Rather than being merely instrumental, social networking sites have become increasingly integral to the ways in which young people experience themselves. A popular cultural narrative of superficiality has been promoted with regards to social media, with users often criticised for being fake and self-absorbed. Focussing upon Instagram and Snapchat this paper seeks to re-locate discussion, questioning the perceived conflict between virtuality and authenticity, as well as challenging the widespread view that social media only has the capacity to foster narcissism. Working from a philosophical, phenomenological perspective, this paper develops ideas of ‘self-reflection’ and a ‘reflected-self’ in order to offer answers to the question ‘Who am I?’. Building upon the notion of storytelling, the constructive gaze, and visual communication it argues that SNS offer a different way of engaging with the real vs fake debate. Rather than arguing that social media encourages narcissistic portrayals of a fake, superficial veneer of life, perhaps born out of insecurity, it suggests that status updates can play an important role in authentic self-formation during adolescence.
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Feedback plays an important role in acquiring a highly complex skill such as writing. Currently, feedback aiming to improve the writing process is scarce. In practice, teachers usually give feedback on the writing product. However, given that it is the writing process that generates the product, feedback on the writing process is valuable and should be taken into account as well.
We conducted an intervention study to explore the effects of two types of process-oriented feedback. A total of 67 Dutch students (grade 10) were randomly assigned to one of the feedback conditions. Each student wrote three synthesis texts (texts in which information from different sources is integrated) at three measurement occasions and received individual feedback at measurement occasion 2 and 3, prior to writing a new text. Participants received a customised process report generated with keystroke logging tool Inputlog, providing them with numerical and visual information on several aspects of their personal writing process. The process report was embedded into a feedback flow in which students were encouraged to reflect on their writing. In the position-setting feedback condition, students compared their writing process to that of students with a similar text quality score. The students in the feed-forward feedback condition, compared their writing process to better scoring students. These exemplary writing processes were selected from a national baseline study with more than 700 Dutch students. In our presentation we will focus on the development and implementation of the different feedback types. Moreover, we will present results on the effectiveness of the feedback: in the feed-forward condition the intervention was effective. When comparing the students’ progress to a national baseline study (serving as control group), we can conclude that in one week they made a progress comparable to one year of regular schooling.
In this study, we further elaborate on the notion of teacher feedback literacy by drawing on sociocultural theories of human learning and development (Linell, 2009; Vygotsky, 1978). We propose that feedback literacy is a social practice rather than an inherent trait or skill of a teacher. Feedback literacy is enacted, and further developed, through interactions and dialogues between teachers and their environments. Based on this assumption, we investigate how university teachers enact feedback literacy in interaction with other colleagues during peer mentoring (PM) meetings.
During PM, teachers meet regularly to discuss difficult cases from their teaching and supervision work and peer-mentor each other. Drawing on video observations from a sequence of peer mentoring meetings, we examine how teachers jointly enact feedback literacy by reflecting on past and prospective feedback dialogues, and the cognitive and social-affective support they are providing to their students.
The findings indicate that teachers discuss a wide array of issues related to their feedback practices during PM. The topics include challenges of helping students to understand feedback comments, managing students’ emotions related to critical feedback and making students aware of their strengths and weaknesses. An illustrative example is a teacher sharing her experiences of a student struggling with conducting qualitative data analyses. Together with her colleagues, the teacher defines the problem clearer and outlines an action plan to address the problem. This empirical illustration contributes to our understanding that teacher feedback literacy is a joint enactment of teachers making sense of their students’ challenges with feedback and of how they may support their students’ understanding and use of feedback in the future. In addition, our study further advances the empirical insights into typical challenges teachers face related to their feedback practices and what it means concretely to act and reflect in a feedback-literate way.
To encourage feedback literacy as a steppingstone towards a lifelong learning mindset, it is important for students to understand and actively engage with feedback. Especially for first-year students it is important that feedback is targeted and coherent. However, the teaching staff currently has no possibility to follow up on feedback from colleagues and mainly gives feedback based on their own personal view which makes targeted and coherent feedback challenging.
