supports next steps in learning must make the leap into the digital age.

Author

• Susan M. Brookhart, Duquesne University