Abstract:

The benefits of feedback are well known by the education community. Students admit to recognizing feedback as an essential tool for learning, but large discrepancies lie behind this point. The lack of understanding of the feedback process, unawareness of its functions and goals, as well as the lack of orientation about how to implement it, lead to a decrease in feedback use and efficiency. It is even more relevant in online learning environments where communication is mainly asynchronous and written and feedback is the major support mechanism for learning. For these reasons, the literacy of online students on feedback is essential. Feedback literacy is one of the key competences students need to develop for learning. It implies the understanding, the capacity and the disposition needed to make sense of the feedback provided [1]. Moreover, it requires the use of feedback to improve the assignments and the learning strategies [2]. The aim of this study, which is part of a broader project, is to contrast students self-perception about feedback literacy and how they understand the feedback in online context. The level of the students self-perceived feedback literacy was assessed by the feedback literacy survey [3]. Feedback understanding was gathered with the students responses to the open question based on the three dimensions of the feedback literacy posted in the online forum of the classroom.

The survey was analyzed by the SPSS IBM program, 24.0 version. The open questions were analyzed and categorized by a deductive content analysis [4] using the software for qualitative data analysis Atlas.ti and each students response was coded using the codes extracted from a literature review of the topic. The students were categorised according to an scale, from the old-transmissive paradigm to the new-dialogic paradigm.

Results show strong discrepancies between the students self-perceived level of feedback literacy and their actual understanding of the feedback. 95% of the students (N=53) self-perceived themself with a high level of feedback literacy (mean= 4,5 sd= 0.428). However this perception contrasts with the results of the content analysis of students’ answers to the open questions. The 63,2% of the students’ answers corresponded with an understanding of feedback as unidirectional and corrective, in the same line of the old paradigm. The second category was in the line of the new paradigm, more focused on the interaction and students’ participation. But only the 36,8% of the students definitions of feedback corresponded with the new paradigm.

The conclusions of this study show that even if the self-perception of feedback literacy is high the understanding of feedback is often still in line with the old paradigm in the majority of the online students. This shows clearly the need to take active steps to improve feedback literacy of the students.

References:
[1] P. Sutton, “Conceptualizing feedback literacy: knowing, being, and acting,” in Innovations in Education and Teaching International, vol.49 no.1, pp.31-40, 2012.
[2] D. Carless, and D. Boud, “The development of student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback,” in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, vol.43 no.8, pp.1315-1325, 2018.
[3] N.E. Winstone, R.A Nash, The Developing Engagement with Feedback Toolkit (DEFT).
York, UK: Higher Education Academy, 2016.
[4] T. Anderson, H. Kanuka, E-research: Issues, strategies and methods. Boston, 2002.

Keywords:

Online learning environments, Feedback, Feedback literacy, higher education.