Feedback literacy and engagement

How learners engage with and receive feedback is key to it functioning effectively in a learning environment. Feedback that is not read or understood is useless, feedback that leaves the learner feeling powerless and inadequate has a detrimental impact upon the learning process. The process relies upon both students and teachers to be skilled and literate in receiving and providing feedback.

Students as active seekers of feedback

To ‘hear’ feedback, students need to desire, appreciate and steer feedback on their work and ideas. A student that is actively seeking out feedback is aware of its function in improving their performance and committed to their own role in that process, refining their requests for feedback to capture specific information they need for improvement. Ideally this proactive approach extends beyond exchanges between the student and the teacher to recognise feedback in a variety of forms, including from peers or self evaluation via rubrics or exemplars ​(Carless & Boud, 2018)​.

How feedback is received also depends upon the students ability to manage their emotional response and the defensiveness we all feel when faced with critical feedback. The ability to engage with critical feedback is a lifelong skill essential for all career paths.

Building feedback literacy in students

There are practical ways that teaching staff can help students to build up their feedback literacy skills:

• Be clear about how students can receive and engage with feedback. Remind them when an opportunity for feedback is occurring, this will help them build the capacity to recognise and act on these independently.
• Give students choices in how they receive feedback. Options might include a moderated online discussion space where questions can be posted, a specific time that you are available for short appointments or a subject FAQ that is generated by student inquiries. Different approaches will support different learners.
• Design opportunities for feedback that situate the students as active participants in the process encouraging them to request specific feedback and refine their requests for feedback. 
• The process of giving feedback to others is a powerful way to build student skills and capacity to receive feedback. This is covered in more detail in the Peer Feedback page of this collection. 
• Link feedback processes undertaken in university to situations students will encounter professionally in their field to frame feedback literacy as a lifelong skill.
• Highlight and discuss assignment criteria early so that students are clear on where their focus should be before receiving any feedback. This can encourage students to be proactive in seeking out relevant information and feedback. This is covered in more detail in the Self Assessment page of this collection.