The final goal of this project is to develop a feedback ecosystem as a set of interconnected tools where students, teaching staff and student counsellors can follow up the progress of the students throughout their intensive laboratory sessions and projects. The tools should encourage students to interact with their collected feedback. A first step in this development process is defining a rubric for evaluation and the development of a tool to be used as a framework to align the feedback given by the teaching staff.
To measure the impact of the developed feedback ecosystem, the feedback literacy of our first-year students will be analysed during a PhD trajectory. A questionnaire early in the academic year followed by focus group discussions at the end of the first semester, will help to understand first-year students’ prior experiences with feedback. A similar questionnaire and additional focus group discussions at the end of the academic year, will show if students advanced and will help to identify reasons which prevent them from consulting and engaging with feedback. New cohorts of first-year students will be followed for three consecutive years to analyse how changes in the feedback ecosystem affect student feedback literacy.
The continuous follow-up of the skills and perceptions of the students will help to identify the priorities in the successive development of the feedback ecosystem and to achieve a positive impact on feedback literacy.
Developing Students’ Feedback Literacy in Higher Education: Effect of a Training Program and Goal Orientation on Students’ Feedback Seeking Behaviour in Workplace Learning
Sonja Broerse1 & Martijn J. M. Leenknecht2
1 Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
2 HZ University of Applied Sciences, Vlissingen, The Netherlands
Several studies indicate discontent amongst students about feedback practices in higher education and medical practices (Noble & Hassell, 2008; Urquhart et al., 2014; Winstone et al., 2017), while we know from previous research that students’ understanding and perception of feedback determines whether feedback achieves its’ objective (Boud & Molloy, 2013). We need students to be actively involved in feedback uptake (Carless & Boud, 2018) and feedback seeking behaviour (Leenknecht et al., 2019), in order to make feedback practices effective. Key element is students’ feedback literacy (Carless & Boud, 2018), as students’ shortcoming in feedback literacy levels hampers feedback effectiveness in higher education. Current curriculum in higher education does not always appear to offer means for improving students’ understanding of their role in feedback processes (Noble et al., 2019b). Feedback literacy benefits students’ feedback engagement and feedback seeking behaviour (Noble et al., 2019b). Similarly, goal orientation antecedes feedback seeking behaviour (Leenknecht et al., 2019).
Building on previous research by Noble et al. (2019a, 2019b), the current study investigates the effect of feedback literacy training and goal orientation on students’ feedback seeking behaviour in workplace learning in a teacher training programme using a quasi-experimental research design. At a Dutch university of applied sciences an experimental group was subjected to a two part feedback literacy training, whilst the control group was not. Feedback seeking behaviour and goal orientation were measured before the first and after the last intervention. A manipulation check was executed to determine what students had learned. Two factorial between group analyses (ANOVA) were performed to investigate the effects. The experiment ends in December.
Feedback can have substantial influence on learning and development if students are – or are supported to become – ‘feedback literate’. Student feedback literacy development, however, is not a homogenous process occurring in a vacuum, as feedback is a socio-cultural practice that involves different individuals (students, staff, peers), their experiences (previous, present and ongoing), and the diverse academic contexts in which it takes place.
Presently, higher education contexts reflect a highly diverse body; transitioning international students and UK-based educators are likely to be familiar with different feedback cultures and context-specific feedback practices. Consequently, international students are often asked to develop a ‘new’ feedback literacy that is ‘aligned’ to that of educators. Two questions then arise: (1) is academics’ feedback literacy to which students are asked to ‘align to’ homogenous across the staff body? (2) How can educators support international students’ development of feedback literacy avoiding assimilationist approaches?
Student perspectives on this were captured as part of a larger longitudinal narrative inquiry into international postgraduate taught students’ experiences with assessment and feedback, framed by theories of intercultural competence. Student narratives seem to suggest that academics’ feedback literacy is not homogenous: the way in which educators conceptualise and operationalise feedback varies, as do the approaches they take to foster and scaffold student feedback literacy development. Student stories seem to point out that teachers’ academic backgrounds, A&F histories, values, and beliefs play a significant role in this. Further, educators’ intercultural competence within contexts of assessment and feedback seem to impact on the approaches they take to support student development of ‘intercultural’ feedback literacy.
Overall, student narratives highlight the importance of fostering effective communication between students and staff. This presentation will explore how development of intercultural competence within contexts of assessment and feedback might support a culturally sensitive and aware co-development of feedback literacy.
Introduction – To safeguard quality and safety in modern day healthcare, health professionals from different specialties need to learn how to communicate with one another and to effectively use feedback. Providing the principles of interprofessional feedback can support teachers in preparing students for giving and using feedback in dialogues with interprofessional peers.
Aim – In this study we aimed to develop principles for giving and using interprofessional feedback, by combining findings from a literature study with outcomes of a Delphi study on feedback and interprofessional education.
Materials and methods – We performed a critical review of the literature on feedback, and on interprofessional education resulting in an initial framework with seven feedback criteria and corresponding principles. These principles were input for a Delphi study amongst international, leading scholars in the fields of feedback (n=5) and interprofessional education (n=5). In two rounds, experts’ individual (dis)agreement with the content and structure of the initial framework, as well as their suggestions for improvement were collected and used to improve the framework.
Results – The final framework consists of seven criteria regarding feedback dialogues: 1. Open and respectful; 2. Relevant; 3. Timely; 4. Dialogical; 5. Responsive; 6. (supports individual) Sense making; and 7. Actionable. For each criterion, the framework describes feedback principles for the feedback provider and user as well as specific elements that should be taken into account in an interprofessional health care context. Expert agreement with the framework increased between the two rounds of the Delphi study.
Discussion – The resulting framework can provide guidance to teachers and students in interprofessional education, therewith contributing to both student and teacher feedback literacy. Future research may investigate: if and how students improve in giving and using feedback after using the framework and hindering and supporting factors for applying the principles in their clinical rotations.
An extensive body of literature exists on the need for pre-service teachers to develop feedback literacy (Carless & Boud, 2018). This is a crucial factor in teaching and learning success because assessment may assume positive educational significance for both teachers and students (Popham, 2006; Stiggins, 2004; Winstone & Carless, 2019). It is essential in Italy to act as soon as possible through targeted strategies because pre-service teachers come into contact with their workplace very soon. A significant amount of internship hours are expected from the second year of the course; many of them are also already working at school with permanent or temporary contracts.
To this aim, we intend to create a specific learning path aimed at enhancing assessment and feedback skills, conceived as key competences for lifelong learning (European Commission, 2018). According to the Life Skill for Europe project’s theoretical framework, a feedback literacy path could strengthen personal and interpersonal capabilities (Life Skill for Europe, 2017). The learning path will be structured according to the European Qualification Framework model (European Commission, 2005). Participants will receive an Open Badge, which formally testifies the gain of professional and transversal skills at the European level.
According to the Student Voice (Cook-Sather, 2010) and the Students as Partners (Healey et al. 2014) approaches, for the planning of the FL path within the degree in Primary School Education at the University of Verona (Italy), we intend to involve students who in previous years have already participated in this type of training experience (53 fourth-year students in 2019, 25 first-year students in 2020). The overall structure of those first FL experiences was inspired by Winstone & Nash’s Engagement with Feedback Toolkit (2016) (Bevilacqua & Girelli, 2020).
The students’ perceptions have been gathered through a SWOT analysis used to evaluate teaching programs and identify areas for development (Dyson, 2004) and then analysed through the inductive content analysis (Elo & Kyngas, 2008). Preliminary results (2020 data analysis is ongoing) are consistent with the literature, which stresses the need to incorporate FL experiences within the curriculum (Malecka, Boud & Carless, 2020). On the other hand, students refer to the need not to exceed the study load because training experiences based on active learning, although effective, require a considerable commitment